Bloodhound in Blue

Like Mark Twain, he was born in rural Missouri. He had nine siblings to play and fight with. Though no one remembers his place in the birth order, it was clear early on that he was different from the rest. He caught his first criminal, a drunk hit-and-run suspect, when he was just two years old. By his sixth birthday, he had successfully located scores of burglars, drug dealers, kidnappers, missing children, and murderers-including Utah's most wanted criminal. Known to family and friends as JJ, to law enforcement personnel as Officer Michael Serio's partner, and by captured criminals as "that damned dog," Jessie Jr. was an exceptionally talented bloodhound that bayed like a sea lion that had swallowed a fog horn. Some police departments in the South and East use bloodhounds, but before JJ few did in the West and none in Utah. Over the years, officers have seen bold claims about the skills of bloodhounds come to nothing. So it was only natural that they resisted incorporating the waggily, floppy-faced dogs into their K9 units. But when JJ finally won over naysayers, he and Officer Serio ran into something much worse than resistance: the crushing despair of failure amid high hope.
JJ had been tracking Brian David Mitchell, the man who abducted 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, when he was pulled off the track. Elizabeth later told investigators that on the day she was kidnapped she remembers hearing a dog baying in the woods behind her. In almost nine years of service, JJ helped apprehend nearly 300 criminal suspects in the Salt Lake City area. Here is his remarkable story, fleas and all.