IAPE Board Member

Kayla Parker is the Property, Evidence, & CSI Technician for the Johnston Police Department in Iowa. She has eight years of experience in law enforcement support roles, with six of those years involving property and evidence management.

Kayla began her career as an Evidence Technician for Modesto Police Department in California. Here, she helped to maintain the evidence unit’s four warehouses and two vehicle lots, and was a main contributor in helping the department implement a new RMS system in the evidence room. She later moved on to Sonora Police Department, a much smaller agency near Yosemite National Park, where she was the sole manager of the evidence room and the department’s only CSI. In her current role, Kayla manages the day-to-day operations of her department’s evidence unit and forensic lab, oversees the CSI team, and conducts regular training for CSI team members and patrol officers. Recently, she has spent a majority of her time overhauling the department’s digital evidence practices by writing brand new digital evidence policies, training on new procedures, and successfully building a proposal for the purchase of a digital evidence management system.

Kayla is a Certified Property and Evidence Specialist through IAPE. She is also a Certified Crime Scene Investigator through the International Association for Identification (IAI) and serves as the IAI Regional Representative for the state of Iowa, and is a co-founder of the Iowa Property and Evidence Network (IPEN). Kayla is passionate about evidence handling and documentation from crime scene through disposition, and loves having the opportunity to give back to others in the field through her involvement with these associations. She enjoys working with local schools and organizations in her area to educate the public about forensic science, prepare students for careers in the forensics field, and strengthen community support for law enforcement as a whole.

When she isn’t working or volunteering, Kayla enjoys trying out new recipes, weightlifting, running, and exploring the many trails the Des Moines Metro Area has to offer.