Attorneys Battle Over Bloodhound Questions Dependability Of Dog Used To Track At Slaying Scene

Attorneys in the Tom DiBartolo trial waged a heated battle for three hours Tuesday, arguing over the reliability of a bloodhound used to investigate the murder of Patty DiBartolo.

At the center of the battle was dog handler Sid Harty, who testified as a prosecution witness about his dog Judge.

Police asked Harty and his dog to do some tracking for them four days after the murder of Patty DiBartolo in Spokane’s Lincoln Park.

Harty told jurors Tuesday that Judge sniffed Tom DiBartolo’s clothes and followed his scent around the park. The dog did the same thing after smelling Patty DiBartolo’s clothes.

A third scent, taken from the glove box in the couple’s minivan, led the dog through the park and over a fence to an apartment building about a mile away, Harty testified.

DiBartolo, on trial for first-degree murder, told investigators that two gunmen ran in the direction of the apartments after taking a .38-caliber handgun from the glove box and killing his wife and wounding him in the abdomen last Nov. 2.

Prosecutors say DiBartolo, 43, planned his wife’s murder by taking her to the park, shooting her with her own gun, then creating the story of two gunmen.

Even though Harty was a witness for the state, Deputy Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz asked him some pointed questions, trying to get Harty to say the dog was tracking someone other than a murder suspect. The prosecution’s strategy is to show jurors that they are providing all the evidence they’ve uncovered, even if some of it isn’t beneficial to their case.

Harty also will testify later as a defense witness.

Steinmetz asked Harty how his dog could have found a scent from among several items inside the car days after the murder.

“How do you know the dog wasn’t tracking other dogs?” Steinmetz asked.

Steinmetz also wondered how Judge could stay focused on the scent from the glove box when more than 100 police investigators had swarmed through the park days earlier, leaving their smells behind.

Harty said he could not prove what Judge was doing. “But he’s trained to go after the scent I give him,” he replied.

Late Tuesday, jurors were set to watch a one-hour, 22-minute video taken of Judge in action at the park on Nov. 6.

Forty seconds into the tape, defense attorney Maryann Moreno asked Judge Neal Rielly to stop, saying she’d not yet reviewed the audio portion of the recording.

Rielly agreed to reschedule the video for today.

Later, detectives are expected to testify about the crime scene reenactment DiBartolo staged for them a week after the murder.

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