For this pair, no vacation in paradise
A Largo woman and her golden retriever make a return trip to Aruba to help in the search for a missing Alabama teenager.
By TERRI BRYCE REEVES
Published July 29, 2005
LARGO - She found rattlesnakes, red-tailed boa constrictors and barbed cacti but never what she was really searching for: the body of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway.
Lyn Parsons, 35, and her 3-year-old golden retriever Rudy returned to their Largo home after spending a total of 19 days in Aruba as part of the massive manhunt led by Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit search and rescue operation.
Holloway, 18, vanished in the early morning hours of May 30, the final night of a high school graduation trip. She was reported to have left a nightclub with three young men.
Her body has not been found. Aruban authorities said Wednesday they were draining a pond near the hotel where she was staying and confirmed it was part of the investigation.
Parsons made two trips to the Caribbean island with Rudy, a certified cadaver dog who can pick up the scent of blood, bones and decomposing bodies. Her first trip was from June 25 to 29; she returned July 2 to 16 to scour the terrain.
Parsons' hotel room, food and transportation were donated by island businesses or paid for by EquuSearch and its sponsoring organizations. She received no money for her services.
Parsons, who owns Nelly's Pet Grooming Salon in Largo, called the search of the 20-mile-long island "frustrating."
"The search becomes your life," she said. "We cleared some areas. We've searched most of the island except for areas that were privately accessible and some really hard to get to areas."
She knows the search could go on for much longer.
"There are construction sites and quarries and ponds. And the tides on one side of the island could carry a body away from shore. The island boys know that. If the body washed up on shore it might be in Venezuela," she said.
Other dog teams from Florida that joined the efforts included Sam Pepenella, a Pasco County sheriff's deputy and his dog Bosca; Mary Peter, owner of a Hernando dog training school, and her dog Ruger; and Melissa Ellis, an Army biologist from Fort Myers, and her dog Sasha.
Divers from Florida State University's Underwater Crime Scene Investigation program, based on the Panama City campus, also helped in the effort.
"They really risked their lives," Parsons said. "They went into places no one else would."
She said the divers tethered themselves to Jeeps and plunged into choppy waters to search underwater caves.
Parsons met several members of Holloway's family in Aruba and thinks they are comforted by such a large effort on behalf of their daughter.
"They are facing difficult circumstances and doing it gracefully and with strength," she said.
Parsons had no reservations about leaving her business, which was managed by an employee, and packing up to help.
"It's what I do," she said.
Parsons and Rudy, members of the nonprofit BARK - Bay Area Recovery K-9s - have participated in other efforts in Florida and Georgia, as well as international searches. BARK is a nonprofit volunteer organization with specially trained dogs that assists law enforcement in finding missing persons, dead and alive.
Rudy has made six confirmed finds in the past, Parsons said, "everything from a fresh homicide to skeletal remains."
Parsons became interested in using dogs to search for missing persons five years ago when she was walking two dogs in Seminole and noticed some movement in nearby bushes.
It turned out to be a missing Alzheimer's patient whose picture had been posted on signs in the area. He was alive, but sick and dehydrated.
The National Narcotic Detector Dog Association, the organization that certified Rudy and Parsons, his handler, for land and water cadaver search, referred the dog teams to EquuSearch.
Texas EquuSearch Mounted Search and Recovery Team was started in 2000 by its director, Tim Miller, whose daughter Laura was abducted and murdered in 1984. The organization, in Dickinson, Texas, has more than 250 members and relies on donations from corporations and individuals.
More than 80 of the organization's volunteers have flown back and forth to Aruba since the search began, said Jody Manning, executive administrator.
"They have brought in the most sophisticated kind of equipment you can use," she said. "It's better than most law enforcement's."
Parsons said some articles of interest - clothing and bones - were found in Aruba while she was there, but none of it could be connected to Holloway.
"One was a human bone several years old and the other was a donkey bone," she said.
She said once Rudy gave her an "alert" with a bow and a bark, but it turned out to be an area around an old Indian grave.
Parsons described Aruba as a beautiful place, with varying terrain.
"Some of it is flat, some of it is steep, and some of it is rough and rocky," she said. The island is brimming with iguanas, lizards, and free-range pigs, donkeys and dogs.
"They have more dogs on the island than people," she said.
The locals, she said, were friendly and welcoming. Parsons said people shouldn't be afraid to travel there.
"They've had one murder this year," she said, referring to a domestic abuse case. "Look how many we have here."
TO LEARN MOREFor information on BARK, visit the Web site at www.BARKSAR.org
For information on Texas EquuSearch, visit the Web site at www.texasequusearch.org