February 28, 2025 • 71 mins
In this raw and revealing conversation, we meet Jennifer—a seasoned death investigator who spent 20 years grappling with some of life’s darkest moments. Day after day, she witnessed tragedy up close: child homicides, brutal crime scenes, and the unimaginable weight that comes with regularly facing mortality. Over time, these compounded stresses pushed her to the edge, leading her to multiple suicide attempts.
Now, for the first time, Jennifer opens up about the toll her profession took on her mental health, why she felt she couldn’t ask for help, and the turning point that led her to choose life. She highlights an often-overlooked aspect of first responders’ experiences: the emotional burdens they carry long after the shift ends. Her story is one of resilience, hope, and the power of speaking out. Whether you’re in public safety, know someone who is, or want to understand the unseen battles others face, this episode offers a poignant reminder that, even in the darkest moments, it’s possible to find a path forward.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Team 1, stand by.
Copy.
Team 1, standing by Breach,breach, breach.
Hey guys, welcome back to theshow.
So today is actually a prettyspecial episode because what
we've got in store is one ofyour own.
(00:23):
What we've got in store is oneof your own, if you all remember
, a little while back I put outa call to action, because it's
hard to just give my side ofstories and things like that and
y'all be able to associate withwhat I'm saying.
So what we did was put out thatcall to action and I got a lot
(00:46):
of responses.
A lot of you went out andmessaged me and were telling me
brief portions of your story andthings like that, but for one
reason or another, we were neverable to connect.
Well, the guest that we have onthe show today was just like
that.
She saw the call to action andunfortunately, at that moment
(01:08):
she wasn't ready to reach out.
And now she is.
So she found the courage withinherself and decided to open
herself up to the world so thatshe could share her story in
hopes of getting other people torealize that it's okay,
everything's going to be okay,you can be okay.
(01:30):
So, with 20 years working insome aspect of public safety and
going through her own story.
I won't sit here and go muchfurther into that, and I will
let her do that for herself.
So, without further ado,everybody meet Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Hey everybody, my name is Jennifer.
This is the first time I'veever done a podcast.
I saw Breach on TikTok andreached out and it did take me a
little bit to finally send thatemail to do this.
I call myself a deathinvestigator, but we're medical
(02:20):
legal death investigators,coroner, deputy coroners,
medical specialists, medicalexaminer specialists we get
called by all different namesbut we are the last of the first
responders and also pardon mysnoring dogs if you hear that in
(02:41):
the background, but I worked inthe death investigation field
from 2001 until 2022.
And I've worked from Boston toended in Colorado, Ended in
(03:04):
Colorado and I've worked allover the.
United States working indifferent systems, between the
coroner system and the medicalexaminer system, working with
different agencies, differentsystems.
So I do have I don't know, Idon't know what information to
(03:41):
give you.
Um, I got two, uh, bachelor'sdegrees.
Then I went into thecriminology field and I did an
internship in Florida and we hadlike five homicides in a week
and the medical examinerinvestigator came in and I was
doing an internship with thecrime scene technicians and with
(04:06):
the police department and wewere there for hours just like
vacuuming square inches andputting it into evidence, little
evidence envelopes, and youknow you can't go to the
bathroom and there's just somuch.
So the medical examinerinvestigator came in and we
showed her the luminol and weshowed her all the cool stuff
(04:28):
that we found and she looked atthe body and took the decedent
and that was when I decidedthat's what I wanted to do.
And so then I went and finishedmy internship and got my second
bachelor's degree and then wentand got my master's degree in
forensic science.
(04:48):
And back in 1999, there wereactually only two universities
that had forensic sciencedegrees for a master's.
So it was John Jay in nationalin New York and a national
Jewish in San Diego.
(05:09):
So that's where I went in SanDiego, and and then my first job
was in Boston.
Right.
And I was a forensic tech doingautopsies.
So that's what I did firstdoing autopsies.
So that's what I did first andI did autopsies.
I was actually in Boston when Iheard about 9-11.
(05:32):
And so that was my first.
That was my first, you know,learning about mass disasters
and all of that there.
And you know, being around a lotof law enforcement and 9-11 all
at the same time was just mindblowing, because there is a
(05:54):
World Trade Center in Boston.
So initially I thought that'swhat they were talking about.
I mean, it was just you know alot going on.
It was just you know a lotgoing on.
And we actually had EMTs thatwere we were, we were training
them on autopsies at that timeand we were down in the autopsy
(06:20):
suite and we really weren'tgetting a lot of information
about what was happening, and soit was a lot um, well, before
you really jump into much moreof that, let's uh, you know, one
of the big things that that Ilike to talk about, um, and I
think gets ignored a lot, is aperson's resiliency.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You know, their ability to use resilience to get
through things.
And what people often forgetabout is that resilience isn't
something that just happens toyou.
It's not something that happensto you in a moment.
That your resiliency issomething that you build
throughout your entire life.
Every moment, every situation,everything you go through in
(07:01):
life helps build your resilienceand how you deal with
situations moving forward.
And what I want to do real quickis I want us to get a feeling
or a sense of who Jennifer is,who you are, and by that I mean
let's take a couple of stepsback and let's go back to, if
(07:22):
you're okay with it, let's goback to you know childhood.
Where'd you grow up?
What kind of life did you have?
Some experiences that you wentthrough or you know, and they
don't have to be traumatic.
You know just anything ingeneral.
But let's get the backstory onwho you are and work forward so
(07:42):
that we can show, because,obviously, working in death
investigations, being a coroneror medical examiner.
You know that's not somethingfor everybody.
Me particular, I'm not a bigfan of working that aspect.
So even though I've done thejob for 19 years, it's still an
(08:02):
area I'm not comfortable in.
So I have a lot of respect forpeople that do.
But my upbringing andeverything has brought me to
where I am.
So I want to take a couple ofsteps back to see where Jennifer
come from, how you came up inlife, to where you got to the
point where you were able toexperience that first crime
(08:24):
scene and decide you know what.
This is where I want to go,this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, that's kind of a lot too.
So I'm actually.
I was born in Key West Florida.
I'm a twin.
I was born seven minutes aftermy twin sister, wendy, and we
grew up in Florida.
I was born actually very sickand by the time I was nine
(08:57):
months old they had flown aspecialist in and I was
diagnosed with asthma, which in1976, they didn't diagnose
children with asthma.
So this doctor said that shewould take care of me if my
family moved to where she wasfrom.
(09:18):
So we did, we moved to Sarasota, florida, and she took care of
me and she fought, she foughtfor me.
She was pretty certain that Ihad cystic fibrosis and so she.
I was in and out of the hospital.
I pretty much I pretty much saythat I grew up in the hospital.
(09:38):
If I wasn't sick, I was gettingsick.
So I would, I would.
I would be a normal kid for alittle while and then I would
get sick, and then I would go inthe hospital and I would get on
very high doses of prednisone,which is a steroid, and
antibiotics and I would getbetter, and then I would go back
(09:59):
out and be a regular kid for acouple weeks and then I would
get sick again and then go backin the hospital.
So I had a pretty hardchildhood with that, but my
parents tried to give me thebest childhood they could, given
(10:20):
that I was pretty sick.
So being resilient wasn'tsomething that I had a choice
with.
It was pretty much what I hadto do.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So did they ever tell you what it was that was
causing you to get so sick, orwas it just like an autoimmune
thing?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It took 28 years for them to finally figure.
It took 28 years for a for adoctor to finally say I'm going
to try to figure it out.
Um, they actually flew me tonational Jewish when I was about
19.
Um, and they too still couldn'tfigure it out.
Uh, but they did finally figureit out when I was about 28.
(11:05):
And it was an immune deficiency.
It's called common variableimmune deficiency.
And when they started treatingme appropriately, it was like a
light switch and I didn't getsick with pneumonia as much as I
was, because that's what was.
That was what I would getpneumonia and that would trigger
(11:26):
my asthma and then the asthmawould get worse.
So once the asthma was better,once the pneumonia was under
control and I wasn't gettingsick, then it was better.
But then the autoimmune theautoimmune started taking over
because the the immune, it wasjust a very, a very big snowball
(11:48):
effect.
So then I started developingautoimmune diseases, so yeah,
and that took 28 years for themto get to that point.
Yes.
So it took 28 years for them tofinally figure out and and and.
In the interim I was on very,very high doses of steroids, um,
(12:08):
which causes a lot of umproblems in and of itself, which
they didn't really understanduntil many years later.
So, um, so you have to add allof the all of the illnesses and
you know, basically, as a child,every day waking up could have
(12:32):
been the day that the asthma wasgoing to kill me.
So I was fighting death daily,um, you know, learning to
breathe without wheezing orhaving people hear me wheeze,
because that's very annoying topeople after a while is, you
know, you have to learn to kindof, you know, deal with that
(12:56):
kind of stuff.
So it was, it was, it was hard,but my parents tried to do the
best they could and give me thebest life that they could, as
normal as possible with what Iwas going through.
And so going to college was onmy radar.
You know, I was like if I'mgoing to live, I better do
(13:19):
something with my life, you know, and even the doctors said you
know like you can go ondisability.
You know like you can go ondisability, but I'm like I'm not
doing that you know.
I knew I was a pretty smartperson.
I wanted to be a doctor.
I knew the medical field.
Um, you know specifically lungs.
(13:39):
I've had a pretty good ideaabout the lungs.
But I saw one time I don't knowhow old you are, but I saw
Rescue 911 when I was a kid.
I don't know if you rememberthat show.
I remember it.
The one guy was stabbed in thechest by his girlfriend and when
(13:59):
he was being put in theambulance the knife was
pulsating with his heartbeat.
And.
I went in the bathroom andthrew up and my dad was like
you're never going to be adoctor.
So you know I was like, well,okay, but I know I probably
could have done it, you know,given what I've done in my life
(14:20):
now.
But the student loans are alittle bit crazy.
So I'm glad I didn't do that soanyways, being resilient was
pretty, it was, you know, wasdefinitely something I had to do
and I was always interested in,you know, the putting the
(14:43):
puzzle together and you know thecrime scenes when I was doing
the um, when I was going to thecrime scenes with the crime
scene techs and, you know,walking in.
I remember my first, you knowone of my first scenes in Boston
and when I was working inBoston they didn't have like
(15:04):
death investigators, the policedid all of the death scene
investigations.
We were kind of just thetransporters and the autopsy
techs.
But I remember walking in oneof the first scenes and somebody
was hogtied with and I don'tknow how detailed I can be,
you'll have to cut me off if Iget too detailed but I remember
(15:28):
walking down the stairs into thebasement thinking this is a
movie, like I had to.
I had to take a deep breath andrealize that this is real, this
is somebody's you know husband,that's you know been killed.
And and is this really what I'mgoing to be doing?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
with my life.
You know, like so, how old wereyou when you, when you got
experienced that and when youwere in Boston?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Um, let's see Um early, early to mid-20s.
It was around 2001, so I wouldhave been 24, somewhere around
there.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Okay, so sufficient to say that up until that point
you hadn't really done anythingthat you know kind of prepared
you to walk in and see somethinglike that.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, I mean I had, I mean I'd already gotten my
master's degree and we weredoing you know, I, when I was
doing my master's.
We were, we were learning fromadjunct professors.
It wasn't a normal universitywhere, you know, we were going
during the day.
We were learning from peoplelike you and you and I that were
still in the field.
(16:50):
And so we were seeing realphotos of actual scenes that
they were doing.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So seeing the pictures and then seeing it
firsthand, was there adifference?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
in the feel for it.
Yeah, of course, of course, ofcourse.
And then the undergrad.
I did see it in person becauseI did go to autopsies and I did
the few homicides that we did.
I did the the few homicidesthat we did on but but, but the
(17:31):
brutality of that scene at thatage in Boston was something that
I had and there was so much ofit, like the amount of brutality
, like I can't even I I'mthinking of probably 10 scenes
in that first year that werejust unimaginable at that age
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So when you started college I know you said you
wanted to be a doctor.
So when you started college,did you go into college thinking
I want to be a doctor andthat's what I'm going?
Or did you want to be a doctorand then start college thinking
that I want to go into somethingto do with criminology and the
I'll say public safety, but moreor less the public safety field
(18:13):
?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I never went.
When I went to college, I knewI was not going to be a doctor.
Okay, I intended to go into theFBI to be a forensic
psychologist, like the FBIprofiling.
This was back in like 94, 95,when none of this was on TV,
(18:41):
none of this was known.
But that's what I wanted to doand I had a college I don't
remember what they're called.
But you'd like the career peopleand they're like you can't just
go to the FBI out of college,you have to, like have a career.
And you know, you can't justwalk into the FBI and say I want
(19:03):
to do this and so what are yougoing to do in the interim?
And I'm like I don't know.
So that's how.
So that's when I was like, well, I'll do, maybe I'll do the
evidence tech.
And then I did the undergradevidence tech ride along.
So I'm like, oh my God, this isreally tedious and you're not
(19:26):
really putting puzzle piecestogether Really.
You're just collecting anythingyou can find and I'm not
putting them down at all.
Their job is absolutely 100%needed and I I just it wasn't
for me, you know, um, so so I.
(19:46):
So I went to do something in thecriminology field from day one.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Okay, okay, so you did the, would you say it would
be more like a coroner aspect ofit that you did first, or a
medical examiner aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
In college or when I first went into the field.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
When you finally got done and went into the field and
started working.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I was in the medical examiner system first.
Yeah, so you know, the countryis split up into medical
examiner, coroner system, andthen there's a few states that
still have both.
That's what I was going to sayis here we work.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
You know, obviously in my area we're in southeast
Georgia, the coroner, and thecoroner shows up and then he
winds up photographing andbasically trying to investigate
anything himself.
And then he will get in contactwith the state medical
examiner's office, which is runby the Georgia Bureau of
(20:56):
Investigations here.
He will get on the phone withthem and let them know what he's
got and then they'll make adetermination on whether or not,
yes, we're going to do anautopsy, no, we're not going to
do an autopsy.
And if it's, you know, if it'syes, then you know it's his
responsibility to collect thisevidence, put it in the bag and
properly tag the bag so that itcan go to the examiner's office.
(21:19):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
So you must have a mixed system.
If you have both a medicalexaminer and a coroner person
that you're dealing with, youhave a mixed system, but most
states have one or the other.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Our coroner.
I don't know exactly how manyareas he covers he's got a few
deputy coroners as well but heis the one that responds to the
scene with us on any kind ofincident like that, and then the
decision is made at that pointwhether or not to send them to
the medical examiner's office orsend them straight to the
(21:59):
funeral home and bypass all ofthe other stuff.
At least that's how it workshere.
So I was curious how it waswhen you were in the funeral
home and bypass all of the otherstuff.
So at least that's how it workshere.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So I was curious how it was when you were in the
field.
It depends on the system, andthis is something that needs to
be discussed nationally becauseit's a broken system.
But you and I aren't going tochange that system, um, in one
(22:30):
conversation.
But, um, it really depends onthe rural.
You know how big the area is,um, is it cause, you know, like
in New Mexico, it's state butthen there's, you know, so most
all autopsies go to Albuquerque,but they have depth, you know
(22:50):
it.
It it's run differentlyeverywhere.
So, um, some places have a core, one corner per County, and
then some have, um, one medicalexaminer for 40 counties and
then they all go to one.
So it's broken.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right so, but you've done both aspects of what
you were saying, or you juststuck mainly or primarily to the
medical examiner side of it orprimarily to the medical
examiner side of it.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I did mostly medical examiner.
The coroner system was the lastone that I worked at and so and
let me just explain to peoplewho may not know the difference
the coroner is elected by thepeople, so coroners are elected
predominantly.
You can have an appointedcoroner, but usually coroners
(23:50):
are elected Medical examiners.
They have to be physicians,they have to be doctors and
forensic pathologists, so theyhave to not only be a doctor but
also be a forensic pathologistand have gone through that
specialized training.
A coroner can be anybody.
They can be you or me or youknow some lay person off the
(24:14):
street that is elected by thepeople for that county.
They could have no experiencewhatsoever in the field.
Medical examiners obviously have, you know, experience in the
field, but they may not havedeath investigator experience.
So then the medical examinershire death investigators to do
(24:34):
the scene investigations and tohelp make determinations.
Like the death investigatorsare the eyes and ears for the
medical examiners on scene.
Are, you know, at the autopsy?
Okay, so that's just kind ofkind of a really quick and dirty
explanation for the differencebetween the two systems.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
All right.
And you said you did that for20 years.
And you said you ended Ended upin Colorado.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, yeah so.
I ended up in Colorado inSeptember of 2016.
And in October of 22, Iattempted suicide on after work
one night, and that was my lastnight in the field.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So you were in Colorado when that happened.
So you were in Colorado whenthat happened.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
What would you say was leading up to that?
Well, I really didn't realizewhat was happening.
I was always know PTSD was forveterans and military personnel.
I have, over the years, seentherapists when I would go
(25:56):
through what I would call abreakdown and then, you know,
I'd get better, and then I wouldgo through periods where I
would attempt suicide after work.
I would either stop in theprocess or, you know, just
(26:17):
realize that really don't have alot of support.
I know over the last few yearsthere's been people put in place
to you know that you can go toand HR, but there there isn't
(26:45):
anyone.
Like you, you can't go to yourmanager and say I had trouble
with this baby death, um, or thestress of the and it's not all
about the death.
Like, I knew what I was gettinginto when I went into death
investigations, when I starteddoing more and more baby deaths,
when I started, you know, um,teaching, uh, teaching
(27:09):
investigators how to investigatechild homicides.
I took a special interest inthat because when I did I didn't
have any children and otherpeople did, and so I didn't
realize that that was easier forme to do it, because they
couldn't do them, because it washard.
(27:29):
They were seeing their ownchildren and these and these
babies, and so I didn't knowthat, because I didn't have
children anyways.
Um, but then when I had mychild, then you can't like
they're, they're, they'rewearing the same outfit that
your child had, and now youcan't even see your child in
(27:49):
that outfit ever again.
You don't notice that.
You don't notice that yourhurry and hurry, hurry, hurry,
hurry mentality and everythingis an emergency mentality,
bleeding over into your personallife.
I never noticed that happening,that I was trying to get 50
(28:10):
things done at a time, becausethat's what I have to do at work
, and then I'm doing it at homeand I walk in after an 18-hour
shift of five suicides and ababy death and the dishes aren't
done and my kid's still awakeand she should have been in bed,
and you know, and now I have tobe a mom and a maid and and a
(28:34):
wife and I, I just, it was somuch and I didn't know that all
of this was just accumulatingand accumulating and and we
don't talk about our cases Um,it's just, it's just another,
another day, it's just anotherTuesday.
Um, we don't talk about you.
(28:55):
Know you and I talked earlierabout you know you're used to
your schedule change, but whatit does to your body, you don't
know what night shift does toyour body.
Um, working, what working?
You know 12, 15, 18 hour shifts.
You know, being a single motherin this kind of field, you
(29:19):
can't just call the babysitter.
When you have a call, come infive minutes before you're
supposed to get off.
And you're like you have a call, come in five minutes before
you're supposed to get off andyou're like I don't, I'll be
home in six hours.
You know the your babysitterisn't going to be like oh okay,
no problem, it just doesn'thappen.
And so then your stress level,even if you have a significant
(29:52):
other, that it still isupsetting for them that now
you're late again.
Or you know you're coming homeand and you've had a bad day,
and they did too, but you don'tcare because it just it's just.
You know more and more and moreand it bleeds over and you're
not talking about it.
And then everything at work hasto be done and they care so
much about the overtime and you,you, everything has to be
perfect and everything has to bedone without overtime.
(30:16):
And then now let's add in thefact that you're dealing.
You know you're dealing withfamilies that this is the worst
day of their life and you haveto go tell them that their
family member just died andguess who they're going to take
it out on?
You know and and I I believe inyou know a higher power, and
(30:41):
when I'm driving, all I'm doingis praying.
Please let me do this.
Please let me tell them thebest way that I can, so that the
you know the to make it eventhe the easiest I can on them.
But it's still hard, you know,it's still they.
I've been, I've I've been closeto being assaulted.
(31:04):
I don't know how many timesI've seen coworkers assaulted.
You know, I mean, it's lookingback.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
you don't carry guns right, I wouldn't shoot anyone
if I did, but you know, lookingback through your career,
looking back through um, I would, I would think I would assume I
should say that you know,through working through
everything that you've gonethrough and and talking with
(31:35):
with your support team, now thatyou know you've had time to
reflect back over your life,your career and think about when
things started to go adifferent direction, when you
started to go downhill with theinsurmountable weight that is
(31:56):
placed on you because of theexpectations, not only in your
professional career but in yourpersonal life.
When you think back over thattime and when you think back to
when things started to godownhill, what would?
Did you have any copingmechanisms?
What?
What were your copingmechanisms?
Coping mechanisms good or bad?
If you can recall them?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Smoking, smoking cigarettes, for sure, cigarettes
, for sure.
Um, um, there were drinking,although I I wasn't, I didn't
drink all the time, but bingedrinking for sure.
Um, I have a very, um, verystrong compass, which I think
(32:48):
you know, I think we all do, butsometimes it would get out of
it, would get out of whack, andI'm not going to go into that Um
, but you know, I would, I would, and I and I have a significant
other, but I would have.
I was calling my mom on the wayto work and on the way home
(33:08):
because I was so it was like theonly pressure valve that I had
left, like I would have to callher because I was so afraid of
what was going to happen at work, like was I going to get in
trouble because I had overtime?
You know what's going to happen.
And then I would have to callher on the way home to kind of
vent about everything thathappened, and so I wasn't taking
(33:29):
it out on my family.
I was starting to notice thatmy personality would change when
the pager would go off and thatmeans that there was another
death.
So our pager would go off toalert us that there was another
death, and that would evenhappen when I wasn't on call.
(33:51):
So my pager was like an iPhone.
So when someone had the samealert in Walmart, I would start
having the same reaction and mypersonality would change.
(34:13):
I would start becoming veryangry and it was because I knew
I suddenly had so muchresponsibility and no time to do
it and I wasn't even at workanymore, you know at that point,
so that was starting to happen,and that's when I should have
known that I wasn't able tohandle it anymore.
And even my bosses, after thefact, they were like, well, we
knew that you were stressed, wejust thought you could handle it
(34:36):
, like you know, like I've I'vealways handled it.
So, um, they never even talkedto me, they never even said hey,
we, we, we noticed this, butone one lady did pull me aside,
one of my coworkers, and she'slike you're.
You know, this is happeningevery time the pager goes off.
You get, you, you're startingto act, mean, and that was very
(34:57):
close to the last, my last day.
But I think that that, and I,and I wrote in the email to you
that I noticed that there's, youknow, after about 10 years,
people are either divorced oralcoholics.
You know, and I'm not a bigdrinker because it has run in my
(35:19):
family and I've seen.
I don't drink because ofexperiences I've seen with
myself, even in college.
So I know that that's not Icannot go down that road, um,
but you know, it could beanything.
It could be running Like I wasrunning.
I would wake up at two in themorning too, and I didn't have
(35:41):
to be to work till six, but Iwould wake up at two in the
morning and run, you know, 35miles a week because just trying
trying to, you know, to dosomething, to to get help myself
you know, find an outlet.
Yeah, I mean, if I gain weightI'd lose weight, I, whatever it
(36:02):
was just trying to to to getthrough what was going on and I
never, not one person ever,thought it was you know my day,
it was my job, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
And and we work long hours and then we're you know,
we're switching every threemonths, switching to another
time and then switching sides ofthe week.
And then you know that is justnot good for your body and and I
realized that it has to be done.
No one, you know, someone's gotto do it.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
But the coping mechanisms, I think um I should
have paid a little bit moreattention to um well, I think
everybody kind of gets lost inthe weeds whenever those things
are happening.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I don't know that I've ever talked with anybody
that was in the middle of acrisis that you know was able to
say, well, I saw this comingbecause I knew that.
You know, I had starteddrinking more, or I knew that
I'd started doing X, y or Z moredrinking more, or I knew that
I'd started doing X, y or Z more.
You know, it's that old thewhole forest for the trees kind
(37:13):
of thing.
And it really does becomedifficult to see when you're on
the downside of that slope andyou're starting to get on to the
point where you start to spiral.
When you're in the middle of itit's hard to see that.
And then you add on to thatthat when you're in the middle
of it, it's hard to see a pointwhere there's an out, to, where
(37:34):
you don't have to feel like thatanymore.
And you know you mentionedcalling your mom and having a
significant other and havingkids, and then we talked about
the coping mechanisms.
What was your support structure?
You know, obviously you hadcoworkers.
You at least had one coworkerthat you know was bringing it to
(37:56):
your mind to.
You know, at least try to bringsome kind of consciousness to
it.
But what was your, aside frombeing able to call and talk with
your mom, what was your supportstructure like, aside from
being able to call and talk withyour mom, what was your support
structure like when you were,when you were really starting to
get into this, and and it hadto be pointed out to you.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
What was it like then ?
So the support structure atwork was, was not good.
So I was working graves at thetime and I was.
I was at the point that I wasI'm trying not to, I'm trying
(38:41):
not to put the work, myworkplace, down too, badly, but
well, it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
It's a cultural thing in our field, whether it's
working, your aspect of it,working the law enforcement,
fire, ems it's something thatI've noticed in, you know, the
19 years that I've done it.
It's a cultural thing.
Everybody's tough, Everybody,you know, can handle everything
that comes at them and, you know, not flinch.
(39:12):
And it's because we're expectedto be those individuals that
this doesn't phase.
We're expected to be, you know,10 foot tall and bulletproof,
and because we have thatperception that people, you know
, think that we are that way,then we have to now start acting
that way, and often enough, itcauses us to be blind to seeing
(39:35):
the signs of a coworker that isstarting to go downhill, or a
coworker that is starting tolose a grip and instead of
reaching out, going.
And instead of reaching outgoing hey, you need a chance to
talk, you know it's.
Hey, you good, all right, yougot another call, you know.
So it's a cultural thing andthat's one of the biggest things
(40:01):
of what we're trying to do andwhy I'm so glad that you reached
out is it's a cultural thingthat we're trying to shift.
It's something, and it's notjust in our line of work and
public safety in general, it'sfor everyone it's everyone in
the mental health space ofthings to change and get to
realize that, at the end of theday, we're all just humans.
(40:23):
We're all just people.
We all feel and experiencethings the same way.
It's just how we manage themand how we deal with them that's
different.
And that's what that's.
What this is all about is tryingto to do just that, to to make
that cultural shift, to get awayfrom the macho machismo kind of
oh nothing can hurt me kind ofthing and hurt me kind of thing.
(40:51):
So you know, it's not puttingyour workplace down, it's not
putting your co-workers down,it's just a cultural truth.
You know we say it all the timethat facts don't care about
feelings.
And it's a fact.
It's a fact that it's acultural issue on why these
things aren't picked up, whythese things aren't seen, why
help isn't offered.
And it's not to demean anybodyor to demean a workplace,
(41:13):
because it's just simply thatit's a fact.
And until we can get thatcultural shift, until we can get
everybody to realize that, look, you know we're all just people
.
You know we're going to fightagainst that.
And if somebody does get upsetabout it, oh, you're talking bad
about the job.
You're talking about the people.
You know we're going to fightagainst that.
And if somebody does get upsetabout it, oh, you're talking bad
about the job.
You're talking about the people.
They don't understand it.
They don't understand it andthey're not ready to understand
(41:35):
it, because if they were, theytake the time to listen.
So feel free to express ithowever you need to.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
So it it was to the point that I would stay late.
My boss didn't come in untilabout nine in the morning and I
was on graves.
I would have to stay late inorder for me to see her face and
her energy, so that I wouldknow whether or not I was okay
in her eyes.
(42:05):
The stress my stress level wasso was so much that I was afraid
that I was, that I was going tobe in trouble or be fired, like
I just had no clue where Istood because I was in so much
fear, and I think that was a lotof of the mental illness.
(42:25):
At that point I was justgrounding in in fear and panic,
because that's kind of the waythat that, that they, that that
the office was run and um, soand there's a lot of money is
(42:49):
more important than well-being.
So we don't stay late to talkto coworkers about how we're
dealing with cases, becausethat's money case if it's not,
(43:13):
if it's not about, like, askinga question logistically.
You know I'm having troublewith this case, jen, because
this reminds me of my mom orsomething like that.
That's, that's not acceptable.
Um, so I did have a friend.
Um, I had a couple of friends,very good friends, that were my
coworkers, but I was one of thesenior investigators.
Well, I was.
(43:34):
I had my boss, and then it wasme, and so a lot of the
investigators I trained wellmost of them and they came to me
and so I tried to give them theemotional support that they
needed, whether I was gettingpaid for it or not.
So I tried to be the buffer tomy superior for them.
(43:57):
So I stayed as long as I couldto try to be that support that
they needed, because a lot ofthem were so much younger than
me and had such less experiencein the field and I didn't want
them exposed to that kind ofmachismo.
This is what you asked for, thisis what you signed up for.
(44:19):
What the fuck?
What the fuck did you expectyou were getting?
And you know I'm cursing,because that's what we are,
that's what we do.
This is what you asked for.
You know, don't come to me andtell me that this bothers you.
You know I'm sorry that that guylooks identical to your dad
that just died two days ago.
But go to work.
This was.
You know.
This is what I'm, this is whatwe deal with, and I'm being
(44:43):
absolutely honest with you.
You know, I went to.
I went to work a week after andthis guy is laying on the floor
and he's identical to my dadand I'm training a new
investigator and luckily, thatinvestigator became a friend of
mine and I went to him and Isaid I need to walk away for a
minute.
Just, you know, just help thesepeople.
(45:06):
And I went and walked away andI did what I needed to do and I
never cry I mean, I've dug myfingernails into my hand so that
I didn't cry before on a sceneand I walked away and I came
back and then we talked laterand I was like I'm sorry, I had
to just deal with that.
This is what happened, you know, this is you know, and then.
You know, this is you know, andthen.
But that is what, and I'm gladthat's why I answered your email
(45:32):
, because that's what we need todo.
If there was more compassion toan investigator, we wouldn't
have all of these stressed out,mean investigators, cold hearted
, drunk people.
You know we would.
We would want to work longhours to help families to, you
(45:56):
know, to to deal with these.
We would be more available tohelp families if we were more
available to help each other,but we're not given time to help
each other, because that's whatyou signed up for.
You know, I I stayed late oneday because this one, this very
young investigator, got a justbrutal, brutal child homicide
(46:18):
and I could see it all over her,and so I stayed late because
she was supposed to stay late tohelp with the autopsy and I
stayed late just to stay withher.
I didn't stay late to be, Iwanted to be there for her, and
whether she knew that or not, Iwill never know, but that's what
we need in every single officeis someone that is there for the
(46:43):
investigator.
But here's another aspect ofpart of what I'm learning as a
death investigator, trying toget help with my mental illness
from being a death investigatoris that I traumatize.
I traumatize therapists bytelling my trauma, you know, and
(47:05):
I've heard it called traumadumping and and that you know
I'm like I'm not trying totrauma dump, but, um, how do I
not traumatize other people byby getting help?
Right, yeah, but who better tohelp a death investigator than
someone who has been there?
So, and also, who better tohelp someone who is, who has
(47:29):
been suicidal, than someone whohas been suicidal?
Speaker 1 (47:33):
yeah, so you know, people, people often forget that
.
You know our, our field is asubculture of society.
You know they, they, they oftenyou know oh well, you only talk
to yourselves, you've got darksense of humor, you do this, you
do that and they forget that.
(47:53):
You know it's its ownsubculture in and of itself.
And it's that way because noteverybody can handle what we see
, not everybody can handle whatwe do, and that's okay.
Not everybody should have to beable to handle these things.
But they forget that it's asubculture in and of itself.
(48:15):
And then we forget, once we'rein that subculture, we forget
that we are just people, people,and you know it's.
I don't know, you know I don'tknow how it is anywhere else.
(48:36):
I know how it is here.
There's, like you said in theemail, you know there's not,
there's not a great deal ofspecialized resources.
Obviously there's.
There's a plethora of resourcesin general to help with mental
health and things like that, andthey're all a starting place.
But until we can getindividuals who are more
(48:58):
specialized in dealing withthings like that, you know it's
going to be difficult.
You know, at least off the topof my mind, and I've been out of
the field of study for quitesome time now.
But in my understanding youknow about as close as we're
(49:18):
going to get to having some formof therapeutic counseling and
things like that.
It's going to be to reach out tothe same individuals that are
doing the counseling for ourmilitary vets who are coming
back from these combat zones andseeing these things.
But even then, you know it'ssaid that that's not enough for
(49:41):
them.
So until we're at a point wherewe can get these specialized
individuals that are used to andaccustomed to hearing these
types of stories, you know it'sgoing to, it's going to largely
rely on those of us that are inthe job to be able to sit there
(50:03):
and help each other out.
You know I receive phone callsand or I receive phone calls and
or other communications,whether it's a text message or
what have you.
I receive them from individualsthat I work with that you know
(50:27):
need to reach out.
So it gets.
It gets to the point where youknow at least they've got
somebody.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
So, and that's what I , I, I just learned that one of
my you know I don't, I haven'tworked since October of 22, but
I still communicate with somepeople in the field and you know
there are people that are inthe field for three years that
are starting to have PTSDsymptoms and you know they're
(50:58):
telling me thank you, because ifyou weren't so open with what
you went through and what you'regoing through, then we wouldn't
have known that this is whatthis is what we're going through
.
And, um, you know, I, I foundout that one of my friends went
(51:20):
to a scene and the guy was stillalive and I, you know that was
one of my biggest fears on sceneis that happening?
And nothing was ever done.
And I'm like, please, somebodylike care about the investing.
Like I just want to scream itfrom the rooftops that that we
(51:41):
need help, that we can't just,we can't just wait until we're
we're killing ourselves, likeyou know so when I saw your
video I thought, man, this isperfect because I, I this is
what I want to do.
I think that it's going to.
It's going to end up being mycalling is being somebody that
(52:05):
can help other people that arein this field.
You know, I can't lift bodiesanymore.
My body is broken from all theodd.
You know I have a lot ofautoimmune diseases that I'm
fighting and I can't.
My brain just can't do itanymore physically.
But there's a lot of peoplethat need, that need help, that
(52:32):
are still struggling and seeingthis stuff every day and and
there's nobody that evenrecognizes that they're
struggling.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
You know, yeah so, um , you had said that you came
home after work and you had anattempt, and that you had also
said that, that I'm assumingthat that, from what I'm
understanding what you're saying, that wasn't your first one,
that that you had attemptedseveral times, or at least a
couple more times prior to thatand, you know, didn't go through
(53:04):
with it.
In in all, if you're okay withit and you can, you can tell me
you don't want to discuss it.
That's fine.
How many times would you saythat you attempted it before you
actually went through, you know, trying to get to that end?
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Dozens, and I don't have a gun Right, so that's
probably a lucky, that'sprobably luck, um, and?
And I'm a death investigator.
So I, I, you know, I, I, I, Idon't know really how the word
(53:55):
is that I'm trying to.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
I wish I knew how to ask for help, and I wish I knew
that it was okay to ask for help, and I wish I knew that it was
okay to ask for help.
And I wish I knew that it wouldhave been okay to call in and
say I can't come to work becauseI'd rather die, and for someone
(54:27):
to say, come in and let me helpyou.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
But it wasn't and it still isn't.
I think we'll get there.
Sadly, it takes moments likethose and moments like these to
help get to that point.
Here in our state we've gotwhat's called peer support
(54:55):
counseling.
now and actually actually, nextmonth I was selected to go to
one of the peer supportcounseling courses.
So next month I'll be.
I'll be going to a peer supportcounseling course that will get
me a certification as acounselor in that regard, and
(55:17):
what they do a lot of is offerwhat they call debriefs and in
those debriefs is you know, theyinvite everybody that was
involved in a traumatic incident, whether it was a homicide,
whether it was a car crash,whatever the case may have been,
any situation or incident thatthey deem as a trauma incident.
(55:40):
They put together one of thesedebriefs.
One of the peer supportcounselors comes in and
everybody that was involved orthat knew about it, whatever the
case was, they show up and thenthey have a process that they
go through to help work throughthat scene, help work through
(56:00):
that incident, and it giveseverybody a chance to see you
know that they aren't the onlyones that felt something about
that particular case In specific, and the reason why I know you
know as much as I do about it isbecause I sat through at least
one of those debriefs and itinvolved the death of a small
(56:22):
child.
It was an unintentional death,it was a traumatic death for her
, but in that situation it wasone of those ones that you know,
while we're in the middle ofthe scene trying to, you know,
secure scenes and and try tosave a life and doing everything
that we can, um, you know, youdon't think about a lot of stuff
(56:45):
, you're just going through anddoing the job.
You're solving one problemafter the next, and it wasn't
until afterwards where, you know, we're waiting on a search
warrant to get there so that theinvestigators can do their job
and we're holding the crimescene at this point and I'm
sitting there and I look down atmy hands and I'm notorious.
(57:06):
I'm really, really bad aboutremembering to put gloves on and
in this situation, especiallyinvolving this child, you know,
it's another one of those oneswhere I didn't think about
putting gloves on.
I just went to work, but I'msitting in my car and I looked
at my hands and I noticed thatmy hands were red and my brain
told me that the reason why myhands are red is because I was
(57:28):
working on this small child,trying to help save her life,
and I've got her blood on myhands, so I got some water and
some cleaner and I washed myhands.
When I look back at my handsand it was still there.
It wasn't going anywhere.
So I'm getting more stuff, morewater.
I'm just doing everything I canand it's just not coming off.
So I start going toinvestigators.
(57:49):
Whether it was a crime sceneinvestigator, whether it was a
general crimes investigator thatwas on scene, I'm going to them
.
Hey, do y'all have some soap?
I need some legitimate soap.
I've got this blood on my handsand I need to get it off.
Nobody had any.
So I'm like you know what?
I got a case of water in there.
I'm just going to go throughevery bottle in that case that I
can.
And I'm sitting there juststeadily pouring water on my
hands.
And I'm sitting there juststeadily pouring water on my
(58:10):
hands, trying to get the bloodoff of my hands.
And it wasn't until, you know,moments later that I was able to
shine the light on my hands andI realized that, you know,
there wasn't any blood on myhands, it was just.
You know, my hands were red nowbecause I'd been sitting there
washing them for 10 minutes, butthere was no blood on my hands.
(58:31):
It was my mind doing this to me.
So when they offered up thatdebrief, I went to the debrief,
you know, because obviously thatwas a moment for me where I'm
like, wow, this one, this oneaffected me and you know it
affected others that were onthat scene.
One of my best friends, mybrother, you know he was on that
(58:53):
scene.
He didn't go to the debrief andhe and I talked about it
afterwards.
He said you know I should havegone, I should have gone, that
one broke me up, that one toreme up and I should have gone to
that debrief.
Of course you know I'm going togive him crap about it.
I'm like duh, I told you youshould have gone, but you know
(59:15):
you were too big to go.
So, like I said, I think we'regoing to see that change as it's
going to start happening.
I don't know how long it's goingto take to get across the
country, but I know at leasthere in Southeast Georgia, you
know they've started that peersupport counseling and that's
one of the reasons for it is tomake sure that you know
everybody's on the same page,that we all know that, look, we
(59:36):
all experience something andit's OK if it affects us, and
then at the same time, it givesus a moment to get that stuff
off of our chest and then, inreturn, not only do we get to
see our other co-workers and seethat we're not the only ones,
but that peer support counselorhas resources available for us.
(59:58):
That way, if it comes to a point, if it comes to a point where
you know we can't deal with itanymore, then we have these
resources that they provide forus that will allow us to, you
know, continue getting thatsupport we need so that we can
(01:00:18):
move through it.
Like I said, I think we'regoing to get there.
I don't know how long it'sgoing to take to get across the
country, but I think we're goingto get there.
At least I hope we can.
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Yeah, we've.
I was a suicide interventionistfor many years.
I trained as a suicideinterventionist.
I was a crisis interventionistfor the San Diego Police
Department, so I would go to thecrime scenes.
(01:00:48):
I volunteered to do that.
Crime scenes I was, Ivolunteered to do that, so I did
a lot of.
I did a lot of that.
And then I I did see a lot ofthe police departments having
debriefings, like you said, butthe coroner's office, the
medical examiner's office, werenever invited to those.
(01:01:09):
So I would I would like you tokind of think about that If, if,
you could at least invite them,they probably won't go because
and I even said that in some ofmy TikTok videos like, I know
that you guys are going to bethe last ones that want me to
say that we need to be invited.
But because we, we want, wewant to be, we want to think
(01:01:34):
that we're strong too, like we,we signed up for this.
I don't, I don't need to talkabout death, I don't, but we do
like, right, they, they, youknow.
And the place that I worked,they said, well, we had, you
know.
Hr told me well, we have someonethat you can talk to.
You know, we have someone.
You just go over the policedepartment and you can talk to
him.
Well, they had just implementedhim and the last part, the last
(01:01:58):
job that he was was internalaffairs and I'm sorry, I'm just
not, I don't, I'm not going togo to the internal affairs guy
to talk to him about the stressthat my boss is putting on me
about my my.
You know it's like sorry, thisis so um, but I would like.
(01:02:19):
I think I've probablyinvestigated somewhere around
10,000 deaths in my career and,um, maybe invited to one
debriefing in my career.
So, um, one debriefing in mycareer?
(01:02:41):
So um, they're not, they don't.
Death is not invited to theprogram usually, so I would like
to.
I would like to kind of.
I would love to see that openedup to the coroners, but it's
not usually.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Debriefings are not usually, and I think that the
medical examiners and coronersalso believe that they don't
need them either.
So it's a tough group.
We's a we're a tough crowd, butI think you're right.
I think that the, I think thatit, that mental health is is
(01:03:21):
getting um, is getting its ownplace in the world, um, you're
not gonna there.
There's just not going to be uma way to ignore it.
You know, for for much longer,because the, the, the atmosphere
(01:03:42):
is, is the environment is onlygoing to get younger and and
they're getting louder, you know.
So us old people I know you'renot old, but me old people,
we're we're going to be phasingout, and then you're going to
have people that are like no, weneed help, like you can't treat
us like this anymore.
We're like you could treat ushowever you want to treat us,
but as people get old, you knowthe younger people are coming in
(01:04:05):
.
They don't, they're not goingto let them treat.
Treat them like we have, likedon't beat us up anymore.
Yeah, so I hope that whatyou're doing, you know bringing
light to mental health and firstresponders like we've, we've
fought a good fight, but it, youknow, we don't need to be
treated like this anymore and we, we should, we should be able
(01:04:32):
to not be okay with what we'vedone in our.
You know I jumped into freezingwater and saved a drowning child
and you know I never told asoul.
You know I it doesn't.
I don't do it just to to youknow, I don't know, I don't know
what I'm saying.
I just Just to you know, Idon't know, I don't know what
I'm saying.
(01:04:55):
I just it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
It's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot,
it's a lot for anybody.
And when you look back over thestatistics and those of us that
work in the profession, we'reexponentially higher exposed to
these traumatic incidents.
You know, fortunately theresearch is out there now.
(01:05:17):
Fortunately, you know it'sstarting to be noticed and catch
on.
So, yeah, you know, hopefullyit can get there for everybody.
Hopefully we can get that wordout, get there for everybody,
hopefully we can get that wordout.
And it's moments like this,jennifer, that you know really
kind of help move that needle,you know, toward where we need
(01:05:39):
it to be.
Because you know, witheverything you went through,
with the dozens of attempts andeverything that you still fight
and deal with today, you knowyou saw that little video and
were able to find the courage inyourself to come on something.
And while this podcast may notbe very big and it may not have
(01:06:02):
very many listeners, you'restill putting it out there and
we all know that oncesomething's on the internet,
it's there forever.
And you found the courage toreach out first and foremost,
which is a huge step for anybodythat's dealing with any type of
traumatic incident, traumaticgrief.
You know any kind of ideations.
(01:06:22):
That's a huge step for anybodyjust to reach out alone.
A lot of people don't make itto that step.
So the fact that you were ableto find that courage, reach out
and then be so generous andwilling to come on my podcast
and give your story, it's thingslike that that help move that
(01:06:45):
needle.
It's the fact that, like youwere talking about with the
younger generations, them notbeing quiet, it's us not being
quiet about it anymore.
It's us not sitting back andsaying it's fine, it's fine, you
know it's about yeah, okay.
It's about us getting out andfinally going.
You know what it's not okay.
(01:07:05):
This is messed up, what we seeis messed up, what we experience
is messed and it's not okay.
But the fact that it's not okayit's okay.
And as long as we all start torealize that, as long as we all
start to come together not justthose of us in the profession,
but people in general start tocome together in that respect
(01:07:31):
and start to give just a littleiota of care towards their
fellow person, you know we'regoing to start to make a
difference.
And those of us in the publicsafety community, those of us
working in this field, you knowit's us taking that chance to
reach out.
You know, even if you havenever had the counseling and the
(01:07:54):
treatment and the training tospeak to somebody, you know you
see a co-worker, a brother, asister, you know, obviously
having some kind of an issuewith something, just taking that
time to go.
Hey, you okay, do you need totalk?
Do you want to talk?
Even if you don't ask to talk,sometimes all you got to do is
(01:08:15):
just crack the door and peopleopen the rest of the way up.
You just got to give a chancefor it.
So I think we'll get there.
And you know there's so muchmore we could try to sit here
and talk about.
There's so much more that wecould go into, but there's not
enough time in the day.
I don't think between you and Iboth, with you having 20 years
in it, me working 19 years in itI don't think there's enough
(01:08:38):
time in the day for us to beable to get through it all
without it turning into just a,you know, constant war story
back and forth kind of situation.
So with that, you know, we'llgo ahead and close out the
podcast.
But again, I want to tell you somuch, jennifer, that that I
greatly appreciate you coming onand I admire and appreciate the
(01:09:01):
courage that it took for you toreach out to me, someone you
don't know, on the differentside of the country than you are
and doing a different part ofthe job and in a different place
in life.
You took that chance and Ican't tell you how much I
appreciate that and hopefullythis video can get out there and
(01:09:23):
it can foster that in someoneelse, that it can give someone
else the courage that they canhear your story and they can
feel emboldened and find thatcourage within themselves to to
reach out.
Even if it's not to the podcast, even if it's not to me, it'll
give them the courage to reachout and realize that you know
they're not okay and they needto try to start working on
(01:09:46):
themselves a little bit.
So I greatly appreciate thatand thank you so much for for
sharing with us and for comingon and helping us move this
needle in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Well, I wanted to thank you.
I really appreciate what you'redoing.
I am on TikTok if anyone iswanting to reach out, if anyone
needs help, if they're a deathinvestigator or anything.
If anyone needs help, um, ifthey're a death investigator or
or anything, if they need help.
I'm um at death chronicles, ontech talk and, um, I am, I am
(01:10:24):
getting better.
I am not suicidal.
I um, I have found things thathave made me want to live and we
do get better.
So I just wanted to say thatand we do survive and thank you
for your service and Iappreciate you and all you do
(01:10:45):
and we are going to make.
We are going to make the worldbetter.
Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
So thank you, Guys.
That's going to wrap up thisepisode.
I appreciate you giving us yourtime, I appreciate you taking
the time to listen to Jennifer'sstory and I hope especially if
you're someone that's dealingwith something like this I hope
that her story can help give youthe courage to speak out to
(01:11:10):
somebody to me, to her, to afriend.
Speak out to somebody Because,at the end of the day, we are
human and things aren't okay,but it can be okay.
So until next time, guys.
I appreciate you, Stay safe,Catch you on the next one.
Bye.
Team 1, stand by.
Copy.
Team 1, standing by Breach,breach, breach.
Hey guys, welcome back to theshow.
So today is actually a prettyspecial episode because what
we've got in store is one ofyour own.
(00:23):
What we've got in store is oneof your own, if you all remember
, a little while back I put outa call to action, because it's
hard to just give my side ofstories and things like that and
y'all be able to associate withwhat I'm saying.
So what we did was put out thatcall to action and I got a lot
(00:46):
of responses.
A lot of you went out andmessaged me and were telling me
brief portions of your story andthings like that, but for one
reason or another, we were neverable to connect.
Well, the guest that we have onthe show today was just like
that.
She saw the call to action andunfortunately, at that moment
(01:08):
she wasn't ready to reach out.
And now she is.
So she found the courage withinherself and decided to open
herself up to the world so thatshe could share her story in
hopes of getting other people torealize that it's okay,
everything's going to be okay,you can be okay.
(01:30):
So, with 20 years working insome aspect of public safety and
going through her own story.
I won't sit here and go muchfurther into that, and I will
let her do that for herself.
So, without further ado,everybody meet Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Hey everybody, my name is Jennifer.
This is the first time I'veever done a podcast.
I saw Breach on TikTok andreached out and it did take me a
little bit to finally send thatemail to do this.
I call myself a deathinvestigator, but we're medical
(02:20):
legal death investigators,coroner, deputy coroners,
medical specialists, medicalexaminer specialists we get
called by all different namesbut we are the last of the first
responders and also pardon mysnoring dogs if you hear that in
(02:41):
the background, but I worked inthe death investigation field
from 2001 until 2022.
And I've worked from Boston toended in Colorado, Ended in
(03:04):
Colorado and I've worked allover the.
United States working indifferent systems, between the
coroner system and the medicalexaminer system, working with
different agencies, differentsystems.
So I do have I don't know, Idon't know what information to
(03:41):
give you.
Um, I got two, uh, bachelor'sdegrees.
Then I went into thecriminology field and I did an
internship in Florida and we hadlike five homicides in a week
and the medical examinerinvestigator came in and I was
doing an internship with thecrime scene technicians and with
(04:06):
the police department and wewere there for hours just like
vacuuming square inches andputting it into evidence, little
evidence envelopes, and youknow you can't go to the
bathroom and there's just somuch.
So the medical examinerinvestigator came in and we
showed her the luminol and weshowed her all the cool stuff
(04:28):
that we found and she looked atthe body and took the decedent
and that was when I decidedthat's what I wanted to do.
And so then I went and finishedmy internship and got my second
bachelor's degree and then wentand got my master's degree in
forensic science.
(04:48):
And back in 1999, there wereactually only two universities
that had forensic sciencedegrees for a master's.
So it was John Jay in nationalin New York and a national
Jewish in San Diego.
(05:09):
So that's where I went in SanDiego, and and then my first job
was in Boston.
Right.
And I was a forensic tech doingautopsies.
So that's what I did firstdoing autopsies.
So that's what I did first andI did autopsies.
I was actually in Boston when Iheard about 9-11.
(05:32):
And so that was my first.
That was my first, you know,learning about mass disasters
and all of that there.
And you know, being around a lotof law enforcement and 9-11 all
at the same time was just mindblowing, because there is a
(05:54):
World Trade Center in Boston.
So initially I thought that'swhat they were talking about.
I mean, it was just you know alot going on.
It was just you know a lotgoing on.
And we actually had EMTs thatwere we were, we were training
them on autopsies at that timeand we were down in the autopsy
(06:20):
suite and we really weren'tgetting a lot of information
about what was happening, and soit was a lot um, well, before
you really jump into much moreof that, let's uh, you know, one
of the big things that that Ilike to talk about, um, and I
think gets ignored a lot, is aperson's resiliency.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You know, their ability to use resilience to get
through things.
And what people often forgetabout is that resilience isn't
something that just happens toyou.
It's not something that happensto you in a moment.
That your resiliency issomething that you build
throughout your entire life.
Every moment, every situation,everything you go through in
(07:01):
life helps build your resilienceand how you deal with
situations moving forward.
And what I want to do real quickis I want us to get a feeling
or a sense of who Jennifer is,who you are, and by that I mean
let's take a couple of stepsback and let's go back to, if
(07:22):
you're okay with it, let's goback to you know childhood.
Where'd you grow up?
What kind of life did you have?
Some experiences that you wentthrough or you know, and they
don't have to be traumatic.
You know just anything ingeneral.
But let's get the backstory onwho you are and work forward so
(07:42):
that we can show, because,obviously, working in death
investigations, being a coroneror medical examiner.
You know that's not somethingfor everybody.
Me particular, I'm not a bigfan of working that aspect.
So even though I've done thejob for 19 years, it's still an
(08:02):
area I'm not comfortable in.
So I have a lot of respect forpeople that do.
But my upbringing andeverything has brought me to
where I am.
So I want to take a couple ofsteps back to see where Jennifer
come from, how you came up inlife, to where you got to the
point where you were able toexperience that first crime
(08:24):
scene and decide you know what.
This is where I want to go,this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, that's kind of a lot too.
So I'm actually.
I was born in Key West Florida.
I'm a twin.
I was born seven minutes aftermy twin sister, wendy, and we
grew up in Florida.
I was born actually very sickand by the time I was nine
(08:57):
months old they had flown aspecialist in and I was
diagnosed with asthma, which in1976, they didn't diagnose
children with asthma.
So this doctor said that shewould take care of me if my
family moved to where she wasfrom.
(09:18):
So we did, we moved to Sarasota, florida, and she took care of
me and she fought, she foughtfor me.
She was pretty certain that Ihad cystic fibrosis and so she.
I was in and out of the hospital.
I pretty much I pretty much saythat I grew up in the hospital.
(09:38):
If I wasn't sick, I was gettingsick.
So I would, I would.
I would be a normal kid for alittle while and then I would
get sick, and then I would go inthe hospital and I would get on
very high doses of prednisone,which is a steroid, and
antibiotics and I would getbetter, and then I would go back
(09:59):
out and be a regular kid for acouple weeks and then I would
get sick again and then go backin the hospital.
So I had a pretty hardchildhood with that, but my
parents tried to give me thebest childhood they could, given
(10:20):
that I was pretty sick.
So being resilient wasn'tsomething that I had a choice
with.
It was pretty much what I hadto do.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So did they ever tell you what it was that was
causing you to get so sick, orwas it just like an autoimmune
thing?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It took 28 years for them to finally figure.
It took 28 years for a for adoctor to finally say I'm going
to try to figure it out.
Um, they actually flew me tonational Jewish when I was about
19.
Um, and they too still couldn'tfigure it out.
Uh, but they did finally figureit out when I was about 28.
(11:05):
And it was an immune deficiency.
It's called common variableimmune deficiency.
And when they started treatingme appropriately, it was like a
light switch and I didn't getsick with pneumonia as much as I
was, because that's what was.
That was what I would getpneumonia and that would trigger
(11:26):
my asthma and then the asthmawould get worse.
So once the asthma was better,once the pneumonia was under
control and I wasn't gettingsick, then it was better.
But then the autoimmune theautoimmune started taking over
because the the immune, it wasjust a very, a very big snowball
(11:48):
effect.
So then I started developingautoimmune diseases, so yeah,
and that took 28 years for themto get to that point.
Yes.
So it took 28 years for them tofinally figure out and and and.
In the interim I was on very,very high doses of steroids, um,
(12:08):
which causes a lot of umproblems in and of itself, which
they didn't really understanduntil many years later.
So, um, so you have to add allof the all of the illnesses and
you know, basically, as a child,every day waking up could have
(12:32):
been the day that the asthma wasgoing to kill me.
So I was fighting death daily,um, you know, learning to
breathe without wheezing orhaving people hear me wheeze,
because that's very annoying topeople after a while is, you
know, you have to learn to kindof, you know, deal with that
(12:56):
kind of stuff.
So it was, it was, it was hard,but my parents tried to do the
best they could and give me thebest life that they could, as
normal as possible with what Iwas going through.
And so going to college was onmy radar.
You know, I was like if I'mgoing to live, I better do
(13:19):
something with my life, you know, and even the doctors said you
know like you can go ondisability.
You know like you can go ondisability, but I'm like I'm not
doing that you know.
I knew I was a pretty smartperson.
I wanted to be a doctor.
I knew the medical field.
Um, you know specifically lungs.
(13:39):
I've had a pretty good ideaabout the lungs.
But I saw one time I don't knowhow old you are, but I saw
Rescue 911 when I was a kid.
I don't know if you rememberthat show.
I remember it.
The one guy was stabbed in thechest by his girlfriend and when
(13:59):
he was being put in theambulance the knife was
pulsating with his heartbeat.
And.
I went in the bathroom andthrew up and my dad was like
you're never going to be adoctor.
So you know I was like, well,okay, but I know I probably
could have done it, you know,given what I've done in my life
(14:20):
now.
But the student loans are alittle bit crazy.
So I'm glad I didn't do that soanyways, being resilient was
pretty, it was, you know, wasdefinitely something I had to do
and I was always interested in,you know, the putting the
(14:43):
puzzle together and you know thecrime scenes when I was doing
the um, when I was going to thecrime scenes with the crime
scene techs and, you know,walking in.
I remember my first, you knowone of my first scenes in Boston
and when I was working inBoston they didn't have like
(15:04):
death investigators, the policedid all of the death scene
investigations.
We were kind of just thetransporters and the autopsy
techs.
But I remember walking in oneof the first scenes and somebody
was hogtied with and I don'tknow how detailed I can be,
you'll have to cut me off if Iget too detailed but I remember
(15:28):
walking down the stairs into thebasement thinking this is a
movie, like I had to.
I had to take a deep breath andrealize that this is real, this
is somebody's you know husband,that's you know been killed.
And and is this really what I'mgoing to be doing?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
with my life.
You know, like so, how old wereyou when you, when you got
experienced that and when youwere in Boston?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Um, let's see Um early, early to mid-20s.
It was around 2001, so I wouldhave been 24, somewhere around
there.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Okay, so sufficient to say that up until that point
you hadn't really done anythingthat you know kind of prepared
you to walk in and see somethinglike that.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, I mean I had, I mean I'd already gotten my
master's degree and we weredoing you know, I, when I was
doing my master's.
We were, we were learning fromadjunct professors.
It wasn't a normal universitywhere, you know, we were going
during the day.
We were learning from peoplelike you and you and I that were
still in the field.
(16:50):
And so we were seeing realphotos of actual scenes that
they were doing.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So seeing the pictures and then seeing it
firsthand, was there adifference?
Speaker 2 (17:04):
in the feel for it.
Yeah, of course, of course, ofcourse.
And then the undergrad.
I did see it in person becauseI did go to autopsies and I did
the few homicides that we did.
I did the the few homicidesthat we did on but but, but the
(17:31):
brutality of that scene at thatage in Boston was something that
I had and there was so much ofit, like the amount of brutality
, like I can't even I I'mthinking of probably 10 scenes
in that first year that werejust unimaginable at that age
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So when you started college I know you said you
wanted to be a doctor.
So when you started college,did you go into college thinking
I want to be a doctor andthat's what I'm going?
Or did you want to be a doctorand then start college thinking
that I want to go into somethingto do with criminology and the
I'll say public safety, but moreor less the public safety field
(18:13):
?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I never went.
When I went to college, I knewI was not going to be a doctor.
Okay, I intended to go into theFBI to be a forensic
psychologist, like the FBIprofiling.
This was back in like 94, 95,when none of this was on TV,
(18:41):
none of this was known.
But that's what I wanted to doand I had a college I don't
remember what they're called.
But you'd like the career peopleand they're like you can't just
go to the FBI out of college,you have to, like have a career.
And you know, you can't justwalk into the FBI and say I want
(19:03):
to do this and so what are yougoing to do in the interim?
And I'm like I don't know.
So that's how.
So that's when I was like, well, I'll do, maybe I'll do the
evidence tech.
And then I did the undergradevidence tech ride along.
So I'm like, oh my God, this isreally tedious and you're not
(19:26):
really putting puzzle piecestogether Really.
You're just collecting anythingyou can find and I'm not
putting them down at all.
Their job is absolutely 100%needed and I I just it wasn't
for me, you know, um, so so I.
(19:46):
So I went to do something in thecriminology field from day one.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Okay, okay, so you did the, would you say it would
be more like a coroner aspect ofit that you did first, or a
medical examiner aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
In college or when I first went into the field.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
When you finally got done and went into the field and
started working.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I was in the medical examiner system first.
Yeah, so you know, the countryis split up into medical
examiner, coroner system, andthen there's a few states that
still have both.
That's what I was going to sayis here we work.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
You know, obviously in my area we're in southeast
Georgia, the coroner, and thecoroner shows up and then he
winds up photographing andbasically trying to investigate
anything himself.
And then he will get in contactwith the state medical
examiner's office, which is runby the Georgia Bureau of
(20:56):
Investigations here.
He will get on the phone withthem and let them know what he's
got and then they'll make adetermination on whether or not,
yes, we're going to do anautopsy, no, we're not going to
do an autopsy.
And if it's, you know, if it'syes, then you know it's his
responsibility to collect thisevidence, put it in the bag and
properly tag the bag so that itcan go to the examiner's office.
(21:19):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
So you must have a mixed system.
If you have both a medicalexaminer and a coroner person
that you're dealing with, youhave a mixed system, but most
states have one or the other.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Our coroner.
I don't know exactly how manyareas he covers he's got a few
deputy coroners as well but heis the one that responds to the
scene with us on any kind ofincident like that, and then the
decision is made at that pointwhether or not to send them to
the medical examiner's office orsend them straight to the
(21:59):
funeral home and bypass all ofthe other stuff.
At least that's how it workshere.
So I was curious how it waswhen you were in the funeral
home and bypass all of the otherstuff.
So at least that's how it workshere.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So I was curious how it was when you were in the
field.
It depends on the system, andthis is something that needs to
be discussed nationally becauseit's a broken system.
But you and I aren't going tochange that system, um, in one
(22:30):
conversation.
But, um, it really depends onthe rural.
You know how big the area is,um, is it cause, you know, like
in New Mexico, it's state butthen there's, you know, so most
all autopsies go to Albuquerque,but they have depth, you know
(22:50):
it.
It it's run differentlyeverywhere.
So, um, some places have a core, one corner per County, and
then some have, um, one medicalexaminer for 40 counties and
then they all go to one.
So it's broken.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right so, but you've done both aspects of what
you were saying, or you juststuck mainly or primarily to the
medical examiner side of it orprimarily to the medical
examiner side of it.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I did mostly medical examiner.
The coroner system was the lastone that I worked at and so and
let me just explain to peoplewho may not know the difference
the coroner is elected by thepeople, so coroners are elected
predominantly.
You can have an appointedcoroner, but usually coroners
(23:50):
are elected Medical examiners.
They have to be physicians,they have to be doctors and
forensic pathologists, so theyhave to not only be a doctor but
also be a forensic pathologistand have gone through that
specialized training.
A coroner can be anybody.
They can be you or me or youknow some lay person off the
(24:14):
street that is elected by thepeople for that county.
They could have no experiencewhatsoever in the field.
Medical examiners obviously have, you know, experience in the
field, but they may not havedeath investigator experience.
So then the medical examinershire death investigators to do
(24:34):
the scene investigations and tohelp make determinations.
Like the death investigatorsare the eyes and ears for the
medical examiners on scene.
Are, you know, at the autopsy?
Okay, so that's just kind ofkind of a really quick and dirty
explanation for the differencebetween the two systems.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
All right.
And you said you did that for20 years.
And you said you ended Ended upin Colorado.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, yeah so.
I ended up in Colorado inSeptember of 2016.
And in October of 22, Iattempted suicide on after work
one night, and that was my lastnight in the field.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So you were in Colorado when that happened.
So you were in Colorado whenthat happened.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
What would you say was leading up to that?
Well, I really didn't realizewhat was happening.
I was always know PTSD was forveterans and military personnel.
I have, over the years, seentherapists when I would go
(25:56):
through what I would call abreakdown and then, you know,
I'd get better, and then I wouldgo through periods where I
would attempt suicide after work.
I would either stop in theprocess or, you know, just
(26:17):
realize that really don't have alot of support.
I know over the last few yearsthere's been people put in place
to you know that you can go toand HR, but there there isn't
(26:45):
anyone.
Like you, you can't go to yourmanager and say I had trouble
with this baby death, um, or thestress of the and it's not all
about the death.
Like, I knew what I was gettinginto when I went into death
investigations, when I starteddoing more and more baby deaths,
when I started, you know, um,teaching, uh, teaching
(27:09):
investigators how to investigatechild homicides.
I took a special interest inthat because when I did I didn't
have any children and otherpeople did, and so I didn't
realize that that was easier forme to do it, because they
couldn't do them, because it washard.
(27:29):
They were seeing their ownchildren and these and these
babies, and so I didn't knowthat, because I didn't have
children anyways.
Um, but then when I had mychild, then you can't like
they're, they're, they'rewearing the same outfit that
your child had, and now youcan't even see your child in
(27:49):
that outfit ever again.
You don't notice that.
You don't notice that yourhurry and hurry, hurry, hurry,
hurry mentality and everythingis an emergency mentality,
bleeding over into your personallife.
I never noticed that happening,that I was trying to get 50
(28:10):
things done at a time, becausethat's what I have to do at work
, and then I'm doing it at homeand I walk in after an 18-hour
shift of five suicides and ababy death and the dishes aren't
done and my kid's still awakeand she should have been in bed,
and you know, and now I have tobe a mom and a maid and and a
(28:34):
wife and I, I just, it was somuch and I didn't know that all
of this was just accumulatingand accumulating and and we
don't talk about our cases Um,it's just, it's just another,
another day, it's just anotherTuesday.
Um, we don't talk about you.
(28:55):
Know you and I talked earlierabout you know you're used to
your schedule change, but whatit does to your body, you don't
know what night shift does toyour body.
Um, working, what working?
You know 12, 15, 18 hour shifts.
You know, being a single motherin this kind of field, you
(29:19):
can't just call the babysitter.
When you have a call, come infive minutes before you're
supposed to get off.
And you're like you have a call, come in five minutes before
you're supposed to get off andyou're like I don't, I'll be
home in six hours.
You know the your babysitterisn't going to be like oh okay,
no problem, it just doesn'thappen.
And so then your stress level,even if you have a significant
(29:52):
other, that it still isupsetting for them that now
you're late again.
Or you know you're coming homeand and you've had a bad day,
and they did too, but you don'tcare because it just it's just.
You know more and more and moreand it bleeds over and you're
not talking about it.
And then everything at work hasto be done and they care so
much about the overtime and you,you, everything has to be
perfect and everything has to bedone without overtime.
(30:16):
And then now let's add in thefact that you're dealing.
You know you're dealing withfamilies that this is the worst
day of their life and you haveto go tell them that their
family member just died andguess who they're going to take
it out on?
You know and and I I believe inyou know a higher power, and
(30:41):
when I'm driving, all I'm doingis praying.
Please let me do this.
Please let me tell them thebest way that I can, so that the
you know the to make it eventhe the easiest I can on them.
But it's still hard, you know,it's still they.
I've been, I've I've been closeto being assaulted.
(31:04):
I don't know how many timesI've seen coworkers assaulted.
You know, I mean, it's lookingback.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
you don't carry guns right, I wouldn't shoot anyone
if I did, but you know, lookingback through your career,
looking back through um, I would, I would think I would assume I
should say that you know,through working through
everything that you've gonethrough and and talking with
(31:35):
with your support team, now thatyou know you've had time to
reflect back over your life,your career and think about when
things started to go adifferent direction, when you
started to go downhill with theinsurmountable weight that is
(31:56):
placed on you because of theexpectations, not only in your
professional career but in yourpersonal life.
When you think back over thattime and when you think back to
when things started to godownhill, what would?
Did you have any copingmechanisms?
What?
What were your copingmechanisms?
Coping mechanisms good or bad?
If you can recall them?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Smoking, smoking cigarettes, for sure, cigarettes
, for sure.
Um, um, there were drinking,although I I wasn't, I didn't
drink all the time, but bingedrinking for sure.
Um, I have a very, um, verystrong compass, which I think
(32:48):
you know, I think we all do, butsometimes it would get out of
it, would get out of whack, andI'm not going to go into that Um
, but you know, I would, I would, and I and I have a significant
other, but I would have.
I was calling my mom on the wayto work and on the way home
(33:08):
because I was so it was like theonly pressure valve that I had
left, like I would have to callher because I was so afraid of
what was going to happen at work, like was I going to get in
trouble because I had overtime?
You know what's going to happen.
And then I would have to callher on the way home to kind of
vent about everything thathappened, and so I wasn't taking
(33:29):
it out on my family.
I was starting to notice thatmy personality would change when
the pager would go off and thatmeans that there was another
death.
So our pager would go off toalert us that there was another
death, and that would evenhappen when I wasn't on call.
(33:51):
So my pager was like an iPhone.
So when someone had the samealert in Walmart, I would start
having the same reaction and mypersonality would change.
(34:13):
I would start becoming veryangry and it was because I knew
I suddenly had so muchresponsibility and no time to do
it and I wasn't even at workanymore, you know at that point,
so that was starting to happen,and that's when I should have
known that I wasn't able tohandle it anymore.
And even my bosses, after thefact, they were like, well, we
knew that you were stressed, wejust thought you could handle it
(34:36):
, like you know, like I've I'vealways handled it.
So, um, they never even talkedto me, they never even said hey,
we, we, we noticed this, butone one lady did pull me aside,
one of my coworkers, and she'slike you're.
You know, this is happeningevery time the pager goes off.
You get, you, you're startingto act, mean, and that was very
(34:57):
close to the last, my last day.
But I think that that, and I,and I wrote in the email to you
that I noticed that there's, youknow, after about 10 years,
people are either divorced oralcoholics.
You know, and I'm not a bigdrinker because it has run in my
(35:19):
family and I've seen.
I don't drink because ofexperiences I've seen with
myself, even in college.
So I know that that's not Icannot go down that road, um,
but you know, it could beanything.
It could be running Like I wasrunning.
I would wake up at two in themorning too, and I didn't have
(35:41):
to be to work till six, but Iwould wake up at two in the
morning and run, you know, 35miles a week because just trying
trying to, you know, to dosomething, to to get help myself
you know, find an outlet.
Yeah, I mean, if I gain weightI'd lose weight, I, whatever it
(36:02):
was just trying to to to getthrough what was going on and I
never, not one person ever,thought it was you know my day,
it was my job, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
And and we work long hours and then we're you know,
we're switching every threemonths, switching to another
time and then switching sides ofthe week.
And then you know that is justnot good for your body and and I
realized that it has to be done.
No one, you know, someone's gotto do it.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
But the coping mechanisms, I think um I should
have paid a little bit moreattention to um well, I think
everybody kind of gets lost inthe weeds whenever those things
are happening.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
I don't know that I've ever talked with anybody
that was in the middle of acrisis that you know was able to
say, well, I saw this comingbecause I knew that.
You know, I had starteddrinking more, or I knew that
I'd started doing X, y or Z moredrinking more, or I knew that
I'd started doing X, y or Z more.
You know, it's that old thewhole forest for the trees kind
(37:13):
of thing.
And it really does becomedifficult to see when you're on
the downside of that slope andyou're starting to get on to the
point where you start to spiral.
When you're in the middle of itit's hard to see that.
And then you add on to thatthat when you're in the middle
of it, it's hard to see a pointwhere there's an out, to, where
(37:34):
you don't have to feel like thatanymore.
And you know you mentionedcalling your mom and having a
significant other and havingkids, and then we talked about
the coping mechanisms.
What was your support structure?
You know, obviously you hadcoworkers.
You at least had one coworkerthat you know was bringing it to
(37:56):
your mind to.
You know, at least try to bringsome kind of consciousness to
it.
But what was your, aside frombeing able to call and talk with
your mom, what was your supportstructure like, aside from
being able to call and talk withyour mom, what was your support
structure like when you were,when you were really starting to
get into this, and and it hadto be pointed out to you.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
What was it like then ?
So the support structure atwork was, was not good.
So I was working graves at thetime and I was.
I was at the point that I wasI'm trying not to, I'm trying
(38:41):
not to put the work, myworkplace, down too, badly, but
well, it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
It's a cultural thing in our field, whether it's
working, your aspect of it,working the law enforcement,
fire, ems it's something thatI've noticed in, you know, the
19 years that I've done it.
It's a cultural thing.
Everybody's tough, Everybody,you know, can handle everything
that comes at them and, you know, not flinch.
(39:12):
And it's because we're expectedto be those individuals that
this doesn't phase.
We're expected to be, you know,10 foot tall and bulletproof,
and because we have thatperception that people, you know
, think that we are that way,then we have to now start acting
that way, and often enough, itcauses us to be blind to seeing
(39:35):
the signs of a coworker that isstarting to go downhill, or a
coworker that is starting tolose a grip and instead of
reaching out, going.
And instead of reaching outgoing hey, you need a chance to
talk, you know it's.
Hey, you good, all right, yougot another call, you know.
So it's a cultural thing andthat's one of the biggest things
(40:01):
of what we're trying to do andwhy I'm so glad that you reached
out is it's a cultural thingthat we're trying to shift.
It's something, and it's notjust in our line of work and
public safety in general, it'sfor everyone it's everyone in
the mental health space ofthings to change and get to
realize that, at the end of theday, we're all just humans.
(40:23):
We're all just people.
We all feel and experiencethings the same way.
It's just how we manage themand how we deal with them that's
different.
And that's what that's.
What this is all about is tryingto to do just that, to to make
that cultural shift, to get awayfrom the macho machismo kind of
oh nothing can hurt me kind ofthing and hurt me kind of thing.
(40:51):
So you know, it's not puttingyour workplace down, it's not
putting your co-workers down,it's just a cultural truth.
You know we say it all the timethat facts don't care about
feelings.
And it's a fact.
It's a fact that it's acultural issue on why these
things aren't picked up, whythese things aren't seen, why
help isn't offered.
And it's not to demean anybodyor to demean a workplace,
(41:13):
because it's just simply thatit's a fact.
And until we can get thatcultural shift, until we can get
everybody to realize that, look, you know we're all just people
.
You know we're going to fightagainst that.
And if somebody does get upsetabout it, oh, you're talking bad
about the job.
You're talking about the people.
You know we're going to fightagainst that.
And if somebody does get upsetabout it, oh, you're talking bad
about the job.
You're talking about the people.
They don't understand it.
They don't understand it andthey're not ready to understand
(41:35):
it, because if they were, theytake the time to listen.
So feel free to express ithowever you need to.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
So it it was to the point that I would stay late.
My boss didn't come in untilabout nine in the morning and I
was on graves.
I would have to stay late inorder for me to see her face and
her energy, so that I wouldknow whether or not I was okay
in her eyes.
(42:05):
The stress my stress level wasso was so much that I was afraid
that I was, that I was going tobe in trouble or be fired, like
I just had no clue where Istood because I was in so much
fear, and I think that was a lotof of the mental illness.
(42:25):
At that point I was justgrounding in in fear and panic,
because that's kind of the waythat that, that they, that that
the office was run and um, soand there's a lot of money is
(42:49):
more important than well-being.
So we don't stay late to talkto coworkers about how we're
dealing with cases, becausethat's money case if it's not,
(43:13):
if it's not about, like, askinga question logistically.
You know I'm having troublewith this case, jen, because
this reminds me of my mom orsomething like that.
That's, that's not acceptable.
Um, so I did have a friend.
Um, I had a couple of friends,very good friends, that were my
coworkers, but I was one of thesenior investigators.
Well, I was.
(43:34):
I had my boss, and then it wasme, and so a lot of the
investigators I trained wellmost of them and they came to me
and so I tried to give them theemotional support that they
needed, whether I was gettingpaid for it or not.
So I tried to be the buffer tomy superior for them.
(43:57):
So I stayed as long as I couldto try to be that support that
they needed, because a lot ofthem were so much younger than
me and had such less experiencein the field and I didn't want
them exposed to that kind ofmachismo.
This is what you asked for, thisis what you signed up for.
(44:19):
What the fuck?
What the fuck did you expectyou were getting?
And you know I'm cursing,because that's what we are,
that's what we do.
This is what you asked for.
You know, don't come to me andtell me that this bothers you.
You know I'm sorry that that guylooks identical to your dad
that just died two days ago.
But go to work.
This was.
You know.
This is what I'm, this is whatwe deal with, and I'm being
(44:43):
absolutely honest with you.
You know, I went to.
I went to work a week after andthis guy is laying on the floor
and he's identical to my dadand I'm training a new
investigator and luckily, thatinvestigator became a friend of
mine and I went to him and Isaid I need to walk away for a
minute.
Just, you know, just help thesepeople.
(45:06):
And I went and walked away andI did what I needed to do and I
never cry I mean, I've dug myfingernails into my hand so that
I didn't cry before on a sceneand I walked away and I came
back and then we talked laterand I was like I'm sorry, I had
to just deal with that.
This is what happened, you know, this is you know, and then.
You know, this is you know, andthen.
But that is what, and I'm gladthat's why I answered your email
(45:32):
, because that's what we need todo.
If there was more compassion toan investigator, we wouldn't
have all of these stressed out,mean investigators, cold hearted
, drunk people.
You know we would.
We would want to work longhours to help families to, you
(45:56):
know, to to deal with these.
We would be more available tohelp families if we were more
available to help each other,but we're not given time to help
each other, because that's whatyou signed up for.
You know, I I stayed late oneday because this one, this very
young investigator, got a justbrutal, brutal child homicide
(46:18):
and I could see it all over her,and so I stayed late because
she was supposed to stay late tohelp with the autopsy and I
stayed late just to stay withher.
I didn't stay late to be, Iwanted to be there for her, and
whether she knew that or not, Iwill never know, but that's what
we need in every single officeis someone that is there for the
(46:43):
investigator.
But here's another aspect ofpart of what I'm learning as a
death investigator, trying toget help with my mental illness
from being a death investigatoris that I traumatize.
I traumatize therapists bytelling my trauma, you know, and
(47:05):
I've heard it called traumadumping and and that you know
I'm like I'm not trying totrauma dump, but, um, how do I
not traumatize other people byby getting help?
Right, yeah, but who better tohelp a death investigator than
someone who has been there?
So, and also, who better tohelp someone who is, who has
(47:29):
been suicidal, than someone whohas been suicidal?
Speaker 1 (47:33):
yeah, so you know, people, people often forget that
.
You know our, our field is asubculture of society.
You know they, they, they oftenyou know oh well, you only talk
to yourselves, you've got darksense of humor, you do this, you
do that and they forget that.
(47:53):
You know it's its ownsubculture in and of itself.
And it's that way because noteverybody can handle what we see
, not everybody can handle whatwe do, and that's okay.
Not everybody should have to beable to handle these things.
But they forget that it's asubculture in and of itself.
(48:15):
And then we forget, once we'rein that subculture, we forget
that we are just people, people,and you know it's.
I don't know, you know I don'tknow how it is anywhere else.
(48:36):
I know how it is here.
There's, like you said in theemail, you know there's not,
there's not a great deal ofspecialized resources.
Obviously there's.
There's a plethora of resourcesin general to help with mental
health and things like that, andthey're all a starting place.
But until we can getindividuals who are more
(48:58):
specialized in dealing withthings like that, you know it's
going to be difficult.
You know, at least off the topof my mind, and I've been out of
the field of study for quitesome time now.
But in my understanding youknow about as close as we're
(49:18):
going to get to having some formof therapeutic counseling and
things like that.
It's going to be to reach out tothe same individuals that are
doing the counseling for ourmilitary vets who are coming
back from these combat zones andseeing these things.
But even then, you know it'ssaid that that's not enough for
(49:41):
them.
So until we're at a point wherewe can get these specialized
individuals that are used to andaccustomed to hearing these
types of stories, you know it'sgoing to, it's going to largely
rely on those of us that are inthe job to be able to sit there
(50:03):
and help each other out.
You know I receive phone callsand or I receive phone calls and
or other communications,whether it's a text message or
what have you.
I receive them from individualsthat I work with that you know
(50:27):
need to reach out.
So it gets.
It gets to the point where youknow at least they've got
somebody.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
So, and that's what I , I, I just learned that one of
my you know I don't, I haven'tworked since October of 22, but
I still communicate with somepeople in the field and you know
there are people that are inthe field for three years that
are starting to have PTSDsymptoms and you know they're
(50:58):
telling me thank you, because ifyou weren't so open with what
you went through and what you'regoing through, then we wouldn't
have known that this is whatthis is what we're going through
.
And, um, you know, I, I foundout that one of my friends went
(51:20):
to a scene and the guy was stillalive and I, you know that was
one of my biggest fears on sceneis that happening?
And nothing was ever done.
And I'm like, please, somebodylike care about the investing.
Like I just want to scream itfrom the rooftops that that we
(51:41):
need help, that we can't just,we can't just wait until we're
we're killing ourselves, likeyou know so when I saw your
video I thought, man, this isperfect because I, I this is
what I want to do.
I think that it's going to.
It's going to end up being mycalling is being somebody that
(52:05):
can help other people that arein this field.
You know, I can't lift bodiesanymore.
My body is broken from all theodd.
You know I have a lot ofautoimmune diseases that I'm
fighting and I can't.
My brain just can't do itanymore physically.
But there's a lot of peoplethat need, that need help, that
(52:32):
are still struggling and seeingthis stuff every day and and
there's nobody that evenrecognizes that they're
struggling.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
You know, yeah so, um , you had said that you came
home after work and you had anattempt, and that you had also
said that, that I'm assumingthat that, from what I'm
understanding what you're saying, that wasn't your first one,
that that you had attemptedseveral times, or at least a
couple more times prior to thatand, you know, didn't go through
(53:04):
with it.
In in all, if you're okay withit and you can, you can tell me
you don't want to discuss it.
That's fine.
How many times would you saythat you attempted it before you
actually went through, you know, trying to get to that end?
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Dozens, and I don't have a gun Right, so that's
probably a lucky, that'sprobably luck, um, and?
And I'm a death investigator.
So I, I, you know, I, I, I, Idon't know really how the word
(53:55):
is that I'm trying to.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
I wish I knew how to ask for help, and I wish I knew
that it was okay to ask for help, and I wish I knew that it was
okay to ask for help.
And I wish I knew that it wouldhave been okay to call in and
say I can't come to work becauseI'd rather die, and for someone
(54:27):
to say, come in and let me helpyou.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
But it wasn't and it still isn't.
I think we'll get there.
Sadly, it takes moments likethose and moments like these to
help get to that point.
Here in our state we've gotwhat's called peer support
(54:55):
counseling.
now and actually actually, nextmonth I was selected to go to
one of the peer supportcounseling courses.
So next month I'll be.
I'll be going to a peer supportcounseling course that will get
me a certification as acounselor in that regard, and
(55:17):
what they do a lot of is offerwhat they call debriefs and in
those debriefs is you know, theyinvite everybody that was
involved in a traumatic incident, whether it was a homicide,
whether it was a car crash,whatever the case may have been,
any situation or incident thatthey deem as a trauma incident.
(55:40):
They put together one of thesedebriefs.
One of the peer supportcounselors comes in and
everybody that was involved orthat knew about it, whatever the
case was, they show up and thenthey have a process that they
go through to help work throughthat scene, help work through
(56:00):
that incident, and it giveseverybody a chance to see you
know that they aren't the onlyones that felt something about
that particular case In specific, and the reason why I know you
know as much as I do about it isbecause I sat through at least
one of those debriefs and itinvolved the death of a small
(56:22):
child.
It was an unintentional death,it was a traumatic death for her
, but in that situation it wasone of those ones that you know,
while we're in the middle ofthe scene trying to, you know,
secure scenes and and try tosave a life and doing everything
that we can, um, you know, youdon't think about a lot of stuff
(56:45):
, you're just going through anddoing the job.
You're solving one problemafter the next, and it wasn't
until afterwards where, you know, we're waiting on a search
warrant to get there so that theinvestigators can do their job
and we're holding the crimescene at this point and I'm
sitting there and I look down atmy hands and I'm notorious.
(57:06):
I'm really, really bad aboutremembering to put gloves on and
in this situation, especiallyinvolving this child, you know,
it's another one of those oneswhere I didn't think about
putting gloves on.
I just went to work, but I'msitting in my car and I looked
at my hands and I noticed thatmy hands were red and my brain
told me that the reason why myhands are red is because I was
(57:28):
working on this small child,trying to help save her life,
and I've got her blood on myhands, so I got some water and
some cleaner and I washed myhands.
When I look back at my handsand it was still there.
It wasn't going anywhere.
So I'm getting more stuff, morewater.
I'm just doing everything I canand it's just not coming off.
So I start going toinvestigators.
(57:49):
Whether it was a crime sceneinvestigator, whether it was a
general crimes investigator thatwas on scene, I'm going to them
.
Hey, do y'all have some soap?
I need some legitimate soap.
I've got this blood on my handsand I need to get it off.
Nobody had any.
So I'm like you know what?
I got a case of water in there.
I'm just going to go throughevery bottle in that case that I
can.
And I'm sitting there juststeadily pouring water on my
hands.
And I'm sitting there juststeadily pouring water on my
(58:10):
hands, trying to get the bloodoff of my hands.
And it wasn't until, you know,moments later that I was able to
shine the light on my hands andI realized that, you know,
there wasn't any blood on myhands, it was just.
You know, my hands were red nowbecause I'd been sitting there
washing them for 10 minutes, butthere was no blood on my hands.
(58:31):
It was my mind doing this to me.
So when they offered up thatdebrief, I went to the debrief,
you know, because obviously thatwas a moment for me where I'm
like, wow, this one, this oneaffected me and you know it
affected others that were onthat scene.
One of my best friends, mybrother, you know he was on that
(58:53):
scene.
He didn't go to the debrief andhe and I talked about it
afterwards.
He said you know I should havegone, I should have gone, that
one broke me up, that one toreme up and I should have gone to
that debrief.
Of course you know I'm going togive him crap about it.
I'm like duh, I told you youshould have gone, but you know
(59:15):
you were too big to go.
So, like I said, I think we'regoing to see that change as it's
going to start happening.
I don't know how long it's goingto take to get across the
country, but I know at leasthere in Southeast Georgia, you
know they've started that peersupport counseling and that's
one of the reasons for it is tomake sure that you know
everybody's on the same page,that we all know that, look, we
(59:36):
all experience something andit's OK if it affects us, and
then at the same time, it givesus a moment to get that stuff
off of our chest and then, inreturn, not only do we get to
see our other co-workers and seethat we're not the only ones,
but that peer support counselorhas resources available for us.
(59:58):
That way, if it comes to a point, if it comes to a point where
you know we can't deal with itanymore, then we have these
resources that they provide forus that will allow us to, you
know, continue getting thatsupport we need so that we can
(01:00:18):
move through it.
Like I said, I think we'regoing to get there.
I don't know how long it'sgoing to take to get across the
country, but I think we're goingto get there.
At least I hope we can.
Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Yeah, we've.
I was a suicide interventionistfor many years.
I trained as a suicideinterventionist.
I was a crisis interventionistfor the San Diego Police
Department, so I would go to thecrime scenes.
(01:00:48):
I volunteered to do that.
Crime scenes I was, Ivolunteered to do that, so I did
a lot of.
I did a lot of that.
And then I I did see a lot ofthe police departments having
debriefings, like you said, butthe coroner's office, the
medical examiner's office, werenever invited to those.
(01:01:09):
So I would I would like you tokind of think about that If, if,
you could at least invite them,they probably won't go because
and I even said that in some ofmy TikTok videos like, I know
that you guys are going to bethe last ones that want me to
say that we need to be invited.
But because we, we want, wewant to be, we want to think
(01:01:34):
that we're strong too, like we,we signed up for this.
I don't, I don't need to talkabout death, I don't, but we do
like, right, they, they, youknow.
And the place that I worked,they said, well, we had, you
know.
Hr told me well, we have someonethat you can talk to.
You know, we have someone.
You just go over the policedepartment and you can talk to
him.
Well, they had just implementedhim and the last part, the last
(01:01:58):
job that he was was internalaffairs and I'm sorry, I'm just
not, I don't, I'm not going togo to the internal affairs guy
to talk to him about the stressthat my boss is putting on me
about my my.
You know it's like sorry, thisis so um, but I would like.
(01:02:19):
I think I've probablyinvestigated somewhere around
10,000 deaths in my career and,um, maybe invited to one
debriefing in my career.
So, um, one debriefing in mycareer?
(01:02:41):
So um, they're not, they don't.
Death is not invited to theprogram usually, so I would like
to.
I would like to kind of.
I would love to see that openedup to the coroners, but it's
not usually.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Debriefings are not usually, and I think that the
medical examiners and coronersalso believe that they don't
need them either.
So it's a tough group.
We's a we're a tough crowd, butI think you're right.
I think that the, I think thatit, that mental health is is
(01:03:21):
getting um, is getting its ownplace in the world, um, you're
not gonna there.
There's just not going to be uma way to ignore it.
You know, for for much longer,because the, the, the atmosphere
(01:03:42):
is, is the environment is onlygoing to get younger and and
they're getting louder, you know.
So us old people I know you'renot old, but me old people,
we're we're going to be phasingout, and then you're going to
have people that are like no, weneed help, like you can't treat
us like this anymore.
We're like you could treat ushowever you want to treat us,
but as people get old, you knowthe younger people are coming in
(01:04:05):
.
They don't, they're not goingto let them treat.
Treat them like we have, likedon't beat us up anymore.
Yeah, so I hope that whatyou're doing, you know bringing
light to mental health and firstresponders like we've, we've
fought a good fight, but it, youknow, we don't need to be
treated like this anymore and we, we should, we should be able
(01:04:32):
to not be okay with what we'vedone in our.
You know I jumped into freezingwater and saved a drowning child
and you know I never told asoul.
You know I it doesn't.
I don't do it just to to youknow, I don't know, I don't know
what I'm saying.
I just Just to you know, Idon't know, I don't know what
I'm saying.
(01:04:55):
I just it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
It's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot,
it's a lot for anybody.
And when you look back over thestatistics and those of us that
work in the profession, we'reexponentially higher exposed to
these traumatic incidents.
You know, fortunately theresearch is out there now.
(01:05:17):
Fortunately, you know it'sstarting to be noticed and catch
on.
So, yeah, you know, hopefullyit can get there for everybody.
Hopefully we can get that wordout, get there for everybody,
hopefully we can get that wordout.
And it's moments like this,jennifer, that you know really
kind of help move that needle,you know, toward where we need
(01:05:39):
it to be.
Because you know, witheverything you went through,
with the dozens of attempts andeverything that you still fight
and deal with today, you knowyou saw that little video and
were able to find the courage inyourself to come on something.
And while this podcast may notbe very big and it may not have
(01:06:02):
very many listeners, you'restill putting it out there and
we all know that oncesomething's on the internet,
it's there forever.
And you found the courage toreach out first and foremost,
which is a huge step for anybodythat's dealing with any type of
traumatic incident, traumaticgrief.
You know any kind of ideations.
(01:06:22):
That's a huge step for anybodyjust to reach out alone.
A lot of people don't make itto that step.
So the fact that you were ableto find that courage, reach out
and then be so generous andwilling to come on my podcast
and give your story, it's thingslike that that help move that
(01:06:45):
needle.
It's the fact that, like youwere talking about with the
younger generations, them notbeing quiet, it's us not being
quiet about it anymore.
It's us not sitting back andsaying it's fine, it's fine, you
know it's about yeah, okay.
It's about us getting out andfinally going.
You know what it's not okay.
(01:07:05):
This is messed up, what we seeis messed up, what we experience
is messed and it's not okay.
But the fact that it's not okayit's okay.
And as long as we all start torealize that, as long as we all
start to come together not justthose of us in the profession,
but people in general start tocome together in that respect
(01:07:31):
and start to give just a littleiota of care towards their
fellow person, you know we'regoing to start to make a
difference.
And those of us in the publicsafety community, those of us
working in this field, you knowit's us taking that chance to
reach out.
You know, even if you havenever had the counseling and the
(01:07:54):
treatment and the training tospeak to somebody, you know you
see a co-worker, a brother, asister, you know, obviously
having some kind of an issuewith something, just taking that
time to go.
Hey, you okay, do you need totalk?
Do you want to talk?
Even if you don't ask to talk,sometimes all you got to do is
(01:08:15):
just crack the door and peopleopen the rest of the way up.
You just got to give a chancefor it.
So I think we'll get there.
And you know there's so muchmore we could try to sit here
and talk about.
There's so much more that wecould go into, but there's not
enough time in the day.
I don't think between you and Iboth, with you having 20 years
in it, me working 19 years in itI don't think there's enough
(01:08:38):
time in the day for us to beable to get through it all
without it turning into just a,you know, constant war story
back and forth kind of situation.
So with that, you know, we'llgo ahead and close out the
podcast.
But again, I want to tell you somuch, jennifer, that that I
greatly appreciate you coming onand I admire and appreciate the
(01:09:01):
courage that it took for you toreach out to me, someone you
don't know, on the differentside of the country than you are
and doing a different part ofthe job and in a different place
in life.
You took that chance and Ican't tell you how much I
appreciate that and hopefullythis video can get out there and
(01:09:23):
it can foster that in someoneelse, that it can give someone
else the courage that they canhear your story and they can
feel emboldened and find thatcourage within themselves to to
reach out.
Even if it's not to the podcast, even if it's not to me, it'll
give them the courage to reachout and realize that you know
they're not okay and they needto try to start working on
(01:09:46):
themselves a little bit.
So I greatly appreciate thatand thank you so much for for
sharing with us and for comingon and helping us move this
needle in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Well, I wanted to thank you.
I really appreciate what you'redoing.
I am on TikTok if anyone iswanting to reach out, if anyone
needs help, if they're a deathinvestigator or anything.
If anyone needs help, um, ifthey're a death investigator or
or anything, if they need help.
I'm um at death chronicles, ontech talk and, um, I am, I am
(01:10:24):
getting better.
I am not suicidal.
I um, I have found things thathave made me want to live and we
do get better.
So I just wanted to say thatand we do survive and thank you
for your service and Iappreciate you and all you do
(01:10:45):
and we are going to make.
We are going to make the worldbetter.
Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
So thank you, Guys.
That's going to wrap up thisepisode.
I appreciate you giving us yourtime, I appreciate you taking
the time to listen to Jennifer'sstory and I hope especially if
you're someone that's dealingwith something like this I hope
that her story can help give youthe courage to speak out to
(01:11:10):
somebody to me, to her, to afriend.
Speak out to somebody Because,at the end of the day, we are
human and things aren't okay,but it can be okay.
So until next time, guys.
I appreciate you, Stay safe,Catch you on the next one.
Bye.
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