Backlogged Ohio rape kits finally tested

Imagine after being sexually assaulted, you found out that your rape kit taken at the hospital was never tested for DNA? This happened to hundreds of victims in Ohio and the Miami Valley. A rape kit can identify an attacker. It can confirm the victim's story and clear someone who has been wrongly accused. However, none of that will happen unless the rape kit is tested in a crime lab. This backlog was a shock to Mike DeWine in 2011.

"When I became Attorney General, I found out something I didn't know and that is there were a lot of rape kits sitting around in police departments all over the state. For example; Cleveland had 4,500 
of them," said DeWine.

He began the Ohio Rape Kit Testing Initiative and asked police agencies all over the state to submit their old rape kits for testing free of charge at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Officials now report 13,572 rape kits were submitted. Out of the more than 10.000 that were tested by April 1, 2016, 3.784 had CODIS hits meaning DNA links a known or unknown person to the crime. 

"What's sad is when we look back at these old rape kits, some of them up to 20 year's old, if we had tested them as a state or if a local police department had sent them to a crime lab, we would have prevented other rapes," DeWine said.

The data we obtained by the Ohio Attorney General's Office also shows that local police agencies had old, untested rape kits too. The Springfield Police Department sent 367 to the state crime lab. Out of the 150 that were tested for DNA, there were 43 CODIS hit. However, the chief declined comment on any investigations. 

"They'll send us rape kits, we run them and we go back and say, 'we got a match on this and here's your guy.' What we don't know is what happens after that," said DeWine.

Trotwood police sent 7 rape kits for testing and received 4 CODIS hits. Deputy Chief John Porter said one case involved the rape of a child under 13 year's old. 

"The technology is out there, it's available and we need to grasp a hold of it and start using it," said Porter.