Jackson County, Ore. –Hundreds of untested rape kits in Oregon are finally going to the lab.
That includes dozens from Jackson County, after some of the state’s largest counties reached out to the district attorney’s office.
According to District Attorney Beth Heckert, Multnomah, Lane and Marion counties reached out to Jackson County last December.
By the end of January, Jackson County sent out its 70 untested safe kits.
“Just kind of cleans up a problem that has just been kind of lingering,” Jackson County District Attorney Beth Heckert said.
When a sexual assault victim seeks help, nurses collect potential D.N.A. through a sexual assault forensic evidence kit or S.A.F.E. kit.
“It’s just a kit that has tubes and swabs and things like that,” Heckert said.
Those kits are eventually sent to the Oregon State Police crime lab to be tested, but with such high demand, Oregon has been dealing with a backlog of untested cases.
“Jackson County had about 70,” Heckert said.
Larger counties like Multnomah, Lane and Marion had hundreds, which is why they applied for a grant to have an out-of-state lab take care of the cases.
Then with some money left over, Jackson County was invited to send its untested kits as well.
“They reached out to us – to Jackson County – and said ‘if you have some untested sexual assault cases that you would like to be included under this grant, we’ll go ahead and include you,'” Heckert said.
Jackson County District Attorney Beth Heckert says these kits could help identify people in cases in the future or help a victim find the suspect.
“We could end up making a case that we hadn’t made yet because we didn’t know who the suspect was,” Heckert said.
As a part of the grant, the county is required to track what happens to the cases and report back if D.N.A. is found.
Heckert says law enforcement and the county is thankful for the opportunity to finally take care of some unknowns.
“When they asked us, I reached out to all the police chiefs and sheriff and said ‘is this something you’re interested in?’ and everybody was very interested in just getting it over and taken care of,” Heckert said.
The grant covers untested safe kits from before 2014.
The county expects the results to come in intermittently throughout the year.
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