HANCOCK COUNTY — Crimes against children are some of the most difficult to investigate, local officials say.
Kids sometimes have a hard time opening up about what happened to them, whether they’re too embarrassed or shy or too young to fully understand.
Getting them to share their terrible truths takes careful practice; and four local investigators traveled across the country recently to learn from experts, to hone the skills they already had, the best ways to collect and present evidence of crimes against children.
Two Hancock County prosecutors and two local police detectives attended the national training conference, where they learned tactics for better interacting with young witnesses and crime victims.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
Now, chief deputy prosecutor Marie Castetter, deputy prosecutor Cathy Wilson, Greenfield Police Detective Sgt. Nichole Gilbert and Hancock County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Bridget Foy have returned to Hancock County saying they were eager to implement what they’d learned.
They’re hopeful these new skills will lead to better, more successful cases moving forward, they say.
The four women are typically assigned by their various agencies to handle crimes against children locally. They traveled to San Diego late last month for the four-day training hosted by the National District Attorneys Association.
Conferences like this one take place across the country regularly; but Wilson said she’d never attended one that was specific to crimes against children, which makes the lessons they learned there even more valuable, she said.
The classes they sat through touched on an array of crimes, from physical child abuse to sex trafficking, Wilson said. The lecturers walked participants through the entirety of a criminal investigation, offering tips for how to ease the burden on the young victims involved at each step, starting with when a report is made to police and advancing through the jury trial, she said.
For the prosecutors, it was interesting to learn about the common defenses mounted by the perpetrators of crimes against children. The lectures in San Diego taught prosecutors how to protect a victim’s story as a defense attorney tries to poke holes in it, Castetter said.
Preparing children to testify at trial was also a heavy-hit topic during the training, Castetter said. Kids are often nervous about taking the stand to testify; so lecturers suggested arranging a tour of the courtroom ahead of time or even holding a mock trial to give the child a better idea of what will happen. Castetter said she’s already working to organize a mock trial for a local victim in a child molest case that’s slated to go before a judge and jury soon.
And for the police, it was the most beneficial to hear from the leaders of a national crime-investigation agency, who offered insight on good evidence collection, particularly in child pornography cases.
Foy and Gilbert said they were intrigued to learn from representatives of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children that the agency manages a private database of illegal images that’s designed to search for certain characteristics, with the goal of matching an image to a suspect. Both detectives say they’ll submit any evidence discovered locally to the database from now on, which should only strengthen its capabilities, they said.
Having police officers and prosecutors attend the training together is the latest in a series of steps local law enforcement officials have taken to shore-up the relationship between detectives and attorneys — particularly those working together to investigate crimes against children.
Earlier this year, local leaders announced they’d formed a multidisciplinary team — made up of police, prosecutors, child services case managers and other advocates — that coordinates the response to an allegation of child abuse or neglect. Working together in this way ensures continuity while lessening the burden on the victim, they said.
The prosecutor’s office footed the bill for the four women to attend the training San Diego, though the cost to taxpayers was minimal, official said.
Castetter and Wilson received scholarships from the Indiana Prosecuting Attorney’s Council that covered their tuition and housing for the week. All the county lost was the cost of airfare to and from California.
“But the gain was tremendous,” Castetter said.