Grand Rapids Press File Photo

Loyal friend: Grand Rapids fire investigator Pablo Martinez and his accelerant-detector dog, Rhonda, started working together in 2000. They retired from the department together in 2008.





GRAND RAPIDS — A few days ago, retired Grand Rapids fire investigator Pablo Martinez watched his retired fire dog, Rhonda, run and play at a local park, never suspecting anything amiss.

So it was a shock when he and his wife found the 12-year-old black Labrador, well-known for her accelerant-sniffing prowess, dead on the floor of their home on Saturday.

“My wife is taking it very hard,” said Martinez, who cared for Rhonda as a family member.

A veterinarian’s necropsy showed she likely died of a tumor on her heart that eventually caused a rupture.

The dog is being remembered for her astonishing abilities that helped police and fire investigators solve countless suspicious blazes, including several involving homicides.

Rhonda put her nose to the ground at hundreds of fire scenes during her service from 2000 to 2008.

“This is going to be tough,” said Martinez, who thought Rhonda might live several more years. “She was one-of-a-kind.”

One of the most high-profile cases Rhonda worked was the July 2002 death of 14-year-old Robin Boes, whose body was found in the family’s burned Zeeland home. While much of the home smelled of gasoline, Rhonda found key evidence of gasoline on an overturned chair in the bedroom of Robin’s mother, Karen.

The mother was convicted of murder.

“That chair was a crucial piece of evidence we likely would not have found without her,” said Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigator Mike Marquardt, whose agency offered Rhonda to Martinez a decade ago and paid for five weeks of training.

She lived with Martinez and his family since he took her on, abiding by a strict regimen of getting food when she worked. The practice meant Martinez was busy every day, doing training exercises when there wasn’t a fire to investigate.

Rhonda’s nose was so sensitive, she could sniff out a drop of gasoline or other accelerant on a piece of wood from a considerable distance.

Martinez remembered an instance where he investigated a routine attic fire and brought Rhonda into the house for companionship. But the dog soon “alerted” to insulation that had fallen from the ceiling — material that Martinez could not tell was tainted.

The discovery helped convict a contractor, also a minister, who had been paid up front to renovate the vacant home but ran out of money. He set the attic on fire.

In another case, Rhonda helped sniff out the remnants of a Dixie cup of gas that was poured on the stairs of an Alpine Avenue NW stairwell leading to apartments and set ablaze in 2000, killing a tenant. She found the accelerant despite the enormous amount of water used to put out the fire.

Rhonda and Martinez retired together in 2008.

The only ATF-trained fire dog in Michigan today is based in Detroit, but Marquardt hopes to have another one in West Michigan someday. The only obstacle is finding a fire investigator and his family willing to devote the time and discipline to a dog, as well as a fire department that can pay for veterinary care and the investigator’s overtime.

Meanwhile, Rhonda is to be buried Thursday at Noah’s Pet Cemetery near Cascade Road and 28th Street, with police paying for the site, casket and headstone. Martinez posted entries about Rhonda’s death on Facebook and described the outpouring of support as phenomenal.

E-mail John Tunison: jtunison@grpress.com

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