Julie Mattson

My mom was a nurse and hated it, told me not to do it, but as I got older I started looking through her textbooks and got interested, so I went to nursing school. I worked in several different departments and when I landed in the emergency room, the manager asked me if I wanted to be a sexual assault nurse. I told her no at first because I didn't want to be exposed to more trauma, but I decided to do it anyway. I did evidence collection on women, children, and men who had been sexually assaulted, and then I was subpoenaed and called to court and testified in a lot of cases that ended up landing people in prison for life. When I saw the impact I could make, I decided I loved forensics and decided to go into death investigation. I got a job in Houston at the medical examiner there, knowing it's a busy place and I would get a lot of experience. I stayed there for 6 years, then moved back to my local hometown and got a job doing the same thing. I worked a lot of criminal cases, homicides, suicides, went on the scene, took photos, gathered information, notified next of kin, helped identify bodies, went on car accidents. It was very stressful but easier for me because I came from a trauma nursing background. While I was doing that, I trained to do aesthetics, Botox and lip filler and lasers, because I decided when I retire, if I start this now, I could maybe have an established business so that when I quit doing death investigation, I could work for myself. I worked part-time in my own business for about 9 years. It got super successful. I ended up hiring a couple more nurses, an office manager, moved to a bigger office, and then got to the point where I couldn't do both jobs because I decided to go to grad school and get my nurse practitioner degree. Something had to give, so I went ahead and retired from my death investigation job so I could finish school and put more into my business. About 4 years ago, because of my passion for forensics, I started a true crime podcast that airs weekly on Spotify, Pandora, iHeart, Apple, Google, all of those different platforms. This year I'm going to CrimeCon and selling merch, and I just came out with the very first true crime comic book. I cover a lot of high-profile cases, speak at a lot of conferences, and I'm on several different boards of forensics for nursing. I have a lot of families reaching out wanting me to help solve murders, look into missing people, and help get their loved ones out of prison. I have about 85,000 subscribers and listeners in the UK, Africa, and Central America. A lot of people trust me because of my background, because I'm not just someone doing it as a hobby. I actually have worked in the field, and I can educate them on not only the story but behind the scenes, like why certain things are done.