RICHMOND (WSLS 10) - Governor McAuliffe announced Thursday an effort to address over 2,000 untested rape kits held by law enforcement agencies in Virginia.
McAuliffe said he will convene a work group with representatives of victim advocate groups, Commonwealth's Attorneys, the criminal defense bar, local law enforcement, forensic nurses and others, who will gather in September to consider what categories of evidence gathered by Physical Evidence Recovery Kits (PERKs) should be forwarded to the Department of Forensic Science for testing.
Recommended Videos
In a release, McAuliffe said, "Legitimate questions are being raised in the legal and law enforcement communities about how the decisions to test PERK evidence are made. When it comes to handling of critical evidence, we cannot afford to let these questions linger. Therefore, to address this issue and to help establish clearer guidelines for PERK testing, I am convening this special work group."
A WSLS 10 investigation revealed 89 untested kits were from the Roanoke City Police Department, 36 from Roanoke County Police and 15 from the Bedford County Sheriff's Office. The three agencies gave several reasons a kit would go untested:
- It was not relevant to the evidence
- The victim did not want to be part of the investigation
- The commonwealth's attorney declined to press charges
The full report can be viewed here: http://leg2.state.va.us/dls/h&sdocs.nsf/By+Year/SD132015/$file/SD13.pdf