Animal ForensiCon 2025: Animal Crimes and Family Violence with Laura Koivula

DrG: 00:00:00

All right, so this next guest has been here at the Junction before and

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is a friend of mine, Laura Koivula.

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Thank you for being here.

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Laura Koivula: It's my pleasure.

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DrG: For those people in the audience

that don't know who you are, can

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you let them know what you do?

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Laura Koivula: Yes.

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So my name's Laura Koivula.

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I am the director of Animal Crimes and

Investigations for Humane World for

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Animals, for the Animal Rescue Team there.

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So on the Animal Crimes and

Investigations team, we have four case

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managers and myself, and we assist

law enforcement across the country

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with animal crimes investigations.

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DrG: And your talk today was about animal

cruelty and family violence, correct?

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Laura Koivula: Yes.

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DrG: Excellent.

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So can you give our audience a

little bit of, let them know what,

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what your discussion was about?

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Laura Koivula: Yeah, so I talked

about what we call the link.

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So for those that don't

know what the link is,

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It's decades of research now that show

the connection between animal abuse

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or animal violence, crimes towards

animals and crimes towards humans.

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So animal cruelty and human violence.

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DrG: I think that, um, you know,

there are a lot of different

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ways that animal cruelty and

human violence can exist, right?

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Like it's, everybody thinks about

one thing in particular, whether it

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be, uh, domestic violence or so, but

there are a lot of different things

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that are part of the link, right?

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Laura Koivula: Yeah, for sure.

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And I think that initially was the most

heavily researched was, intimate partner

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violence and animal cruelty, which

there is a well established link now.

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But we also see violent crimes

associated with things like

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organized animal fighting.

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And, animal sexual abuse is

often linked with child sexual

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abuse or child pornography.

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So, yeah, the link exists in, in pretty

much all facets of animal crimes.

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DrG: Yeah, I was mentioning before

about how I've had a couple of cases

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that involved hoarders and it was

hoarders that had either an elderly

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person in the home or a young child.

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Mm-hmm.

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So it's kind of like the same, almost

like the same neglect or the same

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violence that they do on animals.

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They do on people.

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Laura Koivula: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So we've, we've seen the same thing.

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I saw the same thing in my career as

well as pretty much everybody on my team,

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and I'm sure a lot of your listeners.

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Um, in the neglect cases for animals,

we see children, both biological

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and adopted or foster children being

neglected and abused, similar to the

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animals in the home, but then also we see

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vulnerable adults that for one reason

or another require a caretaker.

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And so that defendant or suspect

is also neglecting the vulnerable

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adults in the home as well.

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DrG: And I think something important

that, that you also mentioned is

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that there is no gender or culture

or anything that you know, that

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the abuser can be anybody, right?

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Laura Koivula: Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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And I think that's something that gets a

little lost, 'cause most of the stories

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we hear about are male perpetrators.

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But I talked about some case examples

today where the perpetrators were in

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fact, female, and they committed heinous

abuse, not just neglect of children,

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but also sexual abuse of children.

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So, yeah, it's really important

to note that not only does

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this happen across genders, but

also in domestic relationship.

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Right.

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So, um, L-G-B-T-Q relationships,

heterosexual relationships, parent

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child relationships, child to

elderly parent, like any, any

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sort of relationship, there's no

parameters on this type of crime.

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DrG: I think

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that also it is important

then, because it, it crosses

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from humans to animals, right?

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To involve human health

professionals in this.

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Laura Koivula: Absolutely.

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I think it's really essential that

we build relationships with the other

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agencies in our jurisdictions and

across jurisdictions specifically.

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Those agencies that have resources like

child advocacy organizations like Casa and

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DCPS or whatever your jurisdiction

calls their adult protective

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and Child Protective Services.

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They have resources that we don't have

access to, and we also, as humane law

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enforcement, we gain access to properties

and homes that may not be on their radar.

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And so, you know, there's an

essential cross and vice versa.

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So building those relationships

is really important.

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DrG: Anybody that's listening that

wants to learn more about the link

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and animal cruelty and for, if there

are investigators out there that kind

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of feel lost because they wanna do

more and they don't know how, what

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resources would you recommend for them?

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Laura Koivula: Yeah.

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Well, if you have a current investigation

where you're looking for help on a

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specific, uh, case you're working on, they

can always reach out to our team through

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the email animal cruelty@humaneworld.org.

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The National Link Coalition has got

great resources if you're looking

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to review like the, the research

and documentation on the link.

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And HumanePro also has a lot of webinars,

short webinars for humane law enforcement

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if they're looking to learn more

about any of the animal crime topics.

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DrG: This has been great information.

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Overall it, it affects everybody

and it's really important for not

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just veterinarians and not just law

enforcement and just not humane agents

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for everybody to know about this.

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So thank you so much for your presentation

and thank you for what you do.

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Laura Koivula: Thank you

so much for having me.