NEW ORLEANS — Mercy, a 3-year-old K9, is helping search the Mississippi River for missing children.
Search crews are still hopeful they will find the bodies of two sisters who disappeared in the Mississippi River more than a week ago. On May 2, New Orleans Police and Harbor Police recovered the body of the boy they were with, 15-year-old Kevin Poole Jr.
A nearly 3-year-old K9 is helping in the search for the sisters.
"Mercy girl, come see," said Brandy Brignac to her highly trained dog, Mercy.
Brignac founded Mercy Search and Rescue. She and Mercy volunteer to help find missing people. Mercy has already found several missing people before.
"She's phenomenal at what she does," Brignac said.
Mercy is a Dutch Shepherd trained in human remains detection and live track, search and rescue.
"My heart is truly in the K9s and bringing closure for families. When we can bring them home alive that’s even better," Brignac said.
Mercy has been out on the Mississippi River almost every day since April 23 when Poole, 14-year-old Brandy Wilson and 8-year-old Ally Wilson went missing. While Poole was found Monday, the sisters are still missing.
"We're what, nine days in? So, they should start to be able to come up and that’s the case with Kevin. We’re incredibly glad he was found, but it was difficult to know that he was home to his family and the girls are still there," Brignac said.
Tuesday, Brignac searched on a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office boat along with Mark Michaud of Southeast Louisiana Underwater Search and Recovery. Michaud is a retired, 24-year veteran of the Slidell Police Department. He now volunteers using his sonar technology to help find bodies underwater.
"On this river, it changes all the rules. This river is a beast," Michaud said.
The recovery of Poole's body gives them a better idea where to look.
"That will give us a point A and now we have a rough point B and we're going to be working that really hard," Michaud said.
Mercy is able to smell chemical compounds released by a body. The search team is trusting she will be able to detect when they are close by the missing girls.
"Basically, we are going to run that river up and down and she will let us know when she smells them," Brignac said.
"She's going to have the tool we most need today and hopefully that will give us something, a location, and we're hoping like heck it's going to be a find," Michaud said. "We're hoping we can get these two babies home and let these folks grieve and go forward with their life."
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