Survivor of Golden State Killer brings new ‘soft’ interview room to El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office

By Lee Anne Denyer

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    EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. (KCRA) — The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office has a new interview room, known as a soft interview room, to provide a more comfortable space for victims of violent crimes to speak with investigators.

The room came to fruition this week due to a partnership between the sheriff’s office and the non-profit organization Phyllis’s Garden.

“The point of a soft interview room is to put victims at ease,” said Detective Katie Prescott, who specializes in sexual assault investigations. “We want to put them in a place that puts them at ease and provides them some comfort, so that they can have that power and find that power to tell us their experience.”

Prescott said within days of finishing the new interview room, investigators have already used it. She said, unfortunately, her unit has a large case load with investigators managing somewhere between 50 and 70 cases each. Previously, she would use a conference room or another area of the office to conduct interviews with victims.

“It’s not inviting,” Prescott said. “This looks like where we should be having our administrative meetings, not where we should be interviewing the victim of a violent crime.”

Kris Pedretti founded Phyllis’s Garden to continue her own healing from sexual assault. The non-profit’s new partnership with the sheriff’s office made the soft interview room possible.

“I’m a survivor of sexual assault from the Golden State Killer and throughout the decades, I had no support,” she said. “People don’t talk about it. People don’t want to hear, so victims typically don’t report.”

Pedretti said she wanted to find a way to help survivors feel more comfortable coming forward with their experiences, knowing firsthand how hard recounting those experiences can be.

“It’s very nerve wracking to have to repeat everything that happened to you,” she said.

Details such as the kind of chair placed in the room, to the colors on the wall, to the coffee and snacks available are all intentional, she explained.

“To be sitting in a room like this and to be treated compassionately and with empathy really is a way to open the door for that victim to become the survivor,” she said.

Phyllis’s Garden is a donation-based organization. All items purchased for the soft interview rooms are purchased new with donated funds from supporters.

Pedretti said she named the organization in honor of another victim of the Golden State Killer.

She said after more than 40 years, the pair met in 2018 at a hearing, after the Golden State Killer was arrested. Phyllis died shortly after his sentencing.

“I do this because I am one of these people that never talked about it and what healed me was being able to talk about it,” Pedretti said. “There is hope. You’re not stuck.”

She said she hoped knowing the rooms exist would encourage victims to come forward and report crimes committed against them.

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