K9 Handlers Dee Dillman and Marie Ginman Awarded West Valley City, Utah 2023 Citizens of the Year
Dee Dillman and Marie Ginman, along with their K9 partners Rhum, Coke, and Booze, received recognition as the West Valley City, Utah 2023 Citizens of the Year on Friday, May 10th by the West Valley City Police Department and West Valley City Honorary Colonels Association. The department and association honored the quintet with the prestigious award, recognizing outstanding performance and accomplishment, for their assistance in missing persons cases; in particular, they were honored for their involvement in a missing persons case as part of a triple homicide. In 2023, Dee and Marie had been in contact with local unit detectives; the detectives tasked Dee and Marie with searching a remote, mountainous area in the west desert of Utah. On April 22nd, 2023, they communicated strong K9 alerts to unit personnel which were, shortly thereafter, confirmed with the presence of human skeletal remains and as a crime scene related to the missing persons investigation.
Volunteering as K9 handlers for nearly 20 years, Dee and Marie have been an integral part of hundreds of searches in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota. In addition to their years of service, Dee and Marie are known as a warm and welcoming presence at seminars and other training opportunities and have been an indispensable part of the K9 community in the Mountain West throughout their career – they give back, not only through their service, but also through sharing their wealth of knowledge and experience with the greater Search and Rescue K9 community.
Their organization, Dogs at Work Search and Rescue (dogsatwork.org), is available to assist law enforcement agencies 24/7; K9 certifications include Cadaver/HRD, Cadaver Search from Boat and Shore, Air Scent/Live Find, and Tracking/Trailing. Contact Dogs at Work Search and Rescue by phone at either 801-898-4425 or 801-860-4425, or by email at [email protected].