Tracker dog detected ‘something’ behind resort, cop tells Nora Anne inquest

The Coroner’s Court in Seremban was told that the tracker dog used in the search and rescue (SAR) operation to locate Nora Anne Quoirin had detected “something” in the bamboo grove behind the house where she stayed with her family, a day after the teenager was reported missing on Aug 4 last year.

Corporal PD Manimaran from the Tracker Dog Unit (K9) of the Police Training Centre (Pulapol) however said he was unsure whether the German Shepherd had picked up Nora Anne’s scent from her clothing, about 50m from Sora House.

“After we took the dog to the back of the house, the dog stopped at the bamboo plant area as if it picked up something near the fence.

“The dog continued to bring me forward and up and down the hill outside the Dusun Resort until it lost track of the scent,” Manimaran, the 10th witness in the inquest to determine Nora Anne’s cause of death, said when questioned by deputy public prosecutor Nuralis Mat.

Nuralis is also the inquest coordinating officer.

Manimaran, who had been with the Pulapol K9 unit since May 2018, said he participated in the second SAR operation on Aug 7, 2019, which was focused in the river area of the resort.

This was based on rumours that a girl had been spotted bathing in the river. However, he said there were no positive findings.

“On Aug 13, 2019, I brought my dog back and searched the area around Sora House based on the belief of Nora Anne’s mother that her child would not go far from the resort.

“However, there were no positive indications,” he added.

KLIA Police K9 Unit handler sergeant S Simon, the ninth witness, earlier told the court that given Nora Anne’s physical description, it would be difficult for her to have crossed the area surrounding the resort, including the location where her body was found on Aug 13.

He said he himself had experienced difficulty during the SAR operation, slipping several times.

When questioned by the family’s lawyer S Sakthyvell, Simon said he and his search dog were involved in the SAR operation which lasted a total of four days: Aug 6, 8, 11 and 12, 2019.

Nora Anne, 15, went missing a day after she and her family arrived in Malaysia for a two-week holiday at a resort in Pantai, about 60km south of Kuala Lumpur

On Aug 13, 10 days after she went missing, her body was found near a creek in a ravine about 2.5km from the resort where she and her family had been staying.

Preliminary surgical reports found no criminal elements in the teenager’s death.

Nora Anne, who had a disability, was said to have died from gastrointestinal bleeding due to prolonged hunger and stress.