In 1999, Allison O'Neal joined the Orange County Sheriff's Department, where she spent the next 18 years as a Deputy Coroner, Senior Deputy Coroner, Field Training Officer, and finally, a Supervising Deputy Coroner. In November 2000, she won the Trauma Intervention Program of Orange County’s “Hero with a Heart” Award. Allison led the unidentified deceased team and oversaw the unidentified deceased cases dating back to the 1950s. In 2015, she was the co-coordinator of Orange County’s first “Identify the Missing Day”.
Allison attended Chapman University for both her undergraduate and graduate studies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with an emphasis in American Politics and minor in Criminal Justice, and a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice.
In March 2018, Allison joined the NamUs team as a Regional Program Specialist for the state of California.