Attorney General Russell Coleman launches Kentucky's first statewide strangulation prosecution manual

Attorney General Russell Coleman announced the release of the "Kentucky Manual on the Investigation and Prosecution of Strangulation" at a news event at Kentucky Children's Hospital and UK HealthCare in Lexington. "Today, we are releasing Kentucky's 1st ever strangulation resource manual to equip our Commonwealth with the tools to combat this particularly gruesome and deadly crime," Coleman said, adding the manual will be distributed to every prosecutor's office in the state and posted on the attorney general's website, ag.ky.gov.

The manual, Coleman said, is intended to help prosecutors "operationalize" the 2019 general-assembly changes that elevated strangulation into felony offenses and to guide law enforcement and medical professionals in identifying and prosecuting cases that may lack visible signs of injury. "This manual helps law enforcement and medical professionals see the signs of strangulation, both the visible and the non visible. It shares strategies to effectively prosecute cases under Kentucky law," Coleman said.

Medical and law-enforcement speakers at the event described why a specific manual matters in strangulation cases. "Even in fatal cases of strangulation, up to 40 percent may have no visible external injury of the neck," said Dr. Christina Howard, chief of the division of pediatric forensic medicine, describing an autopsy case in which a fractured hyoid bone revealed previously unobserved neck trauma. She said the manual offers best-practice guidance for assessing and treating patients, and highlighted pediatric "10-4" bruising considerations for identifying abuse.

Sergeant Sarah Mantel of the Louisville Metro Police Department, who previously worked in a Special Victims Unit, said investigators and prosecutors struggled before 2019 because there was "no set rules, no guidance, no training." Mantel said the 2019 law change and the new manual give police and prosecutors clearer tools and training to present strangulation cases to juries.

Nonprofit partners also said the manual complements local services. Joseph Fonz, grants director for CoSARE for Kids, said CoSARE donated a major gift to create the CoSARE for Kids Center for Safe and Healthy Children and that the organization has invested about $2,100,000 in the center's operations over the past five years. University of Kentucky provost Robert DePaul framed the manual as an example of cross-sector collaboration among health care, law enforcement and advocacy organizations.

Coleman said his office will measure the manual's impact first by how widely it is distributed and used by prosecutors, chiefs and sheriffs, and later by case outcomes "if we want to be data centric" such as convictions, while acknowledging limitations when physical evidence is absent in many cases. "We're gonna measure success by how widely we get this into the hands of prosecutors and chiefs and sheriffs," he said.

The attorney general's office said the manual will be available online at ag.ky.gov and distributed directly to law-enforcement and prosecutorial offices across the Commonwealth. A reception followed the announcement.