Pancho's Story

The Search

The search for Pancho was an emotionally and physically exhausting experience. While searching for a lost dog, it is easy to panic and overlook certain areas or forget to do certain things. Very few people are experienced at searching for a lost dog. This was a new experience for us. Because of this, I logged most of our activities during the search. Below is a summary of the search for Pancho during the time period of May 27th - June 1st, 2021.

Thursday, May 17th, 2021

• 3:52 PM - Arrived at Wendy Starwsers home 18 minutes after receiving the call from Michael Hamill.
• 3:53 PM - Started by talking with Michael in person at his home. Wendy wasn’t home at the time. We were surprised at how casual they were about the whole thing. Michael wasn’t searching when we arrived and only left his house after we got upset and begged for help. Despite claiming that he had been searching for four hours, we later found out that was a lie.
• 3:53 PM - 9:00 PM - Maria and I searched the neighborhood and the nearby wooded area. Due to the recent rains, the wooded area was very muddy and difficult to navigate. I walked the creek in both directions, about half a mile each way.
• During this time, I called my Mom and had her quickly print and bring us flyers. We started with 100 or so, but ended up handing out over 1,200 flyers during our search.
• We also called my Dad and had him start printing yard signs. We started with 30 signs but eventually had 120 signs in yards and posted on every stop sign and traffic light within a 3-4 mile radius.
• Also during this time, my Mom went to Dallas Animal Services to check in person for Pancho. This allowed us to keep searching in the neighborhood.
• At 9:15PM, a very good friend and firefighter, Steve, showed up with his ATV and outdoor gear to search the woods. The wooded area is very rough terrain, muddy, and a known area for crime. Around midnight, we accidentally flipped over the ATV on a muddy slope. Luckily, nobody was hurt and we were able to wench the ATV upright. We parked it and went the rest of the way on foot.
• We walked the muddy trails for a few miles into the woods, desperately calling out for Pancho. With storms in the distance, we knew we had to get back before the rain started and made the trails impossible to walk.
• We got the ATV out of the woods and drove around the neighborhood and school until 4AM. Some teenagers playing basketball (at 3AM….) told us they saw a black dog near the apartment complex across the street. Steve headed home and Maria and I sat in my car in the teacher’s parking lot at Nancy J Cochran Elementary School until sun up. We didn’t sleep or eat. We just watched the nearby apartment complex, hoping that Pancho would show up.
• Several times throughout the night, I would get out of the car and walk around the apartments to see if Pancho was hiding in the area.

Friday, May 28th, 2021

• Around 7AM, the school employees started showing up and we got out of our car to ask them if they had seen Pancho around the school the day before. One man thought he had seen Pancho but it turned out to be a Rottweiler that we had also seen around the same area the day before. (A few days later, for confirmation, we found a neighbor with a camera facing the school. Pancho never ran down the road into the woods, as told to us by Wendy and Michael).
• After talking with several school staff, we drove through the apartment complex. We talked to anyone and everyone that we saw. Nobody had seen Pancho.
• We continued our search throughout the neighborhood. Checking every street, alley, backyards, and behind every gas station, shop, etc.
• Friends showed up to help us hand out flyers and go door-to-door. We had printed more flyers and delivered around 500 flyers to the houses and apartments in the area.
• We stayed in the area until 9PM Friday. Exhausted, muddy, starving, and heart broken, we returned to our home after nearly 30 straight hours searching for Pancho. After the initial 30 minute search by Michael (after we begged for his help), Wendy and Michael were never seen searching for Pancho again.
• Once home, we couldn’t really sleep. So we continued checking shelter websites, craigslist, Nextdoor, Facebook, and anything else we could find that might have a clue. We paid for several “online dog detective” services as well, hoping that more people looking online would increase the chances of finding Pancho.

Saturday, May 29th, 2021

• 9:30AM - I had a two hour phone call with professional dog tracker Bonnie Hale. We had contacted her and a few other trackers but due to scheduling, couldn’t get anybody on site until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest.
• Instead, I paid Bonnie for a consultation to learn everything that she knew about tracking and luring a dog that has run away. The only issue was that Pancho never ran away but we didn’t find that out for a few more days.
• During this time, we had around ten friends and family members searching the neighborhood where Pancho allegedly ran away. Their help allowed us to get some rest, eat a little bit, and continue gathering resources.
• 11:30AM - We drove to Dallas Animal Services and looked for Pancho. Meanwhile, my Dad checked Traders Village to see if Pancho was for sale (someone tipped us off that sometimes lost dogs end up there to be sold as pets). He also went to several other area shelters, hoping he showed up somewhere.
• After checking DAS, we were back in the neighborhood, driving roads, alleys, and scouring the woods.
• We had a friend translate all of our flyers and signs into Spanish. We printed 1,000 more and got to work handing them out. Three college aged guys that we know showed up and literally jogged from house to house passing out flyers. This helped us cover the area quickly and by the end of Saturday, there wasn’t a house in that neighborhood that didn’t have at least one flyer from us.
• While the younger guys ran around with flyers, Maria went door to door talking to people. I drove around, placing and hanging yard signs and bright green/yellow poster signs. There wasn’t an intersection within a 3 mile radius that didn’t have our signs clearly posted.
• A neighbor in the area got our flyer and called to help. He was a licensed drone pilot and offered to fly over the area, looking for Pancho. We gladly accepted his offer and he continued helping for several days.
• More friends and family searched the area with us, overlapping each other and leaving no alley, street, or backyard unchecked.
• Saturday night, we decided to try one of the dog tracker tips. She told us to slowly grill meat in the area where we think Pancho might be. Our best guess was that he ran into the woods as Wendy and Michael had told us (a big lie). With the help of our friend Steve, we went back into the woods, hiked up a small hill, set up a grill, and started cooking.
• We cooked meat from about 9PM until 4am. We were okay with the mosquitoes, the scorpion that almost stung Maria’s hand, and even the random group of off-roaders that came through the area around 12:30am. But when we started hearing gunfire in the distance, followed by bullets landing in the nearby bushes, we decided it was time to leave. 7 hours of grilling meat and no sign of Pancho.
• We drove the area a few more times before going home at 5am.

Sunday, May 30th, 2021

• Around 10am, we headed back to DAS to look for Pancho. We prayed that he would show up at a shelter, but no luck. Aside from us checking online constantly, we had friends, family, and paid services looking for him as well.
• We headed back to the neighborhood, exhausted and very concerned by this point. Nobody had seen Pancho. Wendy and Michael weren’t searching. Their story seemed to make less and less sense.
• After another full day of searching, I decided to call Michael asking for a video (from his Ring Doorbell Camera) showing exactly what time Pancho left on the walk. If we could just see video of Pancho leaving their house and not returning, we could believe their story and continue searching for Pancho, possibly forever. But Michael didn’t answer, so I texted. No Reply. Maria called Wendy and texted as well, no reply.
• The people that “lost” our dog, were now blocking our calls. Very strange behavior. At this point, it was dark and we were exhausted, so we headed home confused and upset.

Monday, May 31st, 2021 - Memorial Day

• Monday morning, Memorial Day, we headed back to the area. I was determined to search the woods again even though it was raining quite a bit. Also, due to their strange behavior, we decided to call the police to ask for help in viewing the video of Pancho leaving.
• The police showed up and were empathetic to our story. They knocked on the door and Michael came outside. He was defensive, rude, and refused to show any video. We explained that if we could see the video, we would never contact him again. He still refused.
• Wendy and Michael have cameras in their front and back yards. They refused to show us, the police and later the detective, the footage captured by these cameras.
• After meeting with Michael, the police officers pulled us aside and told us that something “was off” and that Michael appeared to be lying. More importantly, they told us that Michael seemed to be talking about Pancho “as if he is gone”. They suggested that we stop looking for Pancho and start looking for evidence of a crime.
• We spent the remainder of the day knocking on every door in the neighborhood that had a camera outside.
• We downloaded every video possible and returned home to review.
• Within 30 minutes of watching video from around the neighborhood, we knew Wendy Strawser and Michael Hamill were lying. Pancho never went on a walk. He never ran away. And they never search for him.
• While reviewing the footage of the day Pancho disappeared, we saw Michael appear to put something into his pickup truck. It was a few minutes after he had called us to inform us that Pancho was missing.
• After appearing to put something in his truck, Michael then drives towards a nearby illegal dumping area and returns home less than five minutes later.
• With the new evidence, I contacted the dog tracker and asked her to come out Tuesday to look for Pancho’s body on that road.

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021

• We spent the morning reviewing more video footage and compiling the more important video clips.
• 12PM - We met dog tracker Bonnie Hale at the elementary school and headed to the dumping ground.
• We timed Michael’s 4 minute and 30 second drive to see how far he could have gone, marking the road each direction so that the dog could track the entire area.
• While the dog tracker worked with the dog, we went along the road and opened every visible trash bag, box, etc.
• I won’t even begin to describe the things that we encountered while digging through the trash in this area
• The dog tracker and her tracking dog worked along Merrifield Rd for 3-4 hours. The dog did pick up some scent that may have been Pancho, but no physical evidence could be found.
• At this point, it had been 5 days since Pancho disappeared. If his body had been left in this area, it was likely moved once they realized how determined we were to find Pancho.