Julie Cramer

Julie Cramer, the handler of human-remains detection dog Brutus, testified in Steven Avery's trial about their search of the salvage yard. She reported repeated indications at Teresa Halbach's vehicle and an alert in a trailer bathroom, but no indication at the car crusher or among crushed cars. She acknowledged that Brutus had not been given Halbach's scent, so the vehicle alerts could not identify a particular person, the material involved, or whether the source was living or dead; she could not identify the bathroom alert's source. Cramer had not calculated Brutus's false-positive or false-negative rates, and parts of the property were not searched by the dog. In Brendan Dassey's trial, an investigator identified Cramer as Brutus's handler and described observing the dog alert at the RAV4.