By Valerie Lyons
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BURLINGTON, Kentucky (WCPO) — Sometimes the smallest discoveries can make the biggest impact. The Boone County Sheriff’s Office had that notion in mind when it added a Labrador Retriever to its ranks.
K9 Mozart is an Electronic Storage Detection (ESD) K9 assigned to the department’s Electronic Crimes Unit (ECU). Like every dog, Mo has a highly sensitive nose, but unlike other law enforcement canines, he has been trained to detect the chemical compounds in the glue used in devices such as cell phones, tablets, hard drives and even micro SD cards, which are smaller than a thumbnail.
Dogs like Mo are rare. There are only four others like him in Kentucky, all of whom are Labradors. One of them is Mo’s littermate, another yellow lab named Charity, assigned to the Attorney General’s Office.
An estimated 220 ESD K9s are working around the world.
“He is our drug dog when it comes to electronics,” said Mo’s handler, Sergeant Drew Christian.
Christian joined the ECU in 2022, helping to review and analyze electronic components in investigations. Almost everything involves technology nowadays, he said.
“Assisting on different cases from burglaries to thefts to ICAC investigations,” Christian said.
ICAC stands for Internet Crimes Against Children. There are 61 coordinated task forces across the country, one of which is the Kentucky State Police. The Boone County Sheriff’s Office is one of KSP’s participating agencies.
“These investigations typically come from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which gets tips from a variety of places, whether it’s public complaints, personal complaints — some victims or children come forward themselves and say they think they’ve been exploited or know they’ve been exploited — and also social media, internet companies, things like that. They’re constantly scouring the internet and trying to ensure safe usage of it,” said Sergeant Anthony Theetge, who works in the criminal investigative unit.
Christian said he was introduced to the role of an ESD K9 while attending ICAC training. From there, he set out to become an ESD handler.
He worked with his superiors and applied for a canine through Our Rescue, formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad, which leads the fight against human trafficking. The organization awarded the sheriff’s office a grant, which meant Mo came at no cost to the agency.
Our Rescue also covered Mo’s training, which was handled by Jordan Detection K9, located in Indianapolis.
Mo joined the team in January 2024 and has been paired with Christian ever since.
“It wasn’t until I got with an ESD K9 that I realized, man, we did miss some stuff,” Christian said. “He’ll alert on a dresser drawer or under a bed or a seat cushion, or even under water or under the refrigerator, and he’s letting us know, ‘Hey, there might be something here’ and then we’re digging a little bit farther and now we’re finding a micro SD card or a thumb drive that could have tons of material on it.”
Christian is talking about Child Sexual Abuse Material, most commonly referred to as CSAM. As members of the ICAC task force, Mo and Christian assist agencies with finding evidence in ICAC investigations.
Because dogs like Mo are rare and his skill set is in high demand, the pair acts as a regional team, getting deployed across the Tri-State multiple times a month.
“I’ve gone as far north as Dayton, Ohio, Fairborn, Ohio, and out toward Indianapolis,” Christian said. “I think last year alone we did 25 warrants, and I think this year we’re already up to about 9.”
After we wrapped up our interview with Christian, he got a phone call and stepped out of the room. When he returned, he told us he got a request to assist with an ICAC investigation in Miamisburg.
In April, Mo and Christian helped execute a warrant at a Hebron home. The man at the center of the investigation, 33-year-old James McReynolds, was under months-long surveillance for allegedly downloading and uploading hundreds of files of CSAM.
Mo helped investigators recover numerous electronic devices and other electronic media storage from inside McReynolds’ home. McReynolds was indicted on 60 counts of distributing sexual material of minors under the age of 12.
In February, Mo and Christian were requested by Kentucky Probation and Parole to locate a sex offender’s hidden device. After searching seven rooms inside the offender’s Independence home, Mo scented a broken cell phone concealed in a desk drawer that investigators had missed in an initial sweep.
“I don’t know where the case stands now, but I did follow up with the investigators — this was a case we assisted an Ohio agency with — but they went in, they did their search, and I went in after that to assist and help with some electronic stuff as well. The first thing Mozart did was jump up on top of a dresser and was telling me there’s something on the dresser. Well, there was nothing there except a jewelry box,” Christian said. “So, I worked Mozart away and asked one of the detectives, ‘Hey, do you mind looking in this for me and letting me know if anything is in there?’ And sure enough, underneath all the jewelry, mixed in with it, was a small USB drive that they had missed on their manual search, and that’s where they found it.”
There were 4,000 CSAM images on that device.
“I think Mo and ICAC investigators are vital,” Theetge said. “The biggest thing is not only the job itself, but I think it’s the ever-evolving part of the job. When it comes to technology and social media, that never stays the same.”
Theetge said Mo was a crucial addition to the ECU. While humans can often get tunnel vision, dogs follow pure instinct.
“If we have a detective who is told there’s an Android device that they’re looking for that we believe is responsible for this — by no fault of their own, we’re all looking for Android devices, right?” Theetge said. “So when you have a dog that he doesn’t know any of that, he doesn’t know any better, he doesn’t have that tunnel vision, then he’s able to find anything and he’s completely unbiased.”
If you or someone you know may be the subject of CSAM on the internet, you can turn to Take it Down for help. The secure website is a service provided by NCMEC.
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Meet Mozart, the electronic detection K9 sniffing out evidence in Tri-State child pornography cases News Channel 3-12.
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