Tens of thousands of rape kits go untested across USA

USA Today reports:

After 18 years without justice, Joanie Scheske believed the man who raped her would never be caught.

That changed when St. Louis police called in 2009. Evidence in a separate, eight-year old sexual assault was finally tested and matched her attacker's DNA.

Rapist Mark Frisella, whose attack was so brutal Scheske still suffers from epilepsy, is serving 19 years in prison.

"I had a really difficult time wrapping my head around why that rape kit was never tested," Scheske said. "My case is a poster child as to why you test these kits."

A USA TODAY Media Network investigation identified tens of thousands of sexual assault evidence kits never tested by police.
Instructions sit next to pipettes at a station in the

Instructions sit next to pipettes at a station in the biology lab at the Houston Forensic Science Center in April.
(Photo: AP)

In the most detailed nationwide inventory of untested rape kits ever, USA TODAY and journalists from more than 75 Gannett newspapers and TEGNA TV stations have found at least 70,000 neglected kits in an open-records campaign covering 1,000-plus police agencies – and counting. Despite its scope, the agency-by-agency count covers a fraction of the nation's 18,000 police departments, suggesting the number of untested rape kits reaches into the hundreds of thousands.

Let's trust the government, they don't work on the profit motive. (We are just joking)