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Died – 5/9/19
Memorial held for police K9 named after Maine Township child
A memorial service was held this week for a Cook County Sheriff’s Department K9 named in honor of a Maine Township child who was killed in 2007. Melanie, a bloodhound that began working with the sheriff’s department in 2008 when she was just 7 months old, died May 9 at the age of 11, the department said. A memorial service took place May 29 at Brookfield Zoo. Melanie was credited by the sheriff’s department with helping to locate “countless missing children, endangered and at-risk adults, and criminal offenders,” during her years of service. These included finding a semi-conscious man who had been missing after falling into an icy river in the southwest suburbs in 2009, and helping police capture the suspect of a 2012 Glenview bank robbery after tracking his scent to a nearby apartment complex. The bloodhound was named for Melanie Beltran, a 5-year-old girl murdered in unincorporated Maine Township in March 2007. In 2009, a spokeswoman with the sheriff’s department told the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate that Melanie Beltran’s case had a profound effect on officers, who wanted to do something to honor the child. Mila Petrov and Carlos Beltran, the parents of Melanie Beltran, were each charged in connection with her death. Authorities had said the 5-year-old was physically abused for years before her mother beat her to death inside the family’s apartment at 8992 Kennedy Drive, just north of Park Ridge. Melanie was one of the couple’s eight children. Petrov was sentenced to 39 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and is currently housed at Logan Correctional Center, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Beltran, whom authorities said knew of Melanie’s abuse but failed to protect the child, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery of a child and is serving a 20-year prison sentence at Graham Correctional Center.
