BY JORDAN TROUTMAN
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt recently awarded all Barry County law enforcement agencies and hospitals with the Community Partnership Award.
According to a press release from the Schmitt’s office, more than 650 entities have been awarded the recognition for completing phase II of the SAFE Kit Initiative.
“The success of the SAFE Kit Initiative depends on active participation from hospitals and law enforcement agencies willing to dedicate the time and effort to help us clear the backlog of untested sexual assault kits and achieve justice for victims,” Schmit said. “We wanted to highlight the wonderful work these departments and medical facilities have done and thank them for their continued partnership with our Office on this vital initiative.”
Schmitt launched the SAFE Kits Initiative in February of 2019, and appointed Judge M. Keithly Williams to lead the initiative.
Through federal grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and money disbursed by the state legislature, the SAFE Kit Initiative is working to eliminate the backlog of untested sexual assault kits by gathering an inventory and working with law enforcement partners to get those kits tested, entered into CODIS, and referred for prosecution.
According to the Schimtt, as of 2020, 70 percent of the statewide reported untested SAFE Kits had been tested. Of the 38 percent of kit uploaded into CODIS, there have been 249 CODIS hits, just from the 2018 SAFE Kits Initiative, and another 5 from 2020.
This information was gathered from the SAFE Kits Initiative Inventory Report from Aug. 15, 2022.
The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) is a nationwide effort that began in 2015. According to the report, the SAKI program has inventoried.
Of 146,278 SAFE kits, 83,201 were for testing, with 13,961 resulting Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) hits between its conception in 2015 to March 2022.
Barry County falls in region C of the Missouri Map with inventory A-F.
According to the report, the SAFE Kits Initiative from the Missouri Attorney Generals office included responses from 599 law enforcement agencies and 126 healthcare providers, in which analysts located 12,182 in-scope SAFE kits. Law enforcement agencies held 11,941, or 98.2 percent of the kits and healthcare providers held 241, or 1.98 percent of the kits.
Law enforcement agencies held 1,408 untested, reported kits; 656 untested, unreported kits; 6,234 partially tested kits; and 3,643 fully tested kits. Hospitals had 128 untested, reported kits and 113 untested, unreported kits. Hospitals do not possess tested kits.
The report added that more than 8,000 kits, or 67 percent, were collected from female victims, and 507, or 4 percent were collected from male victims. Another 3,534, or 29 percent, had an unknown sex.
Additionally the report stated from female victims there was a small spike in assaults at ages 3-4, with a larger spike between the ages of 14-17. For males, there was a spike between ages 3-5, with a smaller spike at age 18. They concluded this could indicate a reduced likelihood of reporting as the victims age increases.
In Missouri, there has been one conviction, four cases set for trial, and two cases with a warrant issued for arrest since the beginning of the SAFE Kits Initiative.
The Barry County initial inventory for 2020 was as follows:
• Barry County Sheriff’s Office, 9 kits: 2 untested/ reported, 3 partially tested, 4 fully tested.
• Butterfield Police Department, 0 kits.
• Cassville Police Department, 4 kits: 1 untested/reported, 3 partially tested.
• Exeter Police Department, 0 kits.
• Monett Police Department, 10 kits: 2 partially tested, 8 fully tested,
• Purdy Police Department, 0 kits.
• Seligman Police Department, 0 kits.
• Washburn Police Department, 0 kits.
• Wheaton Police Department, 2 kits: 2 untested/reported.
• Mercy Hospital Cassville, 0 kits.
• Cox Monett Hospital, 0 kits.
As of July 15, 2022, only the two kits from the Wheaton Police Department remained untested. However, Wheaton did receive the Community Partnership Award for the completion of testing the kits which indicates that they did complete the testing in time.
In an email from the Missouri Attorney General’s office, Madeline Sieren, deputy press secretary, said they wanted to highlight the wonderful work these departments and medical facilities have done in order to assist in clearing the backlog of untested sexual assault kits and achieve justice for every victim of an unspeakable crime.
“We would not have made it this far without them,” she said. “Phase III will include obtaining a third federal grant to continue working to clear the backlog.”
Gary Allen, Barry County Sheriff’s Office deputy, said in January 2020, he got the notification from the Missouri Attorney general’s office that they would be testing the untested kits.
“They wanted a list of what we had,” Allen said. “From 2015 to current, we had nine tests on the list. We were able to send the information quickly and then we took the tests to Springfield, which was the hub for our region. It took roughly three to six months for each batch to be tested and for us to get the results.”
Allen said no sexual assault or rape cases were solved through the Sheriff’s Office.
Allen also said that nine kits in 5 years was not uncommon for them to have.
Stuart Lombard, Detective with the Cassville Police Department, said he believes Cassville’s first contact from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office was in 2018.
“It was an audit from the Missouri Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) Kit Initiative,” he said. “The audit required us to list all kits in our possession that were Type 1 (collected before April 30, 2018 and not tested at a lab) or Type 2 (kits tested at a lab before January 1, 1998).
“I compiled a list of our kits and entered them into a provided spreadsheet. I was then sent a list of selected kits and was required to submit a copy of the police report from those cases. Each kit on that list had been assigned a barcode.”
Lombard said a short time later, a representative from the Missouri Attorney General’s office contacted him and scheduled a meeting at Cassville.
“At that meeting, I presented him with selected kits and he placed their bar-code on said kits,” he said. “We were then given a date, and I transported the kits to the Springfield Police Department. Members of the Missouri Attorney General’s office and Springfield police were present and the kits were transferred into their custody.
“That was our last contact until we were notified that the kits were available to be picked up,” Lombard said. “That process was repeated last year and we submitted our remaining kits.”
Lombard said they just picked those up, and he believes that was about 10 months for processing.
“Once the kits are processed, the extracted DNA is filed into a database,” he said. “It could identify a suspect if their DNA profile is ever linked to their name. “We have not solved any cases through this process as of today.” Lombard said he knows that many agencies have had a backlog of sexual assault kits in their possession. “A large number of those kits can go untested, the result of many factors, [if the] victim declines prosecution, victim’s wishes, case referred to another agency, etc.,” he said. “However, the trauma that a victim must go through, from crime to prosecution, must be traumatic. “We do everything possible to ensure justice is delivered to the best of our ability, before passing the case off to the next step in the judicial process.” Lombard said the SAFE Kit Initiative has provided Cassville PD an avenue to ensure that they have exhausted all resources available to test their kits and identify possible suspects.
“I applaud the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for undertaking a project of this magnitude,” he said.
