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Dutch Dog’s Body Found in St. Louis

Times Staff Writer

Leo Koewe finally learned Tuesday what happened to his dog Loekie, lost on a TWA flight from Dallas to Los Angeles, and the news was not good.

The Dutch tourist had last seen his terrier-poodle five days ago when it was loaded aboard the plane. After a nationwide search by Trans World Airlines, the body of a small dog believed to be Loekie was found Tuesday afternoon beside a busy thoroughfare near the airport in St. Louis, Mo.

TWA officials said Loekie apparently escaped its cage during a plane changeover in St. Louis and bounded across the airport taxiways. After making it past the jets and into a field adjoining the airport about half a mile away, the dog then ran onto nearby McDonnell Douglas Boulevard, where it was struck and killed, TWA officials surmised.

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Koewe, 50, a singer-composer from the Hague, the Netherlands, who raised Loekie from a pup and had been separated from his pet only one night in four years, took the news hard.

“I cannot believe it, but it must be so,” he whispered over the telephone in halting English. “Four years ago, my mother died, and I put on her grave that I lost the most beautiful thing on earth; what else can happen to me? This is the second.”

News of the death ended Koewe’s one-day hunger strike at the TWA terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. A TWA official at the airport told Koewe that the airline was flying the dog’s collar to Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon so he could verify that it was Loekie’s.

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But Koewe, who has been staying with a friend in Huntington Beach, said he had no intention of waiting around Los Angeles. Instead, he booked himself on a Tuesday night flight to St. Louis, where he planned to reclaim Loekie’s body and have it buried near a relative’s home in the Dallas area.

TWA officials expressed remorse.

“We do feel bad,” said Don Morrison, vice president of public affairs at TWA’s corporate headquarters in St. Louis.

Morrison said airline officials would meet with Koewe to work out financial compensation for the pet. He said passengers are entitled to up to $1,250 for lost bags. But he said he did not know what the amount would be for a pet.

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Morrison added that the cage Loekie apparently escaped from was Koewe’s and not one provided by the airline. He said TWA sells cages “that we recommend.”

The dog’s body was found after a nationwide search of TWA stations focused on Lambert St. Louis International Airport, where an airline employee Tuesday said he remembered seeing a small dog sprinting from the TWA terminal building across several taxiways last Thursday. Koewe’s flight from Dallas to Los Angeles also departed Thursday.

Morrison said subsequent investigation revealed that the dog got loose from its cage on a ramp as Koewe’s plane was being unloaded. Airline officials immediately began searching the area around the airport with the St. Louis police.

Earlier Tuesday, Koewe had been buoyed by reports that his Loekie had been spotted in St. Louis. He had planned to fly to St. Louis to help in the search.

On Monday, Koewe had vowed to remain at the airport until Loekie was found. His stomach hurt, he said, not because he hadn’t eaten but “because it has been five days since I seen Loekie. Two days ago, I ate chicken, Loekie’s favorite food, and I started crying. I could not eat it anymore.”

At one point during his vigil at the airport, Koewe said, the TWA station manager pulled him aside to apologize about what had happened to his dog.

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“He wanted to assure me that they were doing their best (to find the dog),” Koewe said. “I said to him that I agreed they are doing their best, but I said the question is not of enough concern but about a lack of organization. He said they hoped to learn from it. I said I hoped so, too.”

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