Lilia Ramos, Forensic Interviewer

"I recently had the pleasure of attending the Pediatric Strangulation MDT Training hosted in Aransas Pass, TX, by Kelsey McKay and her team. Being a fairly young and new interviewer, I cannot even begin to express how much more prepared I feel to interview cases in which our children are subjected to or witness strangulation.

During the training I thought back to one particular interview where a little boy was describing to me that his father strangled him and his mother. In his words, he explained "daddy kept trying to kill mommy, but she wouldn't die." After attending this training, I now understand that he experienced his mother losing consciousness and regaining it over and over, a tactic that abusers often use to make a victim know they are capable of murder.

The wealth of knowledge Kelsey shared let me know that my job can consist of so much more than finding out if the child's breath was impeded during an incident. Sure, this is important knowledge our investigators need for their investigations. But what happens when a child, for fear of the perpetrator, states that their breath wasn't hindered? Not being medically trained, I was not aware that there are a lot of other sensations I can ask about that will help our investigators prove the severity of a strangulation. I feel confident that, armed with this knowledge, I will be better able to interview children regarding strangulation and, therefore, make our investigator's jobs a little easier."