Citation

Crouse CA, Bauer L, Sessa T, Looper A, Sikorsky J, Yeatman DT. Forensic Sci. Int. Synergy 2019; 1: 253-270.

Affiliation

Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Crime Laboratory, 3228 Gun Club Rd, West Palm Beach, FL, 33406, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.fsisyn.2019.09.005

PMID

32411978

PMCID

PMC7219197

Abstract

In August 2015, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (PBSO) initiated a CODIS-Based Sexual Assault Evidence Testing Initiative, hereto referred to as the Initiative, as a direct result of the ongoing national inquiry about the number of untested sexual assault cases having DNA evidence stored in law enforcement agency vaults. The Initiative was designed to research sexual assault related evidence including the estimated 1800 untested sexual assault kits stored in the custody of Palm Beach County Law Enforcement Agencies to determine if probative evidence was available, conduct DNA testing on the evidence, and enter all eligible DNA profiles into the CODIS database. Between December 2015 and July 2018 more than 5500 cases were researched and evaluated resulting in evidence from 1,558 cases spanning a 43-year period being tested at a cost of $1,032,496. Nearly 44% of all cases tested provided CODIS-eligible profiles and 36% of those eligible profiles generated a CODIS hit. The positive impact of this Initiative, while already realized by Initiative-related arrests, will continue to grow as additional CODIS hits are generated and investigated by PBSO law enforcement partners. Ultimately, the Initiative will provide information to criminal investigators and the courts including exonerating the innocent, bringing closure to victims, and helping convict the true perpetrators.

© 2019 The Authors.

Language: en

Keywords

CODIS; Initiative; PBSO; Sexual assault