Backlog of thousands of sexual assault kits processed in West Virginia under SAKI program

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (WBOY) — The West Virginia State Police and Bureau of Justice Administration’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) have reached a major milestone in ensuring justice for sexual assault victims in the state.

In 2015, the State Police’s Forensic Laboratory partnered with the SAKI along with other organizations with the mission of testing all eligible untested or unsubmitted sexual assault kits and entering qualifying DNA profiles into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database that houses DNA profiles for comparison purposes.

Now, they have completed that goal, with more than 2,400 sexual assault kits (SAKs) being tested.

According to West Virginia SAKI Coordinator Larry Hasley, the kits that were analyzed under the project were from before 2018. Although West Virginia now has a system where kits are sent directly to the West Virginia State Police crime lab, that wasn’t always the case. For decades, officers were responsible for picking up and submitting sexual assault kits themselves, resulting in many slipping through the cracks.

“When we talk about the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative project, it makes me think of the gaps that have occurred over the past decades that have enabled these kits to not be submitted to, for testing to the crime lab,” said Nancy Hoffman, State Coordinator for the WV Foundation for Rape Information Services, “And the quote that it made me think of was that when you have a gap in the system or a hole, that’s the hole that the victim falls through, and it’s also the hole that perpetrators crawl through.”

From the thousands of tested kits, more than 1,000 DNA profiles have been entered into the (CODIS) database, allowing law enforcement across the country to connect possible suspects with sex crimes in West Virginia, even decades after they happened.

Just this summer, at least two suspects have been charged in sexual assault cases from the 1990s and early 2000s in Monongalia County because of processing from the SAKI program.

The processing of previously unsubmitted kits was the first phase of SAKI in West Virginia, but after its completion, the SAKI program will continue to work toward enhancing the criminal justice response to sexual assault in West Virginia.

Just a few weeks ago, Gov. Jim Justice announced $1.2 million in SAKI grants to continue with projects across the state that will help improve the criminal justice system’s response to violence against women.

Information for victims of sexual assault in West Virginia is available online here or by calling 1-800-656-HOPE.

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