"Destroyed: How the trashing of rape kits failed victims and jeopardizes public safety"
The germ of this investigation was a daily story I reported in which a North Carolina police chief admitted that his department had destroyed more than 330 rape kits. Without explaining further, the chief ended the presser. But, I had to know more. North Carolina has never had a statute of limitation on sex crimes. No matter how old a case, DNA from a rape kit could, at some point, solve a case. So, what did that evidence destruction mean for victims’ chance at justice? What did it mean for public safety? Had rapists walked free because the police destroyed rape kits?
I began to dig.
I focused on that North Carolina agency, and obtained an internal audit detailing the destruction. I also spent days with a lieutenant who I convinced to read aloud from case files tied to the trashed kits. I learned that 80% of the kits were never tested for DNA and were tied to poorly conducted investigations. Known suspects were not pursued. Witnesses were not sought. Without supervisory approval, detectives had authority to trash evidence in their own cases. Victims did not have a chance at justice and public safety was imperiled.
That’s a good story. But I wanted to find systemic failure if it existed. Were other police departments destroying rape kits?
I scaled up the investigation, sending hundreds of records requests asking for data about trashed kits to law enforcement agencies in every state. That yielded thousands of police records. My colleagues and I built a database and reviewed more than 1,400 sex crimes investigations tied to destroyed kits. I conducted interviews with police, victims and experts, all who made clear a disturbing truth: Law enforcement at 14 departments in 25 states had trashed rape kits while those cases could have been prosecuted. In one jurisdiction, prosecutors had authorized the destruction of evidence in rape cases while the statutes of limitations were still running. And, against the law, prosecutors had approved destroying evidence in adjudicated cases, in turn robbing the wrongfully convicted a chance to retest evidence that might set them free.
Read more about how my two colleagues and I took this investigation across the finish line, and the challenges we faced getting there.