Biographical Information for Sheila L. Stephens
E-mail: slstephens@mindspring.com
Cell phone: 205-835-2213

Sheila L. Stephens was the first female Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) special agent in the state of Alabama—one of the first in the nation. Recruited by ATF while a police officer in Mountain Brook, Alabama, she has a unique platform from which to write and teach about the people and issues of law enforcement.

Stephens is a graduate of The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Alabama State Trooper Academy and the University of Alabama, holding degrees in Special/Hearing Impaired Education and in Criminal Justice. In September 2007, she graduated from Boston University with a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice.  She is in the process of completing a PhD program in Psychology, specializing in Forensic Psychology.

While a special agent with ATF, she was a member of the National Response Team, a select group of first responders to arson and explosives scenes. Also chosen as a representative to several multi-agency, multi-state offensives, such as one against a deadly white supremacy/domestic terrorist group in Arkansas, she has participated as a member of the entry team, the search team and the select interview team.

She has also worked undercover in cases across the country.

She holds certificates in the areas of Education, Interviewing/Interrogation, Hypnosis, and Street Survival, and has taught at the Birmingham Police Academy. She is presently a Criminal Justice professor at Andrew Jackson University and Kaplan University, and facilitates Terrorism classes at Boston University's online Masters in Criminal Justice Program. 

Stephens speaks on law enforcement and security issues at organizations and conferences around the country. She recently presented The “CSI Effect” on Crime Labs at the New England School of Law, and wrote an article on the subject that appears in their Law Review. Her book, The Everything Private Investigation Book, published by Adams Media, was released in 2007.  Her text about the history, use and future of weapons is scheduled to be released by Writer’s Digest Books in 2009.

Stephens has incorporated a private investigation/security business and is working on a non-profit division. A popular speaker on literacy, and an advocate for mandatory heavy metals testing at yearly physicals and in emergency rooms, she is also a contributing writer and Associate Editor of The Agent, the newsletter of the National Association of Federal Agents (NAFA). Finally, she is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America (MWA)and the author’s and speakers’ association, The Crime Lab Project.  Look for her regular columns in the MWA Killer Nashville Newsletter and Blog. 

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