What happens to untested sexual assault evidence kits?

State audit is only the start of kit-testing initiative, victim assistance director says

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

Two sexual assault evidence kits have sat at the Nashua Police Department for a combined 21 years — and they may have to sit tight for a while longer, state investigators say.

The kits were two of 4,265 untested sexual assault evidence kits found statewide during a year-long audit by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. The audit was an early step in a long-term initiative to eliminate the backlog of untested sexual assault evidence kits — thanks in part to a federal grant, said Janelle Melohn, director of the Crime Victim Assistance Division of the Attorney General’s Office.

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant, administered through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, aims to help jurisdictions reduce the backlog of untested evidence kits through third-party laboratories, and prevent similar backlogs of evidence kits from compiling in the future.

The problem with backlogs is how long it takes to resolve them, Melohn said.

“That grant absolutely precludes us from unloading these kits” on an outside laboratory, Melohn told the Press. “We don’t want to interfere with the cases that just keep coming. We don’t want to unload thousands of kits on them. It would create quite the chaos.”

Iowa is the first state to receive the grant that achieved 100 percent participation from all law enforcement in the audit — 387 active city and county agencies, Melohn said. The grant has also been awarded to city governments in the past focusing on local law enforcement’s evidence kits.

“Corralling how that works is very different … We have some other moving parts that other places don’t have,” Melohn said. “We’re starting small and we’ll grow to big batches. It took years to get here, and we don’t expect to dig out from underneath in under a year.”

Even with more than 4,000 kits untested since 1992, state investigators can only initially test about one third of the kits in Iowa — using the same limited laboratories that other states or jurisdictions go through to test backlogged kits.

“Through our contract with a third-party laboratory, they dictate how many they can take at any given time,” Melohn said. “There’s a lot of states undertaking this initiative, and it takes time. Anywhere from four to six weeks [per kit].”

The two kits being held by the Nashua Police Department were logged in February 2000 and May 2013, Nashua Sergeant Travis Marvin said. If an alleged victim chooses not to press charges, the evidence kits are required by law to be kept for a minimum of ten years for adults, and ten years from a victim’s 18th birthday for minors. Kits that are nearest to the expiration of Iowa’s statute of limitations will be tested first.

“It’s possible Nashua might have to hold on for a year, or they could be in the first batch. It goes back to why those weren’t tested in the first place,” Melohn said.

Out of the SAKI audit, law enforcement report that 800 of the untested kits in Iowa were left alone after a victim did not wish to file charges, and 512 of those kits were untested after law enforcement experienced “lack of cooperation by victim,” the SAKI report said.

DNA in kits that are past the statute of limitations may still be tested to determine if there’s a match with the DNA of a known offender. Iowa code allows for an extended period three years after a DNA match is obtained. If the DNA does not match a known offender, a “John Doe” warrant may also be issued.

Kits initially untested because of an “uncooperative victim” may eventually be tested under the SAKI grant, Melohn said.

“We only had trauma-informed victim interviewing for the last eight years max. Prior to that time law enforcement … might not understand trauma and the brain,” she said. “With sexual assault or when you have intimate partner crimes, what that trauma can do over years is you don’t get the same recollection from a victim.”

Now, research suggests sexual assault victims shouldn’t be interviewed by law enforcement until 72 hours after a crime occurs, Melohn said — much later than law enforcement typically conduct victim interviews. Sexual assault crimes also carry stigma that influence a victim’s involvement in an investigation.

“They were operating on the best practices of the time,” Melohn said. “There’s a lot of reasons an officer might have noted a victim as uncooperative.”

There’s one way a kit may remain untested, she said — a victim has the right to decline testing for an evidence kit they previously submitted to.

“We’re doing our best to re-engage victims too before we send them for testing,” Melohn said. “A lot can happen in ten years … We’re not trying to open old wounds and re-victimize somebody. If we want offenders taken off the street, we need the involvement of those victims.”