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'We want to get justice': Washington law to cut rape kit backlog

Construction on the high-throughput lab could start as early as September and be ready by the summer of 2020.

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Advocacy groups see each untested sexual assault kit as a missed opportunity to find a victim justice and forensic scientists feel that weight.

“It is hard to see the pile growing knowing that you're working as hard as you can and it's still growing,” Technical Lead DNA Analyst Krista Zaruba said.

Zaruba works at the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab in Vancouver, which serves seven different counties in Southwest Washington. Right now, the lab’s sexual assault kits are backlogged by about 2,600 cases, according to a supervisor.

“It’s the one thing that hangs over your head. Can we get this done? Can we make the court date? Can we get the information out to the investigator? How can we get this done in the most efficient manner possible and get the backlog down? And that’s something we carry with us every day,” Lab Manager Bruce Siggins said.

Governor Jay Inslee signed House Bill 1166 into law Tuesday which aims to bring in around $13 million to help staff these labs and eradicate the state’s backlog of more than 10,000 rape kits.

Related: Funding to eliminate Washington's rape kit backlog expected to be approved

“We've never had fewer cases submitted in any one year. It's always more cases every single year,” Supervising Forensic Scientist Trevor Chowen. “So, there's always going to be work to do.”

The new law and the funding it will bring is exciting for the scientist at the lab in Vancouver. It is one of the biggest labs focused on sexual assault kits in the state.

About 60% of their caseload is sexual assaults. However, only 11 people staff their DNA unit, according to Chowen.

Through the funding from the bill, the Vancouver lab plans to add six to eight people to their team, according to Siggins.

“We'll just be able to do more cases. We'll be able to do them more quickly. We'll get more cases out the door," Zaruba said. "We'll have answers for victims and law enforcement agencies and suspects who are waiting to be cleared as well.” 

They will use the new employees to staff a new high-throughput lab which uses advanced robotics instead of traditional manual methods. It will also batch samples and allow them to analyze many samples at a time.  

“That's one of the things we're going to get is a robot that will be able to process 96 samples at a time, Chowen said.

The new lab has been a priority at the lab since 2015. However, without funding, the team in Vancouver has only been able to plan for construction for the past year or so. A $1.1 million federal grant is funding the high-throughput lab and money from HB 1166 will pay for staffing, according to Siggins.  

“We’re very excited to get these new people,” Zaruba said. "It will mean our backlog will go down which will kind of ease the mind of everybody who works here."

Construction on the high-throughput lab could start as early as September and be ready by the summer of 2020, Siggins said.

The new lab and scientists who will operate it will allow for more efficient rape kit testing without diminishing quality and results.

“The evidence will be analyzed quickly, and we’ll be able to then potentially upload any male profiles that we find into the CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) database, potentially get a hit that might help solve a case somewhere else or might go back to a convicted offender in the database,” Chowen said. “We’ll be able to get people off the streets that are potentially out there.”

That is the goal of the new bill and these scientists; to find the truth, help investigators solve crimes and prosecutors convict criminals.

“That’s one of our main concerns is public safety. So, if we can get people in the CODIS database - if we can get people off the street – that’s what we want to do, and we want to get justice,” Zaruba said.

In Oregon, the push for DNA tests on thousands of backlogged rape kits has led to convictions from crimes dating back years, even decades.

Oregon was able to eliminate its roughly 5,000 untested rape kits in the fall of 2018 thanks to state and federal funding. That is the goal in Washington as well.

Related: 'There's really nowhere to hide': Oregon clears backlog of 5,000 rape kits

“We’re trying to defeat the ultimate enemy, which is time. When you have time stretching out the victims suffer from that time. The serial rapist can use that time to rape again. The time is there for the victim’s memory to fade. The time is there for the suspect to go to another state or for the witnesses to forget what happened,” Siggins said. “So, we’re trying to defeat that ultimate enemy of time and get the truth out there to the investigator and the prosecuting attorney as efficiently as we can. And what I personally want to see is, I want to see that truth knocking on someone’s door and solving a crime and getting someone justice.”

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