AG hopes to hire coordinator, private lab for rape kit testing

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office wants to hire five employees and put out bids for a private lab to help process thousands of untested sexual assault evidence kits.

The details are in a federal grant application the office submitted in April. ABC 17 News obtained the application through an open records request shortly after Attorney General Josh Hawley announced part of the plan on May 24.

Hawley discussed the plan as part of his office’s audit of untested sexual assault kits throughout the state. The audit found nearly 5,000 untested kits in health care facilities, law enforcement offices and evidence testing labs.

With the $2.8 million granted from the Bureau of Justice Administration, Hawley’s office plans to hire six people to create an inventory of untested evidence kits. Four analysts would visit hospitals, law enforcement agencies and other places where kits are stored and help them upload information from those kits to a new kit tracking system. The office would also hire a program coordinator to lead the process and training coordinator to work with agencies on the best way to handle the kits.

The site coordinator, paid $55,000 a year, would come up with what the tracking program would look like. The office would then bid out the creation of the tracking program to a private vendor. After collecting data throughout 2018, the office anticipates releasing a final number of untested rape kits by April 31, 2019.

“The AGO’s review has confirmed what many in the victims’ advocacy and law enforcement communities have long recognized: Missouri has thousands of untested SAKs, and both survivors and law enforcement desire that many of those kits to be tested,” the application said. “This situation is unacceptable.”

The site coordinator would also solicit bids for a private forensic lab to test the kits as they are discovered. Priority would be given to kits where the underlying crime is nearing the statute of limitations, according to the application, which would be sent to the FBI crime lab.

The application said the influx of untested kits, once accounted for, would strain the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s crime labs that currently test kits.

“Estimates indicate that if the lab were to stop taking new [kits] entirely, it would take more than six years for the lab to test all of the unsubmitted kits identified by AGO’s survey,” the application said.

A group composed of victim’s advocates, law enforcement officials, health care workers and crime lab technicians would help develop policies in handling evidence and reporting sexual assault. Christian County prosecutor Amy Fite said the attorney general’s office approached her to serve on that working group. She said the rape kit tests she has dealt with have come back quickly, and that the forensic evidence it yields can be helpful in court.

“It still is a piece of the evidence for a jury to consider in making their determination, but it can be a very strong piece of evidence,” Fite told ABC 17 News.