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Attorney General Mike DeWine
DeWine Releases
April Sexual Assault Kit Testing Update
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) -- Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today released a
status update on the progress of DNA testing being conducted as part of
the Ohio Attorney General's Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Testing
Initiative.
As of April 1, 2015, 156 law enforcement agencies have submitted 9,354
kits to be tested as part of the initiative. Of those, 19 kits
were submitted after Senate Bill 316 took effect.
As April 1, 2015, forensic scientists with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal
Investigation (BCI) have completed testing on a total of 6,908 of those
kits, resulting in 2,584 hits in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
In Cuyahoga County alone, more than 270 defendants have been indicted
following DNA testing conducted as part of the effort, including Dwayne
Wilson, 54, who was sentenced last week to life in prison with his
first parole eligibility in 110 years.
Following DNA testing conducted as part of the initiative and the
subsequent investigation by the Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Kit Task
Force, which includes agents from BCI, investigators connected Wilson
to multiple sexual assaults on women in the Cleveland area between 1994
and 1997.
"This defendant was indicted on these charges just a few days before he
was scheduled to be released from prison on a separate sexual assault
conviction, but now this attacker will never be free to walk the
streets and target innocent women ever again," said Attorney General
DeWine. "This case is the perfect example of why I feel so
strongly that all rape kits associated with crimes must be
tested. Not only is this initiative helping to solve unsolved
sexual assaults, but it's also preventing future crimes as well."
Background on the SAK Testing Initiative:
Attorney General DeWine launched the initiative in 2011 after learning
that dozens of law enforcement agencies across the state were in
possession of rape kits, some of which were decades old, that had never
been sent to a DNA lab for testing. Attorney General DeWine then
made an open call to law enforcement to send their kits to BCI for DNA
testing at no cost to them.
To handle the influx of the thousands of kits, Attorney General DeWine
hired ten additional forensic scientists to ensure the timely analysis
of kits submitted as part of the SAK Testing Initiative. By
hiring this additional staff, the older kits are tested as quickly as
possible, without slowing down the testing of the more than 7,000 rape
kits associated with recent crimes tested by BCI as part of their
regular casework since 2011.
Senate Bill 316, which went into effect on March 23, 2015, now requires
Ohio law enforcement agencies to submit any remaining previously
untested sexual assault kits associated with a past crime to a crime
laboratory within one year. The law also requires that all newly
collected rape kits be submitted to a crime lab within 30 days after
law enforcement determines a crime has been committed.
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