Meet Murphy, the newest member of the Council Bluffs Police Criminal Investigation Division.

The sweet and affable black Labrador is a trained electronic detection specialist, able to sniff out electronic devices that use memory, from something as small as a microSD or SIM card to mobile phones to hard drives.

Her target? Individuals involved in ICAC — Internet Crimes Against Children.

“When we get, like, a NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited) tip in for child pornography or child exploitative material, when we end up serving search warrants on these people's houses, if they're really cunning they'll try to hide their devices,” said Det. Anthony Fletcher, Murphy’s partner. “That's what her main purpose is — to go in and find those electronic devices that they don't want us to find, that we may not find during our regular search, because she can find something hidden in a wall. We're not going to tear up a wall. Well, she can still find it.”

Fletcher said that Murphy’s snoot can detect a phone that has been submerged in a full can of paint with the lid sealed, or hidden underwater.

“She can find phones that have been thrown in water,” Fletcher said. “During my training with her last week, we actually practiced in a creek. A bunch of phones were hidden under the water. Got her down there, got her in the water, probably chest high to her, and she was able to follow the scent that was coming down the creek all the way back to the phone and pinpoint it.”

Murphy and Fletcher are just back from a two-week training course in Indianapolis, taught by a man named Todd Jordan.

Jordan started training electronic detection dogs in 2014 with a dog named Bear, who would later become famous for his participation in a raid of the home of former Subway spokesman and current inmate at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colorado, Jared Fogle.

“(Jordan’s) like the number one guy that trains these dogs,” Fletcher said. “So what he does, he actually rescues therapy dogs who don't get placed with people with disabilities for one reason or another, and since they didn't get placed with a personal disability, he takes them in, trains them for their scent detection stuff.”

Electronic detection dogs are trained to detect a chemical called triphenylphosphine oxide, or TPPO, which is used to prevent overheating in electronic devices that contain memory.

A trained electronic storage detection dog like Murphy costs about $15,000, which includes the two weeks of training that Fletcher and Murphy went through.

Operation Underground Railroad, an Anaheim, California-based nonprofit whose stated mission is to fight child sex trafficking and exploitation around the world, picked up the tab, which included another $5,000 for equipment and travel expenses.

Fletcher said that their training class included nine other dogs, and only two — Murphy and another dog — earned the highest level certification.

Fletcher first heard about dogs trained in electronic storage detection about a year ago when he attended an ICAC conference shortly after he joined CID.

“The state ESD K9s did a presentation, kind of talk about what they do and what they can be used for, and I said, you know what, that’s pretty cool,” Fletcher said. “I put together a whole bunch of information, gathered as much as I could, and being that I was new over there, I was like, I'm gonna just hold on to this for a while. I don't want to ask for too much right away.”

Shortly thereafter, CID Capt. Todd Weddum read an article about Sandy, an ESD K9 in Ankeny, Iowa.

“He approached me about it, and said, ‘hey, what do you think about this?’ I said, ‘well, actually here's all — now that you've asked me — here's all this information about it.’ And he said, ‘well, let's look into it a little bit further.’”

In addition to her keen K9 senses, Murphy will also be available as an emotional support animal for both police officers and any young witnesses they might have to interview.

“Like I said, she was brought up as a therapy dog, but obviously she didn't get a place with somebody, so she can be utilized for the department, especially for kids that come in, as an emotional support comfort animal,” Fletcher said. “So, interviews with child victims, she can be present, and it's been shown that having a dog present really can help bring down the stress, help kids open up and remember more.”

Less than a week on the job and Murphy is already a hit with her fellow detectives.

“She's been in CID two days now and already it's like everybody in there loves her,” Fletcher said.

Murphy is no slouch, either. She's already earning her keep. She went out on her first search warrant on Wednesday and turned up two laptops in the suspect's bedroom, one hidden beneath some detritus under a bed and the other buried under some junk in the top drawer of a dresser.

"The dresser was probably about five foot tall," Fletcher said. "She pinpointed right to that top drawer."