Join the leading experts in the country from the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, a program of Alliance for HOPE International, and the Department of Justice’s National Indian Country Training Initiative in a dynamic, hands-on 3.5-day course on strangulation and suffocation murders. The course will take place at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, from June 9-12, 2026.

Crime scene staging research has found that most offenders who stage crime scenes are male, most victims are female, and the most common victim-offender relationship involving staging is intimate partner relationships. Therefore, this course focuses on detecting staged crime scenes in intimate partner-related deaths.

Seasoned investigators, medical examiners, and prosecutors can be misdirected by killers and can close highly suspicious cases as accidents, suicides, or undetermined cause of death cases. This course will identify the primary mistakes made in staged crime scene cases and walk attendees through the pathway to build prosecutable homicide cases. Attendees will work on actual cases and meet the surviving family members of the victims. Registration is limited. Priority will be given to multidisciplinary federal, state, and Tribal teams working in Tribal communities. Prosecutors, law enforcement, advocates, and medical personnel are encouraged to register as a team

This class contains content that some may find disturbing. For example, numerous autopsy and gunshot wound photographs will be incorporated into lectures and exercises. Please only register to attend this class if you are certain of your ability to handle the content. Also, this class is very popular, and we typically have several hundred applicants we are unable to accommodate. Please register only if you are committed to attending.

There is no cost to attend this training. All travel and lodging expenses are covered by the National Indian Country Training Initiative (NICTI) through the Office of Legal Education. The Executive Office for United States Attorneys will provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests should be made to Deborah Thomas as early as possible, preferably at least two weeks in advance of the seminar. No nominee will be excluded from a course on the basis of a disability-related accommodations request. This training is authorized under the Government Employees Training Act.

If you have any questions regarding this training, please feel free to contact Lamesha Bowman at Lamesha.Bowman@usdoj.gov, Deborah Thomas at Deborah.Thomas@usdoj.gov, or Leslie A. Hagen at Leslie.Hagen3@usdoj.gov.