How One Search Rewrote the Role of a Coroner: With Guest Karla Deese

Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollum

Guest Bio and Links:

Karla Knight Deese is the elected coroner of Lancaster County, SC, and founder of the first-ever Mounted Response Unit within a coroner’s office. A certified medicolegal death investigator and educator, she’s changed laws, pioneered team-based approaches, and turned rescue horses into federally protected deputies. Karla has proved how “what’s old is new again”.

Connect with Karla Knight Deese on LinkedIn @Karla Deese, D-ABMDI

Resources:

In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, is joined by Karla Knight Deese, the coroner of Lancaster County, South Carolina, who made history by creating the first-ever Mounted Response Unit in a coroner’s office. Karla explains how a difficult river search led to the idea, how rescue horses were trained and sworn in as deputies, and how they now help find both missing people and the deceased. She also talks about how her work helps shape public health policy and how she handles one of the toughest parts of the job: delivering death notifications. Karla has proved how “what’s old is new again”, and why horses, dogs, medics, and compassion all belong on the front lines of forensic work.

Show Notes:

• (0:00) Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
• (0:10) Sheryl welcomes guest, and Chief Coroner, Karla Knight Deese
• (3:00) The tragedy that sparked the movement
• (5:00) Why horses can go where humans can’t
• (11:00)  ”Our team is built of horses who are rescued. Now they're being trained to use in rescue missions, so their work is definitely not done, and their worth is now highlighted exponentially through our group.”
• (13:30) Why federal protection for horses matters
• (16:00) Karla’s path to becoming a Coroner
• (23:00) Impactful cases that change law and public health
• (27:00) Using death data to save lives
• (30:00) The emotional toll of death notifications
• (41:30) “ There are a few who envy me. They wanna know what they have to do to get my job to be who I am. It's only death. How hard can it be? They say, here I silently reply. Take it all. Every festering remnant of the people no one cared about in life, much less death. All the broken children who will never know that I grieved for them, take it all. Just leave me my car key so I can get home permanently. Somebody else can listen to the bullshit. Death loves dispute. He never shuts up.”  -Joseph Scott Morgan
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Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.

Social Links:

• Email: [email protected]
• Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
• Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum

Instagram: @officialzone7podcast

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