Lafayette Coroner's Office's new forensic nurse facility partners with Family Justice Center
LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) - Lafayette Parish, with the help of medical partners, has found a new way to combat sexual assault and domestic violence in the region, with the Lafayette Parish Coroner's Office's new forensic nursing facility.
Tiffiany Decou with the Family Justice Center of Acadiana says strangulation is becoming increasingly common in domestic violence crimes.
"There's this crazy statistic out there that a woman who is strangled is 700% more likely to be killed by her intimate partner," Decou said.
Decou said strangulation can sometimes leave little external evidence, which causes it to go unreported and hard to prove, which is why, in many cases, a deeper forensic examination is needed.
"We've been wanting a medical provider to partner with to do strangulation cases and Tonya send me an email and that's how it started," she said.
Tonya Suire is a forensic nurse with the Lafayette Parish Coroner's Office, and is a new addition to the office. She said the program started seeing patients March 1, and covers 17 parishes and 19 hospitals.
"We had support from LCG and two of the larger foundations with Ochsner and Our Lady of Lourdes and the EMS council," Suire said. "The coroner’s office, since it falls under the hand of State Legislature. They came together and put together some funds, and they were able to start this program.”
They are tasked with aiding sexual assault victims when they report to these hospitals.
"We get the medical history both past and present," Suire said. "We get a detailed history of the assault, and then that kind of guides our forensic exam of where we will collect evidence and that is done with either forensic photography or swabs that you use to swab the surface of areas that may have potential evidence."
Suire reached out to The Family Justice Center because she quickly realized her team could be of use to not only sexual assault victims, but domestic violence victims as well, as strangulation shows up in both crimes.
"There's a significant overlap in domestic violence and sexual assault and that's how we began this collaboration," Suire said.