(Fremont County, WY) – That sleepy dog with the wrinkled face and the comical ears lying half in and half out of the sun on the porch in the summertime is one of nature’s most cleverly disguised animals. A bloodhound has a sense of smell unrivaled by any other dog breed or mammal. Their olfactory talent is so incredible that they are often used as expert witnesses in criminal trials.
A bloodhound’s ears and face are part of the package. Those huge ears that brush the ground guide scent to its nose, and the wrinkled face traps stray scent particles, collecting them near that marvelous nose.
John “Red” Fyler knows bloodhounds. He’s worked with them for three decades and is one of the preeminent bloodhound handlers in all of Wyoming.
Red works with search and rescue, criminal investigations, and just about any other application where a bloodhound’s keen sense of smell can help law enforcement.
A year ago, Red and his latest canine (Red prefers the term canine to dog), Wyatt Earp, tracked a subject for eight miles to his tent on Misty Moon Lake at an altitude exceeding 11,000 feet. They loaded Red and his bloodhound into a helicopter and set them on the trail. Climbers found the deceased subject after Red let Wyatt Earp double-back over an area that 200 people had already canvassed.
Red and his wife Michele are partners in the work.
“Michele has been on 95 percent of the searches,” Red said.
Red names his bloodhounds after characters from the Old West. His previous dogs were Butch Cassidy, Doc Holliday One and Doc Holliday Two, the Sundance Kid, and now Wyatt Earp.
The dogs don’t seem to mind.
In addition to search and rescue and search and recovery, he’s worked on some of the biggest criminal cases in Fremont County over the last three decades.
He was involved in the search for Amy Roe Bechtel in 1997. He has his theories on what happened to Bechtel but keeps them to himself.
In 2013, Red and Doc Holliday tracked the teenage killers of David Ronald Moss, Jr., to their homes from the bike path behind Walmart, where the two boys beat him to death.
In July 2014, Doc Holliday and Red tracked David Waine Brock to his home in Riverton after Brock kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and attempted to strangle a nine-year-old girl.
The attack on the little girl still brings tears to Red’s eyes when he talks about the incident.
Red and Michele worked with bloodhounds beginning in 1996, but went all in beginning in 2005.
“On October 5, 2005, a guy flying over South Pass at 65 miles an hour on icy roads hit me and a guy I was working with on an accident scene,” Red said.
Red was on a rescue with a carload of non-English-speaking travelers who went off the road. He suffered multiple broken bones and underwent reconstructive surgery.
“I still had the mic in my hand after I was hit,” Red said. “I called for three ambulances and two life-flight helicopters.”
Another life-flight helicopter airlifted him out of Lander a few hours later.
“When I was run over on the highway, Deputy Jim Cronk walks up and covers me. It was 10 degrees. I thought he was going to puke. I knew it was bad. Dan McComie walks up and acts like he’s going to give me last rites,” Red said. “Dan Oakley pulls up in the ambulance. What in the world are you…then he pulled back the blanket. Oakley put me in the ambulance and drove me to the hospital.”
Oakley and Ken Race rode with Red in the back of the ambulance, keeping him alive while Michele and Jamie Van Fleet drove the ambulance to Lander.
Working bloodhounds became part of his physical therapy in recovery from his injuries. He still hurts every morning when he wakes up.
“I’m still a nutcase, going out to fires and to the scene of accidents. I should have been retired a long time ago,” Red said.
Red and his hounds have worked across the western portion of Wyoming in Sweetwater, Big Horn, Washakie, Natrona, Hot Springs and, of course, Fremont County.
When asked about his educational background, Red smiled and said, “I graduated from the school of hard knocks in 1968.”
He worked as a contractor for many years and still does a little contracting.
Red repeatedly gives credit to his canine partner.
“It’s all the hound,” Red said. “A good handler can make a big difference if he just lets the canine work. Too many times, the human takes over just when the hound is about to make a breakthrough.”
There is rigorous testing to become a certified bloodhound.
“They lay a trail, wait 24 hours and call you in,” Red said. “They’ll either give you a scent article or just rub their feet on the ground. You have to find three points and then locate the person. Either the canine does it, or they’re disqualified.”
When Wyatt Earp qualified with Lorrie Anderson of Natrona County on August 29, 2024, the trial was conducted on a hot, dry day at Alcova.
Ground conditions, weather, humidity, and wind are all factors a bloodhound must work through.
Contrary to contemporary wisdom, the best tracking is done in wet conditions.
“The scent holds close to the ground if it’s been raining or snowing,” Red said. “It makes it easier for the canine to lock onto. Dry ground is the worst. Asphalt, sidewalks, lawns and suburban or urban settings are even more challenging.”
Those were the conditions that Red Fyler and Riverton Police Department detective Daniel Ladd faced in 2014 when the nine-year-old girl was abducted and assaulted.
The attack was carefully planned. The girl’s German shepherd was poisoned two weeks before the assault, something that Red thinks was premeditated.
The criminal cut her window screen at 3 a.m. and pulled the little girl outside. He assaulted her and tried to choke her to death but failed.
She was discovered wandering through a Riverton neighborhood.
“They didn’t call us in for 30 hours after the attack,” Red said. “We found an article of clothing in her room, let Doc Holliday lock it into his brain, and started from the location where she was found.”
Red and Detective Ladd followed Doc on a 21-foot-long leash, usually used as a lunge line for horses. The hound followed the 30-hour-old scent over 14 blocks of Riverton before moving up an alley to a back door.
“We had him,” Red said. “The judge pulled us off since we didn’t have a warrant. When we went back four hours later, he was gone.”
They found him hiding in a storage unit in Lander two days later. He was sentenced to 35 years to life in the Wyoming Penitentiary at Rawlins in 2015.
“Personally, I think the right handler and bloodhound are a great tool,” Ladd said. “It gives you the ability to track people.”
Part of the 14-block trek had a few dead ends.
“We tried tracking from the grass under her window,” Ladd said. “The dog took us to all of her friends’ houses. We decided to take the dog to where she was found. Red is a great handler. I wish agencies would use him more.”
“I couldn’t have had a better guy backing me up,” Red said of Daniel Ladd.
Not all the calls for a hound and handler are criminal cases. Many times, they’re in wilderness areas looking for lost or injured hikers, hunters, and snowmobilers.
“We had a call that a teenager had broken his leg jumping a snow machine,” Red said. “It was snowing hard, about three inches an hour. The other kids were waiting for me. The injured rider had a broken femur. I wrapped him in my 1949 mummy bag and got him out.”
Red and Michele drove snow sleds through the storm to find the injured teenager.
Not all of the searches end well.
The August 2025 search was one of those. A Minnesota man was reported missing near Cloud Peak. Red and Wyatt Earp found his trail and discovered his camp.
The man found cell service on July 29 just before a blizzard hit.
“He was able to send his wife cell phone pictures,” Red said. “We found him frozen to death under a ledge.”
In 2013, one of the most amazing searches of Red’s career began on the Riverton bike path.
David Ronald Moss’ body was found with a badly beaten, unconscious female companion.
They waited over a day before sending Red and Doc Holliday to the scene.
“I tagged along, keeping the lookie-loos away from everybody while Red worked,” retired Fremont County deputy sheriff Bill Braddock said.
Adding to the challenge was the repaving of the Rails to Trails Bike Path after the incident.
“Doc picked up a scent, and we trailed it to ‘The Nations,” Braddock said of the Riverton subdivision off of Smith Road, where they discovered the baseball bat that was used to kill Moss.
“They get pretty intense,” Braddock said.
They returned to the murder site.
“About 10 feet away, Doc picked up another scent,” Red said. “We followed it to Garden’s North and apprehended the second perpetrator. They were both convicted.”
“We knew who it was; he just confirmed it,” Braddock said. “He put another brick in the wall that they couldn’t deny.”
Braddock had praise for the role a bloodhound can play in an active investigation.
“There is definitely a place for them,” Braddock said. “I don’t have that much experience; I had one for a while, but neither one of us had the training we needed, and I handed the dog off to another officer.”
When working in areas with both two-legged and four-legged predators, a dog handler always has a backup.
“A good spotter/shooter is essential,” Red said.
A spotter/shooter is usually a deputy or a police officer armed with a shotgun.
“They load slugs, double-aught buckshot and slugs,” Red said.
A 12-gauge shotgun loaded with slugs is more than enough to stop the biggest, angriest grizzly.
“I’m focused on the bloodhound,” Red said. “I don’t look around. The shooter/spotter takes care of us, looking for threats.”
The entire process is a team effort. From the initial officer who investigates a crime to the judge who issues a warrant to the helicopter pilot or ground transport that gets man and hound on the scene to begin the search.
Fire suppression is another facet of law enforcement. Red has been a rural fireman for a long time.
“If it wasn’t for your volunteers, getting after fires right away, who knows what would be burning now,” Red said.
Red purchased Wyatt Earp from Sage Mountain Bloodhounds in Saratoga.
“She brought them up six months old, no training,” Red said. “We met in Casper. She looked me over to make sure I was the right guy for the dog.”
There are three Canine Academies in Wyoming that train bloodhounds. Casper Mountain, Kaycee, and Farson. Red and Michele have attended multiple academies over the years.
Red has another connection with Daniel Ladd. His daughter-in-law, Amy Fyler, with the Riverton Police Department, is Dan’s wife Andrea’s sister.
The work is exciting and fulfilling. When asked how long he would keep working bloodhounds, Red was quick to reply, “Until I’m dead.”
“I’ve been choppered into places in a thunderstorm, and you drop 200 feet and think you’re going to die. It’s a rush.”
The job isn’t without risk, for both man and hound. They’re often working against the worst elements of society, and these criminals aren’t opposed to killing either man or dog.
Red is a Fremont County guy. Red moved from Riverton to Lander in 1977. He’s been in his current location since 1996.
One of the most difficult challenges is tracking a vehicle, only to lose it when the person transfers to another car.
On other occasions, it’s straightforward.
“We tracked a guy up the mountain one time,” Red said. “We found a piece of his skull; the rest of him had been eaten.”
That’s where the shooter/spotters come in when grizzlies are a threat.
One of the most elusive cases in Wyoming criminal history is the disappearance of Amy Roe Bechtel.
Red and his bloodhound were called in with four cadaver dogs to conduct a search on the Loop Road above Sinks Canyon several years after her disappearance.
A cadaver dog has a different skill set than a bloodhound.
“We came up on a depression,” Red said. “The first cadaver dog hit on it. We took it to the truck and brought in the next three cadaver dogs one at a time. They all hit on the depression. Finally, we brought in my bloodhound, and he beelined it straight to the depression and started to dig.”
Red’s hound was imprinted with Bechtel’s scent.
“We dug down two feet and found some bottle caps and trash that shouldn’t have been there,” Red said. “I think someone was buried there and moved later.”
The discovery remains a mystery.
“The dog is the leader,” Red concluded. “After I got hit, I had steel rods from my knees to the ball joints in my hips. This is why I’m doing the bloodhound stuff. They’ve been in there since 2005.”
A man and his hound. When they work together, there isn’t a better forensic team in the world.