photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Chief Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Tatum during the murder trial of Derrick Del Reed on March 8, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

One of the lead prosecutors for the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office is leaving her position at the end of this week after serving with the office for about 19 months, she told the Journal-World on Wednesday.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Tatum said Wednesday that she would be leaving the DA’s office on Friday. She said she would be taking a job in the private sector doing civil law in the greater Kansas City area.

Tatum said the new job would be closer to where she lives, and that it would be the first time in nearly two decades that she wouldn’t be working as a prosecutor.

Tatum has been with the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office since September 2022 and has prosecuted high-level violent crime and sexual assault cases. Among the cases she has worked on are a pending double homicide case against Rodney Marshall, 53, and the prosecution of 18-year-old Derrick Del Reed, whom a jury recently acquitted in another teenager’s shooting death.

Tatum worked as a prosecutor in multiple other jurisdictions before she took the job in Douglas County. One of the places she worked was the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office under DA Mark Dupree. In 2020, Tatum told the Kansas City Star about several reasons she left Dupree’s office, including what she saw as a lack of support and a reluctance by the office to take cases to trial.

“There was no one there that could help me because they just don’t know,” Tatum told the Star. “There’s no leadership, there’s no experience. I felt alone. They have no one to train them. No one.”

Tatum is an alumna of the University of Kansas law school and has received several honors during her career. They include the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office Patrick B. Hall Trial Attorney of the Year award in 2020, the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association Prosecutor of the Year award in 2017 and the Wyandotte County Child Advocate of the Year award in 2012, according to a release from the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office at the time she was hired.

One other attorney recently left the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office: Assistant District Attorney Christen Secrest, who had been with the office since 2021 and left at the beginning of the month. And prosecutor David Greenwald, who also joined the office in 2021, has announced plans to run for district attorney in Johnson County in this year’s elections.

Current Douglas County DA Suzanne Valdez is seeking reelection this year. One other person has filed to run so far: Wyandotte County prosecutor Tonda Hill.