In the mid-1990s, she joined the team of prosecutors who specialize in cases of child abuse and molestation, rape and other sexual offenses. She has worked on countless high-profile cases, including those of a Glen Burnie man convicted of killing his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter and a grandmother convicted of abducting her two grandsons from Millersville to Egypt.
Working with children who have been abused can be gut-wrenching, yet ultimately rewarding, Kiessling said.
"It's heart-breaking, but you also see these brave little kids, that something terrible happened to them, react in these amazing ways," she said.
Kiessling has headed the county's hate crimes prosecution unit since its inception in 2001.
Before the creation of the unit, civil rights leaders often complained that the county was not sensitive to hate crimes, Snowden said. The county sparked outrage in 2000, when vandals who placed a white hood and Confederate flags on a statue of Aris T. Allen, a former delegate and the first black person to seek statewide office in Maryland, were not convicted of a hate crime.
Kiessling said she personally reviews the facts in each potential hate crime in the county and works with police to determine if an offense can be classified as a hate crime.
"I've found her to be very sensitive and very passionate about the prosecution of hate crimes," said Snowden, who heads the attorney general's civil rights office. "There is a sense that she is a champion of the prosecution of hate crimes."
Kiessling and her husband, Trevor Kiessling, 50, who is also a county prosecutor, live in Edgewater with their children Madison, 11, and Trey, 9.
