Animals Who Helped Solve Crimes That The Authorities Couldn't Crack

There have been several occasions when insects have played an instrumental role in solving a crime, and in one specific case a grasshopper led to uncovering the true identity of a murderer. Persons unknown killed a woman in Texas, and it was up to Dr. M. Lee Goff to find evidence of the culprit. He explains how it led to a conviction in his book, A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes. 

Forensics discovered a crushed grasshopper on the clothes of the deceased woman, but it wasn’t intact. One of its legs was missing, and can you guess where authorities found it? “The left hind leg of a grasshopper was found on one of the suspects’ pants,” Dr. Goff recounted. “This was the only part of the grasshopper that had not been recovered from the body, and the fracture marks matched perfectly.” 

On Christmas Eve in 2001 someone broke into the house of a Texan man called Kevin Butler and killed him. The attacker didn’t get away cleanly, though — they were wounded in the process by the victim’s faithful pet. What was this brave animal? Was it a dog defending its master? Actually, no, it was a bird. Specifically, a feisty, white cockatoo. 

Although the bird also sadly perished in the fight, it did manage to get some good pecks in on the culprit beforehand. The blood ended up on a light switch, which authorities traced to Daniel Torres, with whom Butler had argued prior to the crime. Despite Torres’ claims his half-brother was the murderer, he was convicted and charged to life without parole.

When Shirley Duguay disappeared in 1994, all Canadian police could find of her was her car and a man’s jacket — complete with white cat hair — from her suspected killer. Yet there was no evidence of what had happened, despite suspicions falling heavily on her on-again, off-again boyfriend and ex-con, Douglas Beamish. His pet cat Snowball didn’t go unnoticed by Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Savoie, but despite Savoie’s best efforts, forensics refused to test the cat hair. 

The lab only accepted human samples with no exceptions. Yet as luck would have it, one Dr. Stephen J. O’Brien of Maryland’s National Cancer Institute was testing cats to find a cure for diseases in humans, and agreed to help instead. He found the hairs matched Snowball’s with an approximate one in 50 million margin of error. When Duguay’s body was discovered, Beamish was charged with murder. It was a monumental case, and the first one in history where animal DNA led to a conviction.

It isn’t just house pets that can assist law enforcement. Wild animals fight crime on occasion, too! Take the kidnapping incident in Ethiopia in 2005 for example. Apparently, four men kidnapped a young schoolgirl and tried to flee the officers pursuing them when nature intervened on their behalf. As the kidnappers fled, three wild lions cut off their retreat and became unlikely heroes. 

Sergeant Wedaj, the officer who found the girl, told BBC News in that year how the lions “stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest.” He continued, “Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people.” Some experts say the lions mistook the girl’s cries for a suffering cub and came to investigate.

You’ve probably heard of dolphins saving drowning swimmers, but what about preventing crime? That’s exactly what happened in 2002 when George the dolphin became an unlikely hero. It all started when three thieves grabbed roughly $2,300-worth of jewelry from a Bournemouth store and jumped in their getaway vehicle waiting outside. Their escape route out of the town on England’s south coast included the chain ferry, and that was their mistake. 

You see, George was playing in the bay to entertain his landlubber fans, preventing the ferry from embarking, and the delay allowed police to catch up to the jewel thieves. Following the incident wildlife officer Jenny Waldron, who watches George for EarthKind, told the Dorset Echo newspaper, “He was just having a bit of fun, but it looks like he has helped to catch these jewelry thieves. He is my hero.”

The legal system was befuddled by a strange case in 2015 when a man called Martin Duram was shot and killed in his Michigan home. The suspect was his own wife Glenna, who had reportedly tried to take her own life afterwards, but survived. The strange part about the incident was the witness, who as it turned out, wasn’t another person but an African gray parrot called Bud. 

Bud’s new owner and Martin’s ex-wife, Christina Keller, heard the parrot yell an expletive, plus the words “Don’t shoot!” allegedly in Martin’s voice. And although the evidence was ultimately dismissed, it probably left quite an impression on the jury. Martin’s father told media outlets, “I personally think he was there, and he remembers it and he was saying it.” Martin’s mother concurred, saying, “That bird picks up everything and anything, and it’s got the filthiest mouth around.”

Lori Ann Auker tragically disappeared on her way to work in 1989 and there was little evidence of what had happened to her, even when authorities recovered her body two-and-a-half weeks later. Her husband Robert had recently taken out a life insurance policy on his wife and they were fighting a bitter custody battle, so he was the chief suspect. Still, there were no clues — but luckily, Lori had a pet cat.

The cat played a vital role in proceedings when police tracked down video footage of Lori getting in a car belonging to her husband’s father. Even though the car had been sold since, they managed to track it down and found the DNA of cat hairs left inside belonged to Lori’s pet. Both pieces of evidence were enough to convict Robert, who was charged with his wife’s murder in 1992. 

When Angela Wamsley and Mark Barnes reported Wamsley’s 90-year-old grandmother, Nellie Sullivan, as missing from her North Carolina home in 2020 the authorities were skeptical. “It became pretty apparent almost immediately that Miss Sullivan had disappeared under what can be [called] suspicious circumstances,” Sgt Mark Walker told ABC News in 2022. But who would have thought the truth would be uncovered by a duck, of all things — and two years after the disappearance?

Walker explained, “[Barnes] actually sent us on a wild goose chase which resulted in us digging for several days in a site that he knew she was not located at.” Chasing a pet duck on the scene led to solving the case. “As [officers] were chasing after their pet duck, they ran across the container that Nellie Sullivan was located in,” Walker concluded. “If I could give that duck a medal, I would.”

Back in 1966 someone stole the World Cup, one of the most coveted soccer awards, the day after it went on display at Westminster’s Central Hall. The theft threw England’s Football Association into chaos, and to add insult to injury someone calling themselves Jackson claimed to be holding it to ransom, demanding about $17,000 for its return. The intervention of a doggy detective threw detectives a bone, though. 

“Jackson” was actually an alias for the real criminal, an ex-soldier named Edward Betchley. Police arrested him, but a collie dog called Pickles was the one who actually found the lost trophy. He accidentally led owner Dave Corbett to its hiding place underneath a neighbor’s car, earning instant celebrity. “He won Dog of the Year, Italian Dog of the Year and appeared on television on Blue Peter and Magpie,” Corbett told BBC News in 2016. 

In 1935 a fisherman made a bizarre discovery: an arm that belonged to who knew who? But when the police investigated they had reason to suspect foul play was involved. You see, the arm had a length of rope tied around the wrist, indicating the owner had been bound at some point. That was strange enough — but the limb was found in the body of a live shark. 

Sort of, anyway. The 13-foot tiger shark coughed the arm up in its aquarium after the fisherman had caught it. A tattoo on the limb led authorities to an identity — it belonged to a local criminal called Jim Smith. A counterfeiter called Patrick Brady was suspected, but before the one eyewitness could testify he was killed too, and Brady walked away a free man.

Danielle van Dam’s parents were obviously distraught when their young daughter disappeared from her San Diego home, but the exact circumstances of her absence were unclear. It seemed as though she had vanished from her room; tragically, she was later found dead. Fingers pointed to neighbor David Westerfield, but he claimed innocence. Enter the van Dams’ family dog, Layla, who held key evidence to the case. 

It transpired that Danielle had played with Layla before bedtime and some of the dog’s loose hair must have stuck to her. When forensics searched Westerfield’s property, among other damning evidence they found dog hair that matched Layla’s in his R.V. — which Danielle hadn’t stepped foot in, to her parents’ knowledge. Thanks partially to this discovery, Westerfield was convicted and sentenced. 

People often praise dogs for their effectiveness defending their home and families, but Leo the cat was just as brave. A Bengal cat, the breed is known for its devotion and intelligence. In fact, Bengals can even learn tricks! Leo learnt an especially valuable one in 2012 when an intruder invaded his home in West Sussex in the dead of night.

In 2016 website The Big Smoke quoted Leo’s human on the incident. “Leo came flying through his cat flap,” they said. “I was amazed to see his door open, because it’s never open until the morning. And he came up the stairs, saw this stranger, and meowed like mad… and the burglar came back down and out through the window without taking a thing.” Leo was lauded for his bravery, and was even a finalist in the Cats Protection U.K. 2012 National Cat Awards.

What if we told you a real life dog called Scooby Doo helped solve a mystery? That’s what happened in 2008 when his owner was discovered deceased in her flat in Paris. Initially, it appeared to be an open-and-shut case. But the woman’s family suspected foul play, and encouraged a further investigation, which included some assistance from Scooby Doo himself. 

Apparently, Scooby was present at the time of death and was considered by some as an eyewitness. A Palais de Justice spokesman said it actually made legal history when Scoob was put before a suspect to gauge the dog’s reactions. Scooby “barked furiously” at the person, and while the evidence was ultimately discounted, it no doubt had an impact on proceedings. 

Perhaps the best example of animals who solve crimes are those who do it as a day job. Take German shepherd Alex, for instance, who works with his human — an ex-specialist with the Maine Warden Service, Deborah Palman. When Maria Tanasichuk went missing in Canada, Alex and Palman went in search of her, for better or for worse. Tragically, it was the latter. 

In 2014 Palman told newspaper the Daily Mail, “We had worked so long for so many days — a lot of long, hard searches. You've sort of thrown yourself into numbness, and you convince yourself you're not going to find what you're looking for.” Tanasichuk was sadly found dead, but the discovery helped bring her husband and murderer to justice.

Although domesticated pet goats aren’t super-unusual, they’re certainly rarer than cats and dogs. That doesn’t mean they can’t be as effective as guard animals though. One particular ungulate called Dwight proved to be a great deterrent when his home came under threat. He worked as a team with his owner to prevent what could have been a much worse situation. 

So how did Dwight’s actions get him in the spotlight? Well, one day John Browning, Dwight’s human, noticed him acting strangely. The goat was staring at something in his backyard, and Browning went to investigate. As it happened, there was apparently a fugitive called Joseph Hargett lurking around. And can you guess what Hargett was wanted for? That’s right, it was animal abuse.

 When you picture police car chases, sheep probably don’t feature frequently unless you have a strange imagination. Yet they were the heroes of the hour in 2016 when New Zealand law enforcement pursued a speeding vehicle down a country road. The police trailed the dangerous driver for 90 minutes, but only the timely intervention of some sheepish heroes saved the day. 

A shepherd happened to be herding a flock of at least 150 sheep across the road at the time, slowing the speeding vehicle to a halt. Che Baker, an observing journalist, told The Guardian, “The farmer herding them just kept doing his job as if nothing had happened and the sheep weren’t worried by the fuss at all — they carried on normally and weren’t aware they had become duty police that morning.”

Of all the creatures in nature, you wouldn’t think that insects would be effective crimefighters. But they’re helping out law enforcement more and more, as was the case with Virginian Jonathan Blackwell, who went missing in 2004. Two years later he was found deceased, but the critters he was discovered with answered a lot of questions. Metaphorically speaking, of course. 

The bugs revealed that Blackwell had been actually buried somewhere else and relocated, and the state of their development further narrowed down possibilities. And his family didn’t just have closure, they also got justice when the investigation led police to the real culprit: a man called Stacey Webster. He handed himself in after his arrest warrant was released, rather than try and evade capture this time. 

In 2015 a spate of home burglaries in Florida had police on high alert. The alleged culprits were two men: one was Matthew Riggins, and it’s believed an unidentified partner was accompanying him. Then one day law officers chased two men in black who fled their pursuers. Things ended tragically for Riggins, though, when he ran afoul of one of Florida’s scalier and meaner inhabitants. 

Riggins wasn’t convicted of any crime, but when he was reported missing the following day, a police search revealed he’d had a horrible accident. An alligator had attacked him and the results were sadly fatal. Brevard County Sheriff Major Tod Goodyear told Bay 9 News, “He probably went into the lake to hide from the officers and came across that gator… I’ve never had that happen before.”

It sounds like something straight out of a mystery novel, but according to newspaper The Times of India a parrot helped solve a crime in 2014. Persons unknown killed the Hindi Daily’s editor, one Neelam Sharma, in her home and there were no eyewitnesses. None, that is, except for her pet parrot, who coincidentally shared a name with fictional detective Hercule Poirot. 

Neelam’s husband Vijay told The Times of India how Hercule would act differently around his nephew Ashutosh. “During discussions too, whenever Ashutosh’s name was mentioned the parrot would start screeching.” Police chased up the lead and questioned Ashutosh, who confessed to killing not only Neelam but also her pet dog during a botched burglary. And things might have gone differently if not for Hercule.

In 1998 someone tragically killed Raquel Rivera and her boyfriend, Jay Johnson. The culprit didn’t just shoot the couple though — they also got the dog. Chief was a pitbull mix, and even though he didn’t survive the encounter the faithful dog was still protecting its owners even in death. You see, he was part of the reason the killers were found. 

Forensic officers scrutinized the evidence and discovered dog blood on two suspects: Kenneth Leuluaialii and George Tuilefano. What’s more, it matched Chief’s DNA, placing the pair at the scene of the crime. It’s the first time dog DNA had been used as evidence to get a conviction. Senior deputy co-prosecutor Timothy Bradshaw told newspaper The Seattle Times, “I think it was exceedingly important.”