Kane County’s Special Victims Team protects the community’s most vulnerable

Detective Nicole Krupp and Sgt. Brooke Minuth work in a special sector of the Kane County Sheriff’s Office providing support and justice to the victims of especially heinous crimes.

The Special Victims Team was created in 2023 to handle cases of child abuse, elderly abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, exploitation and juvenile problems in Kane County.

The team is supervised by Minuth, who oversees Detectives Krupp and Deanna Velazquez, who works at the Child Advocacy Center in Geneva, three investigators with the Internet Crimes Against Children unit consisting of two officers and a forensic analyst, two full-time social workers and two to four rotating interns. All members of the team have specialized training to assist victims of these types of crime.

Minuth grew up on the east side of Aurora and said she always knew she wanted to be a police officer. She earned a degree in criminal justice from Aurora University in 2013. She knew she wanted to stay close to her family and was drawn to the sheriff’s office because of the wide range of paths it could take her career.

Minuth was hired by the sheriff’s office in 2014. She served as a patrol deputy for four years before transferring to the investigations unit in 2018.

In 2020, Minuth became the special victims detective. She said she already had been handling most of the sexual assault cases because she was the only female detective and most female victims feel more comfortable talking to a female officer.

Krupp has a bachelor’s degree in social work and a master’s degree in forensic social work. She said she’s always had a passion for police work, but while earning her degrees, she discovered social work and helping victims of crime was her calling.

After graduation, Krupp began working with the Association for Individual Development. She did social work internships with police departments in Kane County, providing case management and follow-ups with victims.

While earning her master’s, Krupp completed an internship with the Kane County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Department through Aurora University. It was during that internship she developed the social work program.

Krupp said she loved working with the sheriff’s department because she got to see a wide variety of cases and people. In 2021, she brought a concept for a social work program to Sheriff Ron Hain who thought it was a great idea. Soon after, she was hired as a full-time social worker at the Kane County Sheriff’s Office, where she worked for about a year assisting deputies with cases and doing ride alongs before she decided to become an officer.

“I just realized, you know what, I’m tired of being the second, third, fourth follow-up person,” Krupp said. “I want to be a cop. I want to be the first person to the scene. I still want to be able to help people with the social work mentality, but I want to be able to do something more.”

Krupp went to the police academy in 2022. After 14 weeks in the academy and another 14 weeks of field training, she was a full-fledged deputy.

“It’s just always been something I was passionate about. That’s kind of why I got into social work was to work with victims of those types of crimes,” Krupp said. “I didn’t ever think I would be on the opposite end, charging those offenders. But the gratification that comes from being able to help the victim plus charge the offender that did the crime is really rewarding and satisfying.”

Krupp credited Hain and her mentors during her internships as huge reasons for her being in the role she is in today. She said she has been very fortunate to be able to live out every dream and passion she wanted to pursue.

“The sheriff believes in the work that I do,” Krupp said. “I knew I would be set here for a long time because I had people that believed in me and believed in social work and mental health and allowed me to pursue those dreams.”

Krupp said the Special Victims Team officially was formed in 2022 after one of her supervisors had the idea of combining the social work program with Minuth, who was handling special victims cases, so the social workers could help her and better support the special victims.

After Krupp finished her field training and a year on patrol, she became the special victims detective. Minuth was promoted to sergeant and made leader of the Special Victims Team.

:”The gratification that comes from being able to help the victim plus charge the offender that did the crime is really rewarding and satisfying.”

—  Detective Nicole Krupp, Kane County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Team

Minuth said while she mostly oversees the team, she will take a small number of her own cases and accompany Krupp when making follow-up visits to victims or crime scenes. She said Krupp is a wonderful detective and their work together has blossomed into a great friendship.

“I love working with her,” Minuth said. “She started as our social worker and has grown to be a great detective. She’s able to use her skills from her social work to further her work here as a special victims detective. She’s dependable, compassionate and really works for the victims to get them the best outcome that she can.”

When the sheriff’s office receives a call about a sexual assault or domestic abuse case, it is almost always assigned to Krupp. She said once the responding deputy has taken the preliminary statements, the cases are deferred to her to conduct victim interviews and follow-up.

Social workers play key role

Minuth said the Special Victims Team has greatly improved the care for victims of abuse and the prosecution of offenders. She said many times the initial reports are incomplete, partly because the situation is traumatic and memories can be hazy due to shock. Deputies now can bring victims back to the sheriff’s office for interviews with investigators and social workers are there for support, allowing the victims to more easily tell their stories in a less stressful environment where the offender and victim are not within an earshot of each other.

Minuth said they see a cycle of violence that leads to a lot of repeat victims. She said this often happens because the victim worries about breaking up the family, doesn’t have a job or doesn’t have another place to stay. Victims also often think if they press charges, the spouse will hold their money hostage.

Krupp said their social workers are one of the key aspects as to why the victims they work with don’t return to their abusers. She said statistically it takes about seven instances of domestic violence before a victim considers leaving the offender. She said having a social worker supporting them reduces that number by following up before the abuser can get back to them and providing them with options and pathways out of the situation.

The Special Victims Team has social workers on call 24/7. Krupp said because deputies cover a 550-square-mile area, it is hard for patrol deputies to complete all of the follow-up with every case, so they call the social workers to provide immediate long-term attention and support.

Minuth said they wouldn’t be able to have the Special Victims Team without the social workers.

“I think our social work program is a pivotal aspect to this department,” Krupp said. “Social workers have become more popular in Kane County, especially in police departments, but there is still a lack thereof and it’s something that we’re slowly trying to build.”

Minuth said the Special Victims Team’s social workers reach out to more than 1,300 victims every year.

Krupp said over the past several years domestic violence cases have skyrocketed, although a large population of these victims do not report the crimes that have happened to them, especially when the victim is male. She said she is working about 50 special victims cases at any given time, which all require a great deal of interviews, follow-ups and in some cases obtaining arrest or search warrants.

Krupp said one of the rewarding parts of the job is when a victim’s offender is charged and put in jail. She said it is satisfying knowing that she played a part in getting someone off the streets who was preying on children or sexually abusing people.

Krupp recalled a recent case in which a juvenile girl was corresponding with a man from another state through social media. The Special Victims Team was able to identify the man and connected with authorities in his state who caught him. The man was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The case uncovered at least 70 other victims and three other offenders who were preying on juvenile victims.

“Those cases are few and far between, so when they do happen it’s exciting,” Krupp said. “It makes all the daunting, long, exhausting days worth it.”

Minuth said the rewarding parts of the job are not always the convictions or arrests, but the time they took to listen to their story. She said the best part is when a victim reaches out to let them know they’re doing better, they aren’t with their abuser and they’ve gotten a job and are taking care of their family.

“It’s not just arresting the bad guys and putting them away because they’re going to get out eventually,” Minuth said. “It’s working with the victims who are able to turn their life around, whether it be getting sober or being able to hold a job so that they can support their kids because the last thing we want to do is watch somebody get their kids taken away from them because they’re in a cycle of domestic violence.”