(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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Media Contacts:
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