{"id":9301,"date":"2019-11-07T11:30:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T17:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=9301"},"modified":"2019-11-07T11:16:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T17:16:46","slug":"forensic-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2019\/11\/07\/forensic-files\/","title":{"rendered":"Forensic Files"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Interesting Look At CPSO Lt. Beth McGee’s Violent Crime-Solving Detective Work<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Brad Goins<\/em><\/p>\n

The first stirrings of Beth McGee\u2019s passion for law enforcement can probably be traced back to a time when she was the victim of a violent crime at the age of 12.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in March 2019, CPSO Violent Crimes Detective Beth McGee (second from left), along with fellow CPSO Detectives Keeba Barber, Michelle Robinson, Travis Lavergne, Travis Mier, Randall Ravia, and Casey Lafargue learned of a woman and her two young children who were left homeless after an incident that occurred. The detectives used their own resources and secured a hotel for the family. The detectives also took it upon themselves to provide the family with food, clothing, and diapers. These detectives also took it one step further and enlisted help to find the family suitable long term house. They are pictured here with Sheriff Tony Mancuso being congratulated after receiving a Commendation Pin for going above and beyond the call of duty. These detectives are the definition of the Sheriff\u2019s motto, \u201ctreat everyone like family.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Denise Hughes, a detective with the Lake Charles Police Dept., worked with the young victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was treated with such respect and dignity,\u201d says McGee. \u201cShe made a huge impact. The way she treated me was the way I wanted to be treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes\u2019 kind and sympathetic treatment would become a template for the manner in which McGee would one day treat victims when she was a detective.<\/p>\n

Some years after the incident, in 1997, McGee started working with the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office. She needed a job so that she could go to college to get her degree in sociology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She became a dispatcher, which she says was one of the few jobs available for women in the Sheriff\u2019s Office at the time. She worked 12-hour night shifts, then went to school when she got off.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She \u201cfell in love with everything about law enforcement \u2014 adrenaline, teamwork, helping others.\u201d<\/p>\n

She \u201cwanted to be out there and help others\u201d just as Det. Hughes had helped her. But as a woman, she \u201cdidn\u2019t see where the next opportunity was.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2000, she left the sheriff\u2019s office for the state\u2019s Division of Probation and Parole, where she stayed for 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u2018NEVER BACK DOWN\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

She returned to the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office in 2010. She felt that as a woman, she was \u201cgoing to have to prove [herself].\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She found the opportunities she\u2019d been looking for, gradually moving up the ranks from detective to senior sergeant to lieutenant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After she returned to the Sheriff\u2019s office, she found \u201cmore women [there who] showed the community they could do anything they wanted to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve proven I can hang with the guys \u2014 never backing down from a situation. I have their backs and they have mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

She feels that Sheriff Tony Mancuso \u201cwants to give everyone an equal chance.\u201d She says he \u201cbreeds a family atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

CPSO Lt. Beth McGee is pictured with Sheriff Tony Mancuso after being congratulated for receiving a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Department of Justice for her assistance to the FBI in an investigation and successful prosecution of a suspect for federal kidnapping and child sex offenses. McGee was honored alomg with CPSO detectives Travis Mier, Randall Ravia, Travis Lavergne, Casey Lafargue and Jerod Abshire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She is now quite pleased with the culture in the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office. \u201cI want to be super positive about our office. I love going to work.\u201d She says she tends to put in 60- to 80-hour work weeks.<\/p>\n

She feels that women who come into the Sheriff\u2019s Office these days \u201chave people [who are women] to look up to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to show the world girls can do anything boys can do. That\u2019s how I live my life every day … I want to show that women are making it and changing the world.\u201d These are expressions of \u201cshowing others we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thriving On ADRENALINE<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you think this sort of work requires a particular type of personality, you\u2019re correct. McGee says she thrives on \u201cadrenaline\u201d \u2014 the very thing most of us work to avoid.<\/p>\n

She likes getting the bad guy. She feels satisfied when a case that seems unsolvable comes together.<\/p>\n

But she admits the work can be harsh. She finds this is especially the case when those who have been wronged are babies or older people. \u201cI become family with the victims\u201d in those cases, she says. Another harsh sort of case is the kidnapping of children. \u201cI just want to hold those babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am passionate about what I do … I love making a difference. I love people. I want to treat them as fairly as they can be treated \u2014 as family.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thinks many criminals are basically decent people who have made \u201cbad decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

SIERRA BOUZIGARD:\u00a0<\/span>A Cold Case Solved\u00a0By New Tech<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2009, a 19-year-old female named Sierra Bouzigard was found dead in a ditch in Moss Bluff. McGee started working to solve the crime when she took the matter up as a cold case in 2014.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Commander James McGee of the CPSO with wife Beth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 2015, she gained access to a new law enforcement technology \u2014 Parabon DNA phenotyping \u2014 which creates a picture of a person based on his or her DNA. McGee says that as far as she knows, the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office was the first law enforcement group in Louisiana to use the technology.<\/p>\n

When the picture of the hypothetical criminal was released in 2017, the Sheriff\u2019s Office received 100 tips on who he might be. \u201cIt was a crazy number,\u201d said McGee. The officers had to find ways to eliminate potential suspects.<\/p>\n

When they finally homed in on the guilty party, it was \u201cso crazy it almost sounded like it had to be true,\u201d says McGee. The suspect had never been arrested and thus was not in CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System). The Sheriff\u2019s Office would have to get a DNA sample directly from him.<\/p>\n

The Narcotics Task Force was asked to get the sample. But the subject was keen to the fact that people were after his DNA and covered his tracks carefully.<\/p>\n

One thing working in McGee\u2019s favor was that the subject had never met or seen her or her partner. One night they joined him in a bar for several beers. McGee obtained one of the subject\u2019s empty beer bottles. And that was that. The perpetrator committed suicide shortly after his incarceration began.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He had killed his 19-year-old victim by beating her to death. It was one of the most brutal cases McGee has ever handled. \u201cThe damage done to her was just horrible,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The TV program Forensic Files is returning to the air for the first time since 2011. The Sierra Bouzigard case will be the focus of one of the shows, which may air as early as February, 2020.<\/p>\n

More Tech<\/strong><\/p>\n

Among the other pioneering high tech tools being employed by the Sheriff\u2019s Office is the ZetX program, which uses cell phone towers, Google Maps and Geo Earth to identify the location of a particular person at a particular time. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge tool in solving crime,\u201d says McGee. \u201cIt paints a really pretty picture\u201d that enables the members of a jury to see exactly where a person was at the time.<\/p>\n

With geofencing, law enforcement agents can see what electronic devices are running in a certain area. The location of an individual with a particular device can be pinpointed.<\/p>\n

Then there is the Faro scanner. This technology scans a crime scene, then creates a 3D image of the scene. The image can \u201cput you into a crime scene,\u201d says McGee. It makes it possible to take a jury and \u201cwalk it through a crime scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The CPSO is also working very actively with citizens who are making videos of criminals with their Ring Video Doorbells.<\/p>\n

McGee says this new technology \u201ccan get very complicated\u201d and is not always easily or simply explained to the layman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the tech combined with the human element is how we solve crimes in 2019. You still have to have a heart. It takes all that.\u201d The tech doesn\u2019t eliminate the traditional need for the law enforcement officer to put in long hours.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Teamwork And Family<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that McGee believes that teamwork is essential to law enforcement. Teams are important because they bring different perspectives on a case to the table.<\/p>\n

In Violent Crimes, McGee is in charge of a team of seven detectives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The brutal 2009 murder of Sierra Bouzigard in\u00a0Moss Bluff and how the DNA was matched up\u00a0will be the subject of an all-new episode of\u00a0Forensic Files II set to air in Feb. 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She finds her teamwork is most successful when she\u2019s working with \u201cteam people who are not like [her].\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not like-minded people,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t want everybody to think like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she first returned to the office, she was the team member who was certain to be different from others because she \u201cwas the only girl for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her feelings about teamwork mesh well with her sense that both law enforcement investigation and the treatment of victims should use the dynamics of the devoted family.<\/p>\n

For her, law enforcement is literally a family affair. Her husband, Commander James McGee, heads up the enforcement division, which largely deals with officers on patrol. He oversees the work of the majority of officers in the Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps to have someone at home you can explain things to,\u201d says Beth McGee. \u201cHe\u2019s seen most of the things I\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGee was the first female lieutenant in Violent Crimes in the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

She has now been a Lieutenant of the Violent Crimes Division of the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office for three years.<\/p>\n

McGee has other major accomplishments in her record. She was named Detective of the Year in 2016. She had previously been named the Probation Officer for the Southern United States in 2008.<\/p>\n

The things about her job that would overwhelm most citizens merely stokes her adrenaline.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And McGee continues to approach law enforcement enthusiastically.<\/p>\n

She treats both colleagues and victims as if they were family and she has a powerful desire to help people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Interesting Look At CPSO Lt. Beth McGee’s Violent Crime-Solving Detective Work By Brad Goins The first stirrings of Beth McGee\u2019s passion for law enforcement can probably be traced back to a time when she was the victim of a violent crime at the age of 12. Denise Hughes, a detective with the Lake Charles [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2109,38,2111,4,2110],"yoast_head":"\nForensic Files - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2019\/11\/07\/forensic-files\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forensic Files - BestOfSwla\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Interesting Look At CPSO Lt. 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