Jim Peters of Samaritan Detection Dogs with his dog Jetti, left, pictured with Carol Boyce and Catherine Leipold on Thursday, June 22, in Spencer Cemetery north of Dysart. PHOTO BY TAMI NEUENDORF

Cemeteries are known to hold untold stories and secrets. Spencer Cemetery, located on County D65 north of Dysart and east of the old Geneseo School, has a secret of its own.

Many in the neighborhood have puzzled over recent rumors of an unmarked mass burial site at the cemetery.

“We’ve lived here 45 years and this story was a new one for us,” said Carol Boyce, who lives nearby.

While reading an article in her archeological newsletter about a man and his dog Rocky who could sniff out human remains, Boyce decided on a whim to contact him and see if he would put the D65 cemetery story to rest.

When Jim Peters of Samaritan Detection Dogs, LLC read Carol’s email this past March, he decided this sounded like a fun challenge for his dogs.

Jim Peters works with his detection dog Jojo in Spencer Cemetery on Thursday, June 22. PHOTO BY CAROL BOYCE

“I love a good mystery,” he said, so on June 22 he left Ames and headed to the cemetery with his dogs Jetti, a five-year-old Queensland Blue Heeler, and Jojo, a nine-year-old Red Heeler mix. The dogs have been trained for live human detection, and also at pioneer graves and Native American graves with known human burials.

Jim said, “It takes about a year to train a dog to be a reliable indicator. The best dogs for this work are those who have a solid play drive.” When the dog shows interest, he/she gets a toy. Once the dog understands the game, he adds a new odor for the dog to detect. He uses extracted human teeth when training his dogs.

After Jim analyzed the Spencer Cemetery and the area in question last Thursday morning, the dogs were put to the test.

First Jojo, off lead, went to work while Jetti waited in the truck. She enjoyed exploring, but when she arrived at the area along the northeastern side of the cemetery, she demonstrated multiple alerts. Her alert consisted of barking when she detected human remains. Jim recorded the alerts in a Garmin GPS.

Next, Jojo was placed in the truck and Jetti was brought out. She alerted by sitting on her haunches several times in the same areas as her canine coworker.

Jim Peters works with his detection dog Jetti in Spencer Cemetery on Thursday, June 22. PHOTO BY CAROL BOYCE

Jim had both dogs explore further down the hillside to the north and the east, but there were no more alerts from either dog.

Jim concluded that the eight alerts from his trained dogs were consistent with the odor of human decomposition typically found at historical burial sites. However, he was unable to determine if indeed this was a mass burial site or if there were simply bodies buried without cemetery markers or markers that had been lost.

The dogs could only identify volatile compounds related to the burial decomposition process.

The mystery remains, being only partly solved.

In the meantime, Catherine Leipold, chair of the Geneseo township trustees, said, “I think a fence and a memorial marker would be an excellent way to honor those buried in this corner of the cemetery, whoever they may be.”