ST PAUL, Minn — It was a revelation that shook the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota nearly eight years ago, when an audit turned up thousands of untested sexual assault test kits sitting in evidence rooms and on back shelves of law enforcement agencies across the state.
On Thursday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) announced that the massive backlog of 2,366 untested kits has finally been erased. From those kits, the BCA says DNA was obtained that matched 357 people in the database of previously convicted offenders. In addition, 130 of those DNA hits involve people not previously identified in a criminal case.
Besides completing the backlog of tests, the BCA says the agency has made significant improvements to the sexual assault kit testing process. Among them:
- A new tracking program that allows victims to monitor the progress of their kit in real-time, giving them online access to information and results.
- Process, staffing and funding updates with the goal of turning around kit tests in 90 days time. The BCA hopes to hit that goal sometime this fall.
- Restricted kits - those survivors of sexual assault choose not to have tested - will now all be housed at the BCA instead of local law enforcement locations. That allows immediate action should that survivor change their mind and want to proceed with the testing process.
“The BCA continues to look for ways to provide improved processes for victim-survivors, local law enforcement agencies and in our own laboratories so that we can best serve victim-survivors and the agencies investigating the incidents,” said BCA Superintendent Drew Evans in a released statement. “These projects and steps illustrate our commitment to that continual improvement.”
Thursday's backlog announcement follows years of reporting by KARE 11 for a project we called “The Untested” that helped spur change at the state capitol. Our team at KARE 11 Investigates notes that while the backlog of kits discovered in 2015 has been erased, the BCA lab is still working to process and clear an additional 1,700 untested kits the Minneapolis Police Department discovered in 2019.
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