Several V.I. Police Department K9 officers and K9 dogs returned Thursday evening from Nevis, where they spent the weekend helping the St. Kitts and Nevis police search for a missing teen, according to the V.I. Police Department.
St. Croix Police Chief Christopher Howell said at a short press conference Thursday that V.I. police responded to a request for assistance from St. Kitts and Nevis Police Commissioner C.G. Walwyn.
"We are all together here in the Caribbean and we have a responsibility to help out when we can," Howell said.
The VIPD sent K9 officers Jason Viveros and Nikia Samuel, along with dogs Luca and Hassan, to help
search for 17-year-old Dylon Clarke of Church Ground, Nevis, who was last seen around dusk, April 28, at a bar in his home neighborhood.
Clarke’s family called police the next day, after he failed to come home, and police began searching, according to reports in the St. Kitts and Nevis Observer and Caribbean News Now.
There was a very intensive search of about 100 acres – and Hassan, a cadaver dog – followed Clarke’s scent from his house to a residence nearly a mile away, according to VIPD Public Information Officer Melody Rames.
Howell added that the circumstances would appear to suggest Clarke’s body was at the location for a time, then moved.
The dog handlers were not familiar with the layout of Nevis, nor the details of the case, and were told afterward by Nevis police that the house the dog identified was the residence of a person of interest in the case, according to Rames.
No arrests have been reported and the body has not yet been located. The family of the victim is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Clarke’s whereabouts.
Hassan, the dog that led police to the location, has been involved in off-island work before, Rames said. While still in training, in 2009, Hassan was called in to help search for Shaniya Davis, a missing 5-year-old girl in Fayetteville, N.C., and ultimately found the girl’s body in a patch of kudzu off the road outside of town.
St. Kitts and Nevis Assistant Police Commissioner Robert Liburd issued a special thanks to the V.I. Police Department for the assistance.
This is the second request for K9 help in the last few weeks, and more are likely, said Howell.
"It is becoming recognized that we have the best K9 resources in the region," he said, adding that good, well-trained cadaver, gun, drug and bomb dogs are often invaluable to time-sensitive investigations and searches and are hard to come by.
Howell said the cost of the mission was absorbed by St. Kitts and Nevis, and did not cost the territory anything, while promoting cooperation with our Caribbean neighbors.
"It is really one Caribbean, with people and goods moving from island to island, so we need to work together," he said.
