Of 260 untested rape kits, Chattanooga area officials say only 11 still merit investigation

Police chief Fred Fletcher talks Wednesday, May 6, 2015, about theft prevention at police headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Police chief Fred Fletcher talks Wednesday, May 6, 2015, about theft prevention at police headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Victims who report a rape can be hit with a barrage of questions.

Where did it happen? And when? Who was the rapist?

Do you want to undergo a forensic evaluation?

The contents of that exam, commonly known as a rape test kit, are held by the investigating agency and, in theory, processed by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. That process can take more than a year, and as the 2013 revelation that Memphis had more than 12,000 untested rape kits revealed, is sometimes never completed at all.

That revelation has prompted new legislation, a class-action lawsuit and a national search for funding.

"The Memphis thing put a big spotlight on everybody," Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston said.

According to the TBI, Tennessee still has a backlog of 9,062 untested kits. Almost 7,000 of those come from Memphis, where officials say 16 suspects have already been identified from kits that finally were tested.

Untested kits in Hamilton County and the surrounding area make up only 260 of Tennessee's total number. But local officials say they've spent months going back through each untested kit and analyzing the merits of each case. They've whittled their lists down even farther in an effort to determine which kits will be tested and which will be destroyed.

The result is only 11 untested kits that officials say could yield a prosecution.

Last year, Tennessee's General Assembly passed a bill requiring state agencies to inventory their collections of rape test kits to determine which, if any, remained untested. That information was collected by the TBI, which also requested that each agency go several steps farther.

The TBI asked 400 state law enforcement agencies which kits could be retired without testing and which needed more investigation. They wanted the response by March 1.

But that information wasn't required by law, TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said. Pinkston also requested that information and received responses from only the Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain and Red Bank police departments, according to documents.

The Chattanooga Police Department met the TBI's March 1 deadline, spokesman Kyle Miller said. CPD was among just 16 agencies that met the deadline, DeVine said.

The department has 99 untested rape kits. Of those, three cases were classified as pending investigations. One will be sent for testing. The rest, Miller said, could have been classified in several different ways.

First, there are "unfounded" cases, those defined as false or baseless. A kit might also not be processed if a suspect already has confessed or if a victim chooses not to pursue the case.

Chief Fred Fletcher said reevaluating the kits just makes sense.

"It's just best practices," Fletcher said.

In a response to Pinkston's January letter, Red Bank Police Chief Tim Christol wrote that the agency had two untested kits.

"We originally reported that we possessed no untested kits because neither of these kits were associated with prosecutable cases," Christol wrote.

Red Bank police determined that in one case, a grand jury failed to return an indictment. In the other, an investigation led to a decision to abandon prosecution, Christol wrote. Both kits remain in evidence.

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office reported a backlog of 104 untested rape kits dating back to 1993. The sheriff's office said it has provided extra inventory information to the TBI.

"In October 2014, after reviewing each case, 80 of the 104 were destroyed by court order," said Capt. William Johnson, who oversees investigative services with the sheriff's office.

Seventeen kits are "pending destruction by court order" and another seven are still under review, Johnson said.

According to the TBI, the Cleveland Police Department reported 55 untested kits to the TBI. A spokeswoman said a review determined that none of them would proceed to forensic testing, though some of those kits had already produced arrests without the testing.

Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain, Collegedale and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga police departments all reported to the TBI they had no untested rape kits. It's also possible that untested kits exist at the Chattanooga Rape Crisis Center.

Many states don't require reporting, but according to ENDTHEBACKLOG, a project of "Law & Order: SVU" star Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation, New York City reported a backlog of 17,000 kits and Detroit reported 11,341 at the same time that Memphis was reporting 12,374.

This week, Pinkston, Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher, interim Cleveland Police Chief Mark D. Gibson and others wrote letters in support of the TBI's application for a grant they hope will help clear the backlog statewide.

The Rape Kit Testing Initiative could provide up to $2 million and is being offered by New York County District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

The goal is to "solve previously unsolved sexual assaults throughout the country, and ... bring some measure of closure to victims and survivors who have waited years for their cases to be resolved," Vance said at a November news conference.

As part of that application, Pinkston, Fletcher and others committed to testing every future rape kit unless the victim will not consent to testing or detectives determine that no crime was committed.

The massive backlog in Memphis has been widely condemned, particularly by victims and advocates who say their attackers are still walking the streets. And it could take years to clear. Miller said each kit must be physically driven to a TBI lab, and that right now kits are sent in batches about every five weeks. He said the wait time can be as long as 13 months unless kits are expedited.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, in comparison, says it usually returns test results in about 90 days.

But experts say the DNA evidence contained in the kits constitutes only a piece of the puzzle that must come together before a conviction is handed down.

"A lot of people see 'CSI' and 'NCIS' and 'Law and Order: SVU,' and they think DNA evidence is king," said Caroline Huffaker, sexual assault response team coordinator at the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults.

In reality, those tests can have shortcomings.

"You have a lot of evidence that sex happened," said Lt. Darrell Whitfield of the Chattanooga police Special Victims Unit. "What you're looking for is evidence that it was rape."

Chattanooga's Rape Crisis Center is the only area clinic authorized to collect these tests. Huffaker said when victims come into the clinic, after all the other tough and probing questions, she likes to include one more.

"What does justice look like for you?"

For some, it doesn't involve reporting to police or even involve processing a rape kit. That decision is up to them. For others, justice means seeing their attacker behind bars.

And for those victims, the fate of their rape test kit becomes incredibly important.

"A lot of times, it is moving forward with prosecution," Huffaker said. "That evidence for them is crucial in their definition of justice."

Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow her on Twitter @clairelwiseman.

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