About Sheila 

            Sheila L. Stephens was the first female Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) special agent in the state of Alabama, having been recruited while a police officer in Mountain Brook, Alabama. After an on-the-job injury, her path turned toward education as she has a unique platform from which to write, speak, and teach, about the people and issues of law enforcement. 

            Stephens is a graduate of The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Alabama State Trooper Academy and the University of Alabama, with a degree in Special/Hearing Impaired Education.  In September 2007, she graduated from Boston University with a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice.   She is in the process of completing a Psychology PhD program specializing in Forensic Psychology. 

            While a special agent with ATF, she was a member of the Regional/National Response Team, a select group of first responders to arson and explosives scenes.   She was also chosen as a representative to several multi-agency, multi-state offensives, such as one against a domestic terrorist group in Arkansas, where she was a member of the entry team, the search team, and the select interview team.  She has participated in high-profile undercover operations around the U.S.

            She holds degrees and certificates in the areas of Education, Interviewing/Interrogation, Hypnosis, and Street Survival, and has taught at the Birmingham Police Academy.  She is a Criminal Justice Professor at Andrew Jackson University and Kaplan University, and facilitates Terrorism classes at Boston University’s online Master's of Criminal Justice program. 

            She speaks on law enforcement and security issues at organizations and conferences around the country.  She recently presented The “CSI Effect” on Crime Labs at the New England School of Law, and wrote an article on the subject that appears in their Law Review.  In July 2008, The Everything Private Investigation Book was released, and her Book of Weapons, a text about the history, use and future of weapons, is scheduled to be released, by Writer’s Digest Books, in 2009.

            Stephens has incorporated a private investigation/security business specializing in hidden camera technology for police departments, businesses and the monitoring of caregivers, and is working on a non-profit division.  A popular speaker on literacy, and an advocate for mandatory heavy metals testing at yearly physicals and in emergency rooms, she is also Associate Editor of The Agent, the newsletter of the National Association of Federal Agents (NAFA). 

            Finally, she is a member of the National Association of Investigative Specialists (NAIS), Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and the authors’ and speakers’ association, The Crime Lab Project.  Look for her regular columns in the MWA Killer Nashville Newsletter and Blog.

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Info about the Crime Lab Project and a link to their website