LOUISA, Va. (WTVR) –A case closed, with the help of a Louisa bloodhound and the heavy conscience of a criminal.
Early morning, Feb. 8, 2013, police say the alarm sounded at Country Corner Market in Louisa. The owner arrived and found the front door busted and beer missing from the store.
There were no witnesses to the crime, or a tape of the account. Cue entry music. This is where Detective Buck Garner and his AKC bloodhound Shaker enter stage right.
The suspect left behind the item used to break the door. Shaker sniffed it, and the scent within his nose, took off towards the suspect; leading police to the 200 block of Doctors Road.
That's where police said they found Troy Shannon Hensley, age 35, passed out with a cold 40 ounce beer beside him. When he awoke to the jowls and sniffer of a bloodhound, Hensley denied involvement in the crime.
Police said that Hensley pleaded he was framed by someone who gave him the beer and left. Shaker ran the trail again with the same results and then went to the house of the third party.
Shaker did not find any scent that matched anything from the store at the other person’s house.
For months Hensley has maintained his innocence and was scheduled for a jury trial on Sep. 5, 2013, police said.
A change of heart from Hensley on Wednesday, when he changed his plea to guilty, without an agreement even. Now he is scheduled to be sentenced on June 3, 2013 and faces up to 21 years in prison.
Shaker the hound has been a member of the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office since 2007. He's no slacker, having been called out over 335 times. He's also a world traveler (although maybe this is a typo from the police report) having participated in training in 11 countries (maybe this was meant to say counties).
Louisa Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire pointed out that Shaker's work help to ensure "an innocent man was not arrested, and sent the true criminal to jail.”
