Lex Talamo

alexa.talamo@shreveporttimes.com

The men and women who conduct forensic examinations of child pornography for the Louisiana Attorney General Office's cyber crime lab are required to see a psychologist four times a year.

That’s because what agents see and hear while on the job can scar them, said the lab’s lead investigator, Corey Bourgeois.

While children are the real victims, those who have to view child sexual abuse images and videos in order to catch and prosecute the predators become incidental victims of the growing crime threat.

Dr. Sheila Farrell, medical director of the CARA Center in Shreveport, saw her first child sexual abuse image at an FBI training session. Years later, she’s still haunted by the young girl with the long brown hair, surrounded by three grown men.

“It was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. I had nightmares for weeks after that,” Farrell said. “You look at the young, young children in some of those images and think about what that child went through, what the child may still be going through, and that the child may never have been rescued from that situation.”

More: Child porn offenders in technological arms race with cops

Shelley Anderson, head of the Bossier City Marshal’s Office Cyber Crime Unit and mother of a small child, said not every cop could do her job.

“I’m not really sensitive with words. You can cuss at me all day. But when you have to sit down and look at images of children being abused, it hardens you,” Anderson said. “At some point, I’ll have to give this up.”

Mark Rogers, a former defense attorney who represented a man convicted of possessing child pornography, became a legal aid lawyer and switched to representing low-income and elderly clients after he had his first child.

“It became more difficult to separate my work and being a parent. That’s why I took a break,” Rogers said. “The facts are gruesome, and being exposed to that over and over is a drain. At the end of the day, the images stay with you.”

Melissa Welch, a Louisiana State Police detective who still remembers the first child pornography victim she saw more than a decade ago, said officers exposed to child sexual abuse images as part of their job learn coping mechanisms.

“I don’t listen to the sound. A partner of mine taught me that a long time ago,” she said. “[But at] the end of the day, you realize and you remember that someone has to do it. Someone has to try to stop what is occurring to these kids.”

More: A toxic mix: The internet, predators, children

FBI Special Agent Chris Cantrell turns to God and his faith for strength. He also remembers his mission.

“My goal is to put the bad guys in jail and to protect the innocent," he said. "I know in the back of my mind that if we do it right, and we get them out of harm’s way as soon as we can and out of the hands of these contact offenders, then they will be okay and there is hope. There is a greater good, and the best is yet to come for them.”

MORE ARTICLES IN THE SERIES:

A toxic mix: The Internet. Children. And Sex

Lasting trauma to children of internet crimes