Police continue to work hundreds of cases connected to rape kit backlog

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It took almost two years and a new mayor’s administration to finally get an update on pertinent evidence that sat in storage for decades and allowed the attackers to walk free.

In 2010, WREG Investigators first told you about the evidence connected to 12,000 sexual assaults that police stuffed into storage for decades instead of sending them to a lab to be analyzed for DNA.

Fourteen years later, the city reports those rape kits have all been sent to a lab, but the work isn’t over.

Memphis Police told us they’ve launched more than 11,000 investigations. They’ve closed just over 10,800 cases, but 557 cases still remain active.

762 rape kits resulted in an indictment against a person or DNA profile, and 2,600 returned insufficient or degraded DNA.

More than 1,500 cases were past the statute of limitations , which means the limited window of time to criminally charge them per state law has passed even if an attacker’s DNA was identified.

In those 1,500 cases, the attacker will never stand trial in criminal court.

The information took us almost two years to find out. We filed an open records request in September 2022, but every few weeks, we’d get an email stating the city needed more time to gather the information.

When Mayor Paul Young was elected, his administration dedicated more staff to help with records requests. In June, his staff finally got the answers to our questions.

For years, WREG Investigators have been committed to pressing for answers as we track the progress of the rape kit backlog.

The questions we’ve been asking were typically addressed when the council requested monthly updates from police on the backlog. Those updates were promised by city officials as they tried to regain the community’s trust.

In April 2019, the updates suddenly stopped.

After our questions, council members said they would call for quarterly updates. That didn’t happen.

The issue entered the spotlight again in September 2022 when Memphis mother Eliza Fletcher was kidnapped and killed on her morning jog.

The man accused of that crime also raped a woman a year before, but due to another backlog at the state crime lab , the rape kit wasn’t tested for months.

The day they finally made a DNA match was the day police found Fletcher’s body.

“We realized there’s still issues with the processing times. That’s why we’re turning our attention to it now,” Councilman Chase Carlisle stressed to us then .

He and other councilmembers were upset by the news, and once again, vowed to get answers on the old and new backlog. Police gave them a brief update in September 2022 but that was it.

Council chairman J.B. Smiley said recently that doesn’t mean it’s no longer a concern.

“We are going to have robust discussion particularly, probably, about the rape kits, but other things coming before the city council,” Smiley said.

The state has signed off on more funding and resources to help lower processing times at the state labs. At last check, the turnaround time for rape kits was about three months at the Jackson lab where Memphis and Shelby County send their evidence.

Meanwhile, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said they continue to “persist in testing older kits in hopes of seeing more cold cases prosecuted.”

In February, they announced a guilty verdict in a 35-year-old case . They stated a rape kit from a violent assault in 1988 was among the giant backlog. It happened when there was no statute of limitations on aggravated rape cases. The law has since changed.

Prosecutors say the evidence was finally sent to a lab in 2015 and returned a DNA match to a man with prior sex offense convictions in Tennessee and Utah.

We’ve also asked the district attorney’s office several times for an update on their work pertaining to the backlog like how many cases they’re working, how many convictions there have been, and how many suspects are linked to more than one attack. Once we get those answers, we will let you know.

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