2,300 untested rape kits sent to Ohio crime lab

RACHEL Dissell

Plain Dealer Reporter

Police agencies across Ohio have sent more than 2,300 previously untested rape kits to a state crime lab — evidence that has the potential to help solve hundreds of sexual assault cases, some decades old.

Nearly half the kits are from Cleveland police.

If trends from early testing continue, roughly a third of the kits sent to the lab could match a profile in state and national DNA databases, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of data from the Ohio attorney general’s office.

Those matches don’t automatically mean a rape case is solved, but the “hits” or matches give detectives investigative leads, confirm original suspects or identify potential serial rapists.

Statewide, when all currently submitted kits are tested, police departments could be faced with some 850 potential cases resulting from the DNA matches. Cleveland could have about 390, according to the analysis.

And once all of Cleveland’s more than 3,000 kits in storage have been tested, police could find themselves looking at more than 1,100 DNA matches and potential cases, according to the analysis.

Some of the older cases could run up against a justice system time clock based on a 20-year statute of limitations for prosecuting rape cases.

Attorney General Mike DeWine in December 2011 encouraged the state’s nearly 800 law enforcement agencies to clear their evidence room shelves of testable sexual assault evidence. He took the step after news reports had revealed that many kits were languishing in storage.

DeWine’s office hired and trained more lab staff to handle the evidence so the project didn’t delay testing for current criminal cases.

There are a multitude of reasons the older kits were not tested in the past, including cost, protocols that limited what was tested and a lack of understanding of the value of DNA evidence.

The untested evidence has been on DeWine’s radar since at least 2003 when, as a U.S. senator, he helped secure federal money to help departments catch up with testing the kits.

At that time he estimated that 3,000 kits going back to 1993 needed to be tested.

“The longer this evidence sits around unanalyzed, the longer sex offenders remain free — and free to potentially harm more victims,” DeWine said at the time.

DeWine said that victims had endured rapes and then intensive examinations to gather evidence — only to have it sit on shelves.

“It was infuriating then,” he said.And now, a decade later, “It’s sad that we are still trying to catch up,” he said. “It’s sad for the victims.”

As of Wednesday, 2,336 kits had been submitted by 54 agencies statewide. Of the kits tested by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, 103 were found to have usable DNA evidence. DNA from 65 matched with DNA profiles currently in state or federal databases. Those cases — 36 of which belong to Cleveland — will require further investigation by police departments to see whether the evidence can help solve the case.

Cleveland Deputy Chief Ed Tomba says the department will prioritize cases by going after suspects who are not in prison. Tomba said the department’s primary concern is locating victims and responding to the array of reactions they may have to the news there is a possible lead in a case they may have reported years ago.