Even now, Cammi Strong still remembers the first piece of evidence that nearly made her cry.
It was a size 3 pair of girl’s underwear featuring the Disney cartoon character Pocahontas.
The undergarment was part of a sexual assault case involving a child. And for Strong — a DNA analyst with her own child — the sight was almost overwhelming.
“I about burst into tears, because I had a young daughter at that time and it’s hard to imagine somebody doing something like that to a little kid,” said Strong, DNA technical leader at the Nebraska State Patrol Crime Lab in Lincoln.
Years later, crimes involving children are still some of the most difficult cases. But Strong said she continues her work because she wants to see victims get justice.
Strong’s interest in forensics began in the 1990s when she was earning a bachelor’s degree in biology and taking anthropology courses.
“I was fortunate to work with a professor at UNL who was doing forensic anthropology and that’s what sparked my interest,” she said.
But it was the more modern-day forensic studies that most intrigued her.
She watched as the professor tried to learn from bones who the victims may have been and what may have happened to them — “trying to reconstruct the story of their life and death from those remains.”
Strong graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1996 with a bachelor of science degree in biology and anthropology. Two years later, she graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University with a master’s degree in forensic science.
After UNL, she worked in a lab, looking at proteins to help develop vaccines. She started working at the State Patrol lab in 1998 and became manager there three years ago.
Much of her job now involves administrative types of work.
That said, she still has had various experiences working with cases — one of the toughest of which involved the Pocahontas underwear.
She remembers how difficult it was to see it, but also knew she had to do her job.
“You have to just process it and move on,” she said. “It’s another case. You have to keep yourself disconnected and objective and not let anything influence the results of your testing.
“A lot of times, I don’t look at the names on the submittal forms,” she said. “The most disconnected and completely unbiased I can remain, the better, because my testimony in court is going to influence what is going to happen in these people’s lives. ... I need to make sure the jury knows that while working this case I am looking for the evidence, not how it got there or not speculating how it got there.
“It’s up to the jury to decide how that evidence fits into the case.”
Strong said she enjoys her job because of the challenges, but also because she wants to help the victims.
“You see these children who are abused or a murder victim and you want to help get justice for that person because nobody deserves that,” she said.
What does her own daughter, Phalin, now 14, think of mom’s work?
“She gets grossed out by thinking about the things I have to see,” Strong said. “But I was invited to go talk to her science class. I gave a little talk on how DNA works and how the lab here is different than CSI (the television show) ... I had several students from her class come up to me and say, ‘Hey, I want to do this now.’ It really seemed to spark some interest in some of them.
“And she was pretty proud of the fact that her mom had such a cool job in her friends’ eyes.”
Print This Story
Email This Story
