With new results from old rape kits in Kentucky, outreach to victims is a priority

Victim advocate Nicole Carroll picked up the phone, punched in the numbers and hoped for an answer.

Like all calls she makes to victims who are part of the Louisville police's backlog of about 2,000 rape kits, she knows her words are likely to reopen a wound. After years, sometimes decades, of inactivity, there is now a development in their case. Their kit was finally tested.

The first number she dialed was disconnected.

She tried another.

The woman Carroll sought no longer lived there, the voice on the line told her.

A home address in southwestern Louisville was the last resort. Carroll and Sex Crimes Sgt. Tim Stokes readied for a drive on a recent Friday morning, grabbing their file on the 2011 sexual assault case.

They had already reviewed the details of the assault and the new information they received the night before in an email from the Kentucky State Police forensic laboratory. DNA was found in the victim's rape kit, and a suspect was identified.

►MORE:  Investigators adopt new sexual assault policies

►MORE:  Local, national coverage of untested rape kits

It’s a process the pair have moved through a dozen or so times since the work started in December, and one they’ll do hundreds more times this year as the testing results on the sexual assault kits, some of which date back to the 1970s, trickle in.

The pair drove in an unmarked car to the home on the crisp, gusty February morning. They walked up to the building and approached the door. They knocked. And waited.

Victim-centered approach

Following a statewide audit in 2015 that found Kentucky had 3,090 untested kits, the Kentucky State Police forensic laboratory secured a $1.9 million grant to have the kits tested for DNA evidence through a laboratory in Utah.

The rape kits, which contain biological evidence collected from a victim following the report of a sexual assault, could yield DNA evidence that, when entered into an FBI-maintained database of DNA profiles, might connect suspects to recent or past crimes.

Results started returning to KSP last fall, and Louisville Metro Police Department received its first email notification in December.

While LMPD, and law enforcement agencies across the state, will learn the results of testing on the backlogged kits, not all cases will lead to arrests, much less convictions.

Kits can come back tested with no DNA detected. Sometimes DNA is found but doesn’t match any known offenders in state and national DNA databases, though it could match DNA linked to other unsolved cases, suggesting a serial offender.

Of most immediate help for police is when the test results provide a link to a known offender.

Sharing that information with the victim is a crucial, delicate first step. Those who convey the message will almost always be local law enforcement and victim advocates, though the minutia of the notifications will vary slightly by jurisdiction.

As re-investigations begin in earnest, spearheading that process in Louisville are Stokes and Carroll, who comprise what their commander Special Victims Unit Lt. David Allen calls the victim notification team.

“It’s their information. It belongs to them,” Allen said. “We owe it to them to do it right.”

More from the CJ

Stealth drug ravages Louisville as deaths spike

Bill: Exempt rape, incest victims from new laws

GOP senators want to cut sex harassment training

Assault survivors join Beshear's new council

Carroll and Stokes are the phone-callers, the door-knockers — directly inserting themselves into what is quite possibly the most traumatic, painful memory in the victims’ lives.

“They are not just case files,” Stokes said. “They are not just stats and report numbers. They are real live human beings that have real live needs.”

Stokes, a department veteran and Crisis Intervention Team instructor, and Carroll, an eight-year veteran of victim advocacy in law enforcement, are at the beginning of the notification process. Some visits have gone better than others, they say. Yet they learn from each one.

The re-investigation begins with finding the man or woman at the heart of the case. Some are decades removed from the assault and now live hundreds of miles away. Perhaps they’ve started a family that knows nothing of their trauma. Or substance abuse has helped numb their wounds.

Statewide model protocol calls for “timely” notification, which for the LMPD means moving with purpose.

The department’s Real Time Crime Center provides leads on phone numbers and addresses of victims.

Sometimes they are found in a day. One case has sat in Stokes’ notification pile for weeks — the victim’s transient lifestyle making her impossible to locate.

Their knocks on the door of the southwestern Louisville home went unanswered. They would keep looking.

Carroll makes first contact with victims, asking if they recall filing a police report in the year they were assaulted. Carroll tells them there’s an update in the case and that she and a detective would like to meet at a time and place of the person's choosing.

“For some people, they’ve been waiting for this phone call,” Carroll said. “We follow their lead. If they don’t want to go forward, that’s where it ends.”

Their early interactions with the victim are paramount, Stokes said. Building — or rebuilding — trust is a fragile feat, easily dashed by insensitivity or lack of follow-through.

Having completed fewer than 15 notifications so far, Stokes and Carroll already know no two are going to be the same.

On one recent notification, the woman appeared stoic throughout their visit. She named the man she said raped her, very matter-of-fact.

At the start of another home visit in Henderson, Ky., the victim cried for nearly 10 minutes before she could speak.

Stokes doesn’t always know what to say as he and Carroll sit with a victim consumed by emotion.

“It does hurt to watch someone in that much pain,” he said. “It hurts.”

Sometimes it’s better to stay quiet — to let them be without being there with them.

“It’s not my time to break down,” Carroll said. “It’s their moment to have these emotions.”

They listen with their ears and eyes — respond as best they can, offer resources and assistance. They tell the victims when their detective will call.

And sometimes offer an apology.

The model protocol acknowledges a finding of the 2015 audit and a reality of backlogs across the state: that some kits were never tested because of victim-blaming attitudes by police and prosecutors.

“I can’t fix it. I can’t fix that it happened. I can’t fix that there’s a backlog,” Stokes said. “I can say from this point forward you have someone on your side who gives a damn — who cares and is going to be helpful to you …”

The road ahead

Kentucky is still in the middle of its testing phase, with all kits not expected to be fully analyzed until October. Nearly 3,500 kits were submitted to KSP, about 1,400 of which have been tested.

The state has adopted a universal notification policy, planning to tell every person whose kit is part of backlog what was found when their kit was tested.

Eileen Recktenwald, Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs executive director, who was at the table in developing model policies for investigating sexual assaults and notifying victims, said she’s appreciative of the willingness of law enforcement to embrace a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach.

“I hope this process is going to change the culture where victims are believed, assaults re-investigated and Kentucky becomes a place where sexual assault is not tolerated,” she said. “I think it will give a message to those who might perpetrate that they ... will be held accountable.”

LMPD is notifying victims whose kits returned DNA evidence, while the Center for Women and Families has agreed to notify victims whose kits do not show any DNA.

Looking at cities such as Houston, Detroit and New York City that began eliminating their rape kit backlogs years ago, national experts estimate about one-fourth of kits tested will "hit" a DNA profile in state and federal databases. Even fewer will ultimately result in convictions.

More from the CJ

Southern Poverty Law Center: These are the 23 hate groups that operate in Kentucky

'War on Louisville' worries local Democrats

Panel passes bill targeting Planned Parenthood

Both Stokes and Carroll head into the cases with the hopes of prosecuting. Victim participation in cases is important, if not essential, to successful prosecution. But the two ultimately cede direction to victims and the needs they express.

They also are aware of the realities of prosecution, as not all cases will be deemed to have strong enough evidence for court.

“Everyone we can prosecute, we will,” Stokes said. “Just because we don’t prosecute doesn’t mean the case doesn’t have value.”

Closure looks different for each victim, Carroll added.

On the recent notification in Henderson, the woman told Stokes and Carroll of the aftermath of the attack and how it has marked her day-to-day life. They didn't probe, letting her speak.

“ 'You’re one of the first persons who has ever listened to me,’ ” Stokes recalled the woman told them.

Validation, in that moment, was enough.

Reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at 502-582-4989 or mglowicki@courier-journal.com. 

Where the kits stand

Submitted for testing (statewide): 3,424

Tested: 1,425

DNA profiles entered into database: 41

DNA matches made: 17  

Source: kentuckybacklog.com, as of Feb. 8