Mississippi’s first electronic-sniffing K-9 calls DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office home

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss — The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office places a lot of pride in busting human traffickers and those responsible for child exploitation.

FOX13 found out a new officer has made a huge impact on that department in one month’s time, and he’s not costing it anything except for maybe some dog food.

The Sheriff’s Office has a brand new K-9 officer named Gilly, who works as a force multiplier.

Gilly is an electronic storage detection (ESD) K-9 trained to sniff out anything that holds data, from cellphones to computers and laptops.

He even sniffs out data on SD cards, flash drives and hidden cameras.

The dog is also a member of the Mississippi Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Gilly is a big-pawed, 20-month-old Goldador - part Golden retriever and part Labrador.

He’s been with the department for just one month but is already making a huge difference.

Detective Jessica Palmer said he’s found over 30 devices.

Gilly’s dealt with three search warrants, one resulting in an arrest for child exploitation.

We can’t show you how Gilly goes about finding electronics, because that’s double-dog top secret and could tip off the bad guys, but he did find five devices while we were shooting our story.

Palmer said he trains twice a day.

He also costs the department nothing.

“He is the first ESD K-9 for the state of Mississippi,” she said. “He was trained by Jordan Detection Services and given to us by Operation Underground Railroad, which is a nonprofit organization that works hand in hand with law enforcement to fight child exploitation and human trafficking.”

And Gilly is all business when it comes to sniffing it out.

©2022 Imagicomm Memphis, Inc.