LAST-DITCH EFFORT

A 13-YEAR-OLD SKATEBOARDER HAD BEEN MISSING FOR THREE DAYS. THEN A SHARP-NOSED HERO PICKED UP THE TRAIL

- Eric Raskin

Daryl follows a particular routine when it's time to get to work.

He gets into his gear, loosens up for a few seconds and takes a seat. Then a coworker grabs a shoe and shoves it into Daryl’s face.

Oh, by the way, Daryl is a dog.

He's a bloodhound, specifically. So sticking his snout deep into a sneaker is standard practice when the humans he works with at the Farmington (Missouri) Correctional Center's K-9 unit need him to track someone down.

On a blazing hot day last July, at the edge of a ravine about 96 kilometres south of St. Louis, six-year-old Daryl was given one of the most important jobs of his life. He had to find a 13-year-old boy named Dakota ‘Cody’ Trenkle Jr. The boy had been missing for more than three days, and his mom and stepdad, Stephanie and Jared Neely, were frantic with worry.

Authorities believed Cody might be somewhere in that deep, wooded ravine, but time was running out for him if he didn’t have food or water. So Stephanie provided one of her son’s most pungent sneakers, and Lt. Joe Gillam, the leader of the K-9 unit, let Daryl smell it. Then he gave the command: “Find.”

Daryl took off running.

Sunday, 25 July 2025, began like any other summer day for Cody-with his brothers, Steven, 12, and Parker, seven, under the watchful eye of his grandmother Martha Askins. She often watched the boys while his mom, a corrections officer at the Missouri Department of Corrections, worked a 12-hour shift. Askins lives in an unincorporated gated community called Goose Creek Lake. Whenever Cody was there, his routine was to ride his skateboard to his friend Sam's house on the other side of the 2,500-acre development and hang out there for much of the day.

Around nine a.m., Cody had set out across town on his faded grey board decorated with a purple graffiti monster.