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Selects: How Rape Kits Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Chuck here with the selects pick for the week, and
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: this week it's a pretty heavy on everyone. This is
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: about rape kits and the episode is how rape kits work.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: And this is from April second, twenty nineteen. And the
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: reason that I chose to select is because it's just
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: a super important topic about the funding of rape kits,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the lack of funding rather for rape kits, and the
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: backlog of processing rape kits. And it's something that should
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: be known far and wide. So that's why I picked
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: it for this week's episode. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. And now
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: whatever chipperness you might hear, my voice can decline from
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: here on out.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Man, this this is another one of those that's uh
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: tough topic. It's not gonna be loaded with jokes.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: No, I can't. I couldn't. I can't think of a
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: single one. And anytime like I started to be like,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: oh maybe we should come with jokes, now, it's.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Not like we do that anyway, right, Like this would
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: be a good place for a joke. Let me get
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: our writers.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: On its joke here in brackets.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Yes obviously. Uh.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I mean if you saw the title about rape kits,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: hopefully that is the trigger warning you need.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But we might as well just say it out loud.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: M h. Trigger warning for this one. That's all we
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: need to say, I think, right.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Pretty much. I mean we're talking about rape, sexual assault
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: in general, and specifically. I want to say, Chuck, I've
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: had on the list for a really long time rape
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: as a topic at I think it definitely deserves it,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: but it's I've just been kind of walking past it
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: every time I go down the list, you know, right,
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I think it's due, especially after this one. Yeah, but
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: it's it's almost like we needed to do this one first,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: or else it wouldn't be stuff you should know, right,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: if we didn't do something tangential, bigger topic. Sure, we'll
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: do that eventually. Yeah.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: And also this comes out this is one of those
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: happenstance things. As I was researching and reading this stuff,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, you know what we should check
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: and see when Sexual Assault Awareness Month is?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And it turned out it's April.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And it turned out that April second, the day that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: this drops is Day of Action, so they encourage people
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to wear teal on April second, which is today.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I'm wearing Well it's a mint green, but it's awfully
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: close to teal.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird how this is all coming together.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Like, yes, so you know, Action Day should be for
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It should be like a purge,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: like the Merge. Yeah, that's what it should.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie, but.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I guess yeah, I haven't either, but I know the premise.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And that Sexual Assault Awareness Month is carried out by
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: in SVRC dot org, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: And also I know that we're doing a lot of
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: precursoring here, but there is one section here on what
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to do if you've been sexually assaulted. Two dudes explaining this,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: like just do this, Like we're not taking it that likely,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: you know, Like we know that it is extremely difficult
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: to do anything much less like follow all the exact steps.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: So many sexual assaults and rapes get unreported for a
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: thousand reasons. So we're not taking this lightly. But this
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: is our job, this is what we do, and this
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: is an important topic, so sure, please excuse two dudes
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: explaining a section on what to do when you're sexually assaulted.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: But I think that also raises another point that I
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: want to touch on to Chuck. Sexual assault doesn't just
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: happen to women. Sure, it happens to men.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: The trans community is also a big target for sexual assault, unfortunately.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: So while it is largely women and from what I've
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: seen women between eighteen and thirty five, it hits all
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: demographics and targets across the spectrum of human beings, including men. Yeah,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: so I wanted to say that as well.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: All right, now on with the show. So should we
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: do the history part first?
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I think I was thinking, so I think we should
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: say what a rape kit actually is.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's something we always do wrong.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: We're doing it right though we've hit everything right so far.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: I think I think a rape kit, and I'm so
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: sorry everybody to keep saying rape kit. They're also called
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: sexual assault evidence collection kits. You can understand why people
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: call them rape kits. But from here on out, maybe
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: we'll just try to say kit. Sure, they are really
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: simply a box. I saw a shoebox size, Ed says,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: microwave oven size.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Just depends on the oven.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: A big old box. Yeah, and inside this box is
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: a all the stuff you need to collect the evidence
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: of a sexual assault.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that a professional uses. It's not like a home thing.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: No, but it does include such thorough, step by step
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: directions that someone who's not specifically trained to do this
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: can can can carry out this kind of examination.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I wonder one does this, Like, can you buy these
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and perform this at home? Is you're too A thousand
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: reasons why you wouldn't go into a hospital.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I think that you you can. You can buy them
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: from medical supply or law enforcement supply places. Both of
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: them sell kits, and they're actually relatively cheap. I saw
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: between five fifteen twenty five bucks, So yeah, you totally could.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: It will still edit probably not. The defense would just
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: shoot holes in it all day long, and the jury
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: would be like, I'm sorry.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Which they're already looking to do.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Part of the of the process of collecting this evidence
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: and combining it all together to create this kit is
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: it begins a chain of custody. And if you do
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: it at home and then bring it in and they're
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: going to be like, come on.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Right, And there are a lot of problems with the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: chain of custody that we're obviously going to cover as
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: well when you leave it to the professionals.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Right, it's just a big mess.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: But it is a big mess. But it's still more
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: often than not, it seems to be. It seems to
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: have been a good invention, sure, and that is a thing.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: It is an invention, and it wasn't always around. It's
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: actually a relatively new invention. It wasn't until I think
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight that the first ones actually came into
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: official use by the I believe the police department in
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Chicago and then later on Illinois, which served as a
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: bit of a laboratory for it. And it was so
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: successful that within another year it sorted to spread around
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the country.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just I mean it sounds like it's hard
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: to believe, but just collecting uh and having the tools
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: in a box and collecting the evidence and putting it
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: in a box for storage, just that alone coming around
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: went a long way toward helping victims be taken seriously.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, legitimizing rape and sexual assault.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's sad, but that's that's the case.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: When they were first brought out, they were called vitulo kits,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: in a lot of circles.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Be it t U, l l O and Louis or Lewis.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I never know.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking since season Chicago Lewis Louis.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say Louis because Chicago.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I think it'd be I E. If it were in
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Chicago Louis.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: All right, well we'll go with Lewis.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Let's just call him Chicago lou Chicago Loudulo. Now he
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: sounds like a mobster, Yeah, Chicago Louviadula.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: I think the vitula is really not helping.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: No, but he was not a mobster. He was actually
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: worked in the Chicago PDS forensic crime lab. He was
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: a sergeant and lieutenant who did not invent the rape kit,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: but he was charged with sort of codifying it and
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: putting his stamp because he was one of the first
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: people in law enforcement that was trying to create a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: standardized procedure.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was already a very well respected forensic investigator,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: and so for him to say, hey, I'm a big
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: city forensic investigator, widely respected, and this thing is the bomb. Yeah,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: this is a great invention. We should all start using it.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: And here's how it really helped spread and give it
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: a boost early on. But even though they were called
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Vitulo kits, it's not to say like he was like, yeah,
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: I invented this colin. I think he was just known
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: in the mind of other law enforcement agents that they
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: associated him in these kits. So that's what everybody else
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: called it. But really, if you want to nail down
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: an inventor of the rape kit, it was a woman
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: named Martha Marty Goddard.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Goddard and Btula. I read some interviews with his grandkids,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: and it's like a really proud legacy. They still get
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: letters from people from women. Goddard as she has unplugged,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Like I saw one interview with her where they talked
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: about and we're going to cover this heavily later. But
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the the kit backlog, she didn't even know about it
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: because she's like no TV, no internet, no newspapers. She
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: really just sort of checked out right, and she was like,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: that's really sad to hear about that.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: It is very sad. So I saw a quote somewhere
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: that I think is Betula's grandkids said that he would
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: be spinning as grave if you knew about this backlog,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: which we'll get to later.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: So Goddard was a survivor of sexual assault and she
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: got together with some other victims.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Basically, the writing was.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: On the wall like that, you know, things weren't being
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: taken seriously in many police departments.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, she saw firsthand that like that, that they weren't
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: collecting evidence correctly, that they weren't they weren't taking it seriously,
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: which is still a huge problem, and she's she decided
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: to do something about it.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Well, the first questions, and still in a lot of areas,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: probably the first questions still are like, well, what was
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: the situation, And if it starts with well I met
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: a guy at a bar, then you're sort of discounted,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: like out of the gate.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Very sad and very unfair.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: But she formed a group called Citizens for Victims Assistants
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies and went to work. Like she said,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: she was doing sixteen hour days visiting hospitals, talking to cops,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: going to police stations, lawyers, judges, basically learning and working
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: on everyone she could about how to get a better
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: system going. But she needed money and she got that from,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: of all places, the Playboy Foundation.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Hugh Hefner's foundation, his daughter Christy was friends with
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Marty Goddard, and I think Playboy gave her ten which
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: is equal to about forty two grand in today's money. Yeah,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: and that was enough to go start assembling these kits
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: because one of the points from the outset of these
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: kits was that they be inexpensive because hospital they wanted
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: to remove as many barriers as possible for hospitals to
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: start implementing very smart widely. And one really easy way
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: to do it was to say, here, these are virtually free,
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: or in some cases, these are free because this community
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: group raised a bunch of money to purchase the implements
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: of these kits, put them all together, and now here
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: you just use them, that's all.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Which is a success story in and of itself when
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: you know how like big Farmer works in the medical
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: community in America, Like I could have seen this being like, well,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: these swabs and envelopes and combs, this will be seven
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars right per kit. Yeah, it's because we put
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: it all on a box for you.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Marty godd had gotten the way of that from the
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: outset and still to this day. I mean, that's why
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: they're not any more than five to twenty five dollars year,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: even from like a medical supplier.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's a hashtag hero.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Are we doing that now? Uh huh? Hashtag in it? Yeah,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: relate to the game, my friend as always.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Have you heard about this hashtag thing? Sure, you got
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: to go keep your two fingers on each hand hashtag Okay.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: See, I knew you'd get a funny in there.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: So they were developed before DNA evidence was even around.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: So this was back when it was just like hair
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: and fiber fingernails, stuff like that.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Still very valuable.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And I think one of the kits that's sort of
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: common these days is what's known as the Southwestern Sexual
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Assault Evidence Collection Kit.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: It's like the gold standard, I guess so.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: And it's called the Southwestern Obviously it was in Texas.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: The Attorney General's office there in nineteen ninety eight kind
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: of created this one. And that's sort of, like you said,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: the one that people look to or base theirs on.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean there they took the groundwork that
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Marty Goddard came up with, going from to all of
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: what you'd call in the corporate world and buzz speak,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: all the stakeholders in the process of apprehending and convicting
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: people who are who sexually assault other people, you know,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: scumbags you can say, monsters, Yeah, monsters. And she figured
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: out exactly how to put this together and laid the groundwork.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: And then from what I understand, in the late nineties,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: the Texas the Texas Attorney General's office said let's let's
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: let's purifize us. Let's let's make it even better, like
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: using what we know. And then that's what's in use
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: largely today. Although you're going to find different kids, there's
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: no there's no actual centre. Its a de facto standard, right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: And and in the same point, different hospitals you go to,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: even in the same state, are going to follow slightly
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: different procedures. They might use slightly different kits. But some
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: some states have said, no, this is important enough, like
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: here's how you do this. Here is the law of
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: how you conduct a rape kit examination.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: And so Goddard and Viatullo, you know, his stamp of approval,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: her working hard to get these things, you know, built
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: from the ground up. The work that they did together
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: was like really set the standard in the late seventies
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: for this across the country, just becoming just more a
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: more normalized way to collect evidence and take it more seriously.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Right, it was a big, big deal, big one.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not just literally having you know, all of the
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: implements you need to conduct this investigation, but just the
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: very presence of these sexual assault evidence collection hits, the
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: fact that they exist, says law enforcements, saying, Okay, yeah,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: this is a bigger deal than we've been treating it. Right,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: you want to take a break, Yeah, let's do it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: We're going to take a break everybody. I don't know
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: if you just heard, but won't be right back. It's stuffish,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: all right, chuck. So the very reason that these kids
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: exist is because sexual assault is a very unique kind
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: of crime in that the victim, the body of the victim,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: is a crime scene, a walking, talking crime scene. I mean,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: like if you're murdered or something, and like your body
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: is dumped somewhere, your body is still a crime scene,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: but you're walking around, moving. You can actually contaminate the
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: very crime scene from your assault just by doing things
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: that any normal human being would want to do after
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: being sexually assaulted. It's, in that sense, a very unique
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: kind of kind of crime scene. And that's what sexual
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: assault evidence collection kids are for is to step by step,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: methodically systematically collect that evidence and preserve it so that
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: it can later be analyzed and using court.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so these are the recommended steps if you've been
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: a victim. And like I said, there are a thousand
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: reasons that you would not want to do any and
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: all of these things, and we totally get that. But
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: and I think Ed puts it in a really good
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: way in this article. He said, to receive the best
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: possible care just medically for yourself and to have the
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: best chances of collecting good evidence, it needs to be
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: within a twenty four hour window ideally critical.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: The twenty four is critical, and then apparently up to
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: three days it's still viable. But after three days most
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: experts like it's not going to get any as.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Far as DNA, which is the real, you know, really
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: what you're looking for. You will be very upset, and
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: you may be in literal shock, You may have had
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: one or more panic attacks. All of these things make
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: it very difficult to carry out like logical steps. But
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: experts say that the first thing you want to do,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: obviously is get some more safe as soon as you
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: can get away. If your attacker is around, and try
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and find someone you know an advocate for you, whether
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: it's a friend or a family member who can kind
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: of be with you in the first you know, hours
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: after this this horrific event has happened, go to the
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: emergency room, even if you're not injured quote unquote physically,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: like you really should go to the emergency room as
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: soon as you can.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: This is a big one, not just because the emergency
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: room is where you're going to have this kid administered,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: but also because it takes such tremendous reserve to draw
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: in such tremendous reserves to take yourself out of the
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: comfort and safety of your home, which is probably where
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: you went to not take a shower, which is another
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: huge step too. And to just say I'm going to
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: go to the emergency room and undergo this procedure and
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: let a bunch of strangers poke them probably and tell
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: them about what just happened. That's the ideal of what
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: you're supposed to do. But if you look at it
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: in that respect, that's just such a that's such a
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: huge thing on top of what just happened, that that
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: this is required of you to catch the person who
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: just did it I mean from a from a bystanders perspective,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: it just makes you want to catch them even more.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: You know that that's on top of the assault as well.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's not like the trauma is over for you,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: right and anyway it may never be. But go to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the er as soon as you can if it's not right,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: if you if you go to sleep and wake up
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: the next day, you can go to the emergency room then,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: like it's just important that you go whenever you feel
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: like you can do so. And like you said, it's
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: probably the least intuitive thing you could imagine to not
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: want to shower and bathe yourself, but that that gets
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: rid of a lot of evidence, so's it's terrible.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: But they say please do not shower. Yeah, they say please.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Please the capital P.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: If you you should keep the clothes you're wearing on
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: if you can. If understandably you can't or don't want
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to save them, Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: Put them in a bag and take them to the
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: er with you.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have the wherewithal to change clothes. And
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: this is something that they will have you do in
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the hospital, have you stand over like like butcher paper
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: or maybe even a towel. If you have the wherewithal
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: to do that wherever you are, whether it's at home
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: or in a hotel or someplace. Put that in there too,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: because when you're changing your clothes, that's when you know
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: DNA evidence can can fall out, whether it's a hair
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: or whatever, and in particles. Right, just collect everything you
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: can and put it in a bag. Certainly, do not
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: wash those clothes, and then take those with you to.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: The emergency room.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the last thing you should know, just
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: because you're going to an emergency room, and even if
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: you are tested with this forensic kit, you're not required
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: to file a police report.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Ever.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: That's a big one, but.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Especially right away, it's not like they're going to have
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: a cop in there grilling you. You can file this
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: police report whenever you want to.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, If you are not comfortable filing a police report
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: right then you can do what's called a Jane Doe
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: or imagine a John Doe examination, where they just go
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: through all the steps and collect all the evidence, but
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: you never see a cop. They don't call the police
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: until after you've left. So that's a big one for
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of people. Sure, the ED points out though
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: in some states there is still a statute of limitations
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: of between ten and twenty one years, although some states
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: have removed the statute of limitations for a felony sexual assault.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: But there can be a clock ticking. But we're talking
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: ten years at the least, right, Yeah, for sure. So yeah,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: you don't have to. This isn't something you have to
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: knock out that day if you don't want to, if
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: you're not ready to. When you go to the er
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: for this kind of examination, you are signing up for
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: a few hours. It's going to take a few hours.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: It's not a quick procedure. And there's something else that
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: you should know that I really hope won't discourage you,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: but you should go into it knowing it is a
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: it's an invasive procedure. They have to collect evidence from
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: everywhere that the guy who did this to you, the
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: person who did this to you was, And they're also
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: going to ask you they're going to take an oral
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: history and they're going to ask you to basically recount
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: the worst thing that's ever happened to you within twenty
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: four hours after it happened. And then they're going to
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: go over all of the spots with things like swabs
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: and tweezers and combs and things like that to collect
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: this evidence. And it's going to take a while, but
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: you should expect to be treated very gently and with
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: a tremendous amount of respect from the people who are
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: going to administer this examination. And I would guess to
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: a hospital there will be counselors available there to be
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: there with you if you don't have like a friend
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: or a family member there with.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: You or anything.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in rural areas are where they still need to
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: do a lot of catch up work in hospitals and
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: things like that. But if you're in any major city,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: there will almost one hundred percent chance that you'll have
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: what's called a sexual assault nurse examiner on staff. This
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: is a nurse who has received extra training on how
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: to administer this exam. Like we said before, like any
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: nurse can do this and do a great job. But
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: if you have a sa AY a sane trained person
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: on staff, then that's who you'll be seeing. And you know,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: like I said, in rural areas, they're just it's just
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: tough to staff up for things like this, so they're
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: still doing all they can to get grant money and
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: stuff like that to get these people trained up.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a question of extra funding. Because if
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: you give a hospital funding that's set aside for sane nurses,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: you just created a new position in a hospital that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: wasn't there before. You've given the nursing staff there an
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: incentive to go further their education, invest in their education
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: so that they can have this better job in the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: same hospital and help people as well. So it's really
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: just a question of funding. Yeah, that's it, you know.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of this stuff sadly is question
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of funding. Yeah.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Luckily there is enough agitation at the bottom up that,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: like the pocketbooks have kind of loosened up over recent years, right,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: it is. It is something that hasn't been it's been
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: as the result of agitation and bad press, right right,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: and you know the right thing to do.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Consent is a big part of all
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: the entire procedure. They're going to ask you basically before everything, like, hey,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I have a speculum here, we need to do a
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: vaginal exam. Is that okay with you? And you can
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: say no to any and all of this stuff. This
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: is all up to you, yeah, on how you want
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: to proceed with this.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: And they're going to ask for your consent for the
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: whole procedure first, and then step by step before each
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: step they're going to ask for your consent as well,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: and they're going to explain what's coming up, like you said.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and as far as the interview portion, this is
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: really important stuff as far as what will eventually wind
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: up with investigators and the questions about like were you
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: on drugs or had you been drinking? Like this isn't
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to set you up for future, you know, grilling by
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: a prosecutor necessarily, but like if you you may have
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: been drugged or you may have had a drink, biked
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: or something like that. Right, So all of this is
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: like just super super important.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: So they need to know. They need to say, hey,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: future lab tech test for roof and all or something
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: like that. Whatever if that if you were in a
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: bar and you suddenly woke up on the side of
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: the road, right, if that's the kind of history they're
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: taking for you for those reasons, not not you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: what were you doing in a bar by yourself? Yeah, yeah,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: that's not what this is. Again, this is not a
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: detective asking you or performing this exam. They might not
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: even be aware of your case. Yet this is a
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: trained nurse or at the very least a registered nurse
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: who is performing this with one would expect a tremendous
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: amount of like compassion and respectfulness.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, you're going to be giving blood and urine samples.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: This is super important to provide a DNA baseline. They
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: will pluck cares from your scalp, they will swab your mouth,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: they will use a comb to collect pubic care. There
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: will be you know, we already mentioned a genital exam,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: whether it's vaginal or anal. They really, like you said,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: they just they have to go over with a sort
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: of a fine tooth comb everywhere where the assault happened.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're going to ask you awful questions like
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: where you penetrated anally, was an object used? Did the
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: perpetrator lick you or kiss you or anything like that? Right,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: And depending on these questions, they're going to investigate further.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: But they're they're going to follow certain steps that no
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: matter what. But then if you say, yes, the guy
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: licked my face on my left cheek, there's going to
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: be a swab on your left cheek that they otherwise
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: may not have included in the normal steps.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again this is like, I mean, I can't
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: imagine having to relift something like this, And they're.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Right within like twenty four hours, ideally twenty four hours
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: after it happened, like the worst thing that happened to
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: you in your life. Let's talk about it here, point
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: to where it happened. Yeah, you know, from a stranger.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Well, and there are plenty of interviews that that we
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: both read where you know, women said it was it
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: was reliving it and I felt like I was being
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: even with a great caregiven, like I was being assaulted
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: all over again. It's just so important to try and
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: try and do if you can, if you can get there.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: If you can't, there's no blame, there's no judgment, like
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: it's that's a that's a normal reaction. This is a
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: lot to ask from somebody, but this is what it
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: takes to to collect the evidence and preserve it in
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: a way that you can catch the person who did this.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're going to test for well, it's not required
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: actually to test for STDs, but they will ask you
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: about STDs, I would imagine ask if you want to
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: be tested.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: They will offer emergency contraception as well, and you're not
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: going to be charged for that procedure or the kit.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing go or you shouldn't be.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: No, you won't be not for the not for the
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: administration of the kits. Which is that's great, that's substantial.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I mean it's a sixteen dollars kit. But this is
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: also four or five hours of an er nurse's potentially
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: a highly trained er nurse's time. So that's great, they're
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: not charging you. But what's what's a shame what's shameful,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: I should say, is that you will still be charged
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: for any treatment of injuries. Say like you, we were
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: hit and you need to be treated with like stitches
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: or whatever. You'll get a bill for stitches. If you say, yes,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: I do want anti viral drugs because I'm afraid of
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: having contracted an STD, or I do want emergency contraception,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: They'll say here's your prescription, and the pharmacist will charge
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: you for that. That's not okay. As a society, we
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: should not ask rape and sexual assault victims to pay
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: for their own medical treatment directly coming from a rape
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: or a sexual assault. We should bear that burden ourselves,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: and then it should give us that even slighter additional
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: incentive to go get the guy who did it right,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean? We should nobody should pay
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: a cent. And then even worse than that, I'm sorry,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I realize I'm standing on a pretty big soapbox right now,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: but worse than that, Chuck. Prior to the Affordable Care Act,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: you could not you It was possible that you would
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: be denied future healthcare coverage insurance if you were the
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: victim of a sexual assault or rape who went to
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: go get treatment because they treated it as a pre
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: existing condition. Unbelievable, a pre existing condition was rape? Can
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: you believe that?
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Sadly, I can stepped down.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: They're gonna take this kit, They're gonna seal everything up,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: they're gonna store it. Everything is like, you know, all
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the clothing and everything and all the swabs are dried
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: out and labeled, and then it's sealed back in that
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: original box as part of the I guess the genius
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: of this kit was that every thing that comes out
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: of it goes right back in, and it is also
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: the storage device right where it's you know, labeled, and
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: then it's all shipped to local law enforcement and then
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: it's stored quite possibly till the end of time, sadly yeah,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: or destroyed. We'll get to both of those things.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: And ideally, and under just about any procedure, every single
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: person who takes custody of that is supposed to sign
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: the label on the outside of the box, so there's
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: a clear chain of custody, and it goes from the
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: er nurse to the cops, to the prosecutors, to the
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: lab to the prosecutors and so on. But there's supposed
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: to be a clear chain of custody so that there's
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: no questions about whether it was tampered with or anything.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I always that's the one thing that weirds me out
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: about any kind of blood sample I'm ever asked to give,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: or any kind procedure I'm ever tested for, is when
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I see them take my blood or whatever specimen and
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: they're writing on the little thing and it leaves the room.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know why.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: My first thought is always like, well, they're going to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: mix that up with somebody, which.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Is not true.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: But I'm always just like, all right, well it's out
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: of my vision, so I don't trust it.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know what that is. It probably stems from
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: having been switched at birth, in the hospital. That's the
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: only explanation.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: All Right, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: come back and talk after this about the horrific problem
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: of rape kit backlog and destruction right after this. Tough.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: All right, So we told you the history of the kit,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: how it works, your ideal scenario for what you should
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: do if you're ever a victim, and the great ending
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: to this story would be is and then those kits
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: go off and they all get tested and they have
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: great conviction rates and.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: H rate so long rate.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Sadly that is not the case, and this is all
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: over the news for years now, as it should be.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: But well, first of all, this is what happens in
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: the ideal scenario. They do store this, it is tested
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: in a DNA lab and then it's checked against the
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: CODIS the c O d I S, the Combined DNA
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Index system, that's the database from the FBI of DNA
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: profiles of bad people.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And if there a hit comes up, then.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: You have a pretty good chance then of finding this person.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: The other thing about COTIS is this, when you submit
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: a sample a DNA sample, the codis from a crime
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: like a sexual assault, and there's not a hit that sample.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: You know, you just go okay, sorry, Cotis, can I
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: have my sample back? Like that sample stays there, and
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: so future detective to say they have a suspect or
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: somebody who comes in and as a matter of routine,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: they run the suspect's DNA, which I think like just
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: a matter of course. Now, when you're charged with a crime,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: they swab your cheek and then run it through cotis.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: That DNA may be hit and all of a sudden,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: this thing like you got caught robbing somebody's house, but
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: now you're up for a rape charge from two years
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: ago because your DNA was entered through this rape kit.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: So even if you don't get a hit, that doesn't
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: mean that there's not going to be a conviction. That's
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: not like the rape kit was all for naught.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, for sure. Sadly, that's not the
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: way it always works. In the two thousands, there started
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: to be some there were some reporters digging around, found
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: a story and found out that there are tens of
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: thousands of rape kits all over the country sitting in
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: warehouses and sitting on shelves for years and years and
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: years untested.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: It was so bad, Chuck, that they became known as
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: the backlog, right, yeah, like some dating back to the
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: nineties where they just, like you said, sitting in warehouses untested.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: And at first when I think some reporters started digging
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: this up and found out like, whoa, this is not okay,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: how widespread is this and started looking around and found
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: it's like everywhere, and some towns are worse than others,
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Like Akron, Ohio had something like three thousand, I think.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Two thousand kits in Akron, Ohio alone.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: So Detroit had. Sorry, Akrony, I didn't mean to put
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: more on you than you had. I was confusing you
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: with Phoenix. Phoenix had three thousand kits, Dallas had four thousand,
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Memphis has twelve thousand, and in Detroit a few years back,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: somebody wandered into a police storage facility and was like, oh,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: there's a seven thousand untested rape kits that have just
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: been that we just forgot we had. Here's the problem
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: with that. There's a couple of problems with it. But
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: the first one, Chuck, is that every single one of
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: those kits represents a person who found the wherewithal to
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: drag himself for herself to the er and go through
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: this hour's long procedure and suffer a second violation basically
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: is what it feels like. In order to give the
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: cops the evidence that they need, and the cops didn't
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: even bother to send it to the lab. That is
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: a third violation.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: And the other problem is that this could be like,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: while they're sitting in there, and this often, sadly is
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the case, is that these people commit more sexual assaults.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yep, so they could be behind bars.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. In Detroit, So there was eleven thousand untested kits
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: they found. Let's say that each one was a different
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: and perpetrator. The recidativism, that's a bone head word. The
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: recidativism rate they think for sexual offenders of sexual assault
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: is between five and thirty two percent over a fifteen
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: year period. So if those kits sat there untested for
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: fifteen years, that means that an additional five hundred and
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: fifty to thirty five hundred and twenty rapes were carried
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: out by the same people whose DNA was in those
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: kits untested.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's unacceptable, right, And as a result, Congress
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: was like, here's one hundred and fifty million dollars to
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: get rid of this backlog.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: That should solve it.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: It did. It helped a lot, right, It got the
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: labs going and everything like that.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: The problem is is it funded labs. That's what everybody
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: said was, well, the labs are overworked, what are you
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: going to do? So they got more technicians, they got
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: more labs, and the backlog got worked through. In a
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: lot of cases in Detroit in particular, the prosecutor, one
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: of the prosecutors there named Kim Worthy, who's another hashtag
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: hero of this story, has been like, this number is
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: going down. We're going through those kits and it's systematically
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: and methodically.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: It's what it takes.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: It takes someone or a body of people, like specific
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: not just like throwing money at something, but like specifically
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: following up on the ground.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Right. Okay, so the funding went toward the labs, right,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: But that left another half of this formula, which is
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: a big one.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: The cops. Right.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: So this backlog got moved through the labs, but that
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean that the cops followed up on the results,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: and including cases where there were hits in Codis. Later
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: research by reporters found that like a lot of these
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: cases in the backlog that got worked through hadn't been
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: followed up on. Yeah, which is another problem.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there have been some federal guidelines laid down since then,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: specifically the Safer Act of twenty thirteen Sexual Assault Forensic
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Evidence Reporting. Different states have new laws in place, Like
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: in New York State it is law now that requires
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: kits to be sent in within ten days of collection
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: and tested by the lab within three months, and they
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: set up a timeline for processing backlog kits. But it's
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: you know, it still depends on what city you live
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: in and what state you live in, because it still happens.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: It still happens a lot. It says here in twenty
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: eleven report from the National Institute of Justice, eighteen percent
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: of all unsolved rapes between two thousand and two and
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: two thousand and seven involved this kind of evidence that
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: had never been processed, right, eighteen percent, yep.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: And so in the cops defense here there they're basically
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: saying most of them are saying, Okay, so great, that
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: was great. You guys funded the lab. We are still
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: overworked and understaffed and.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Out of room, out of room literally to store these kits.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: So here is another thing, right, So all this stuff went,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: all this focus went on the backlog. As a matter
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: of fact, the third hashtag hero from this story is
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: Mariska Hargeta from Law and Order SVU. Yeah, just from
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: doing Law and Order SVU. Her eyes were so open
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: to this whole backlog problem that she started a foundation
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: called the Joyful Heart Foundation that is basically dedicated to
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: getting rid of the rape kit backlog.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Well actually that's a larger foundation, but within that is
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: in the backlog dot org. And here's what you can
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: do everyone, since it is a national awareness month.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: First, put on something teal.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Put on something Teal on April.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Second, go to end the backlog dot org and click
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: on take action and there are a number of things
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: you can do. But at the bottom there's a donation button,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: and donate. I set up a monthly today that as
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned, I'll donate monthly till the day
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I die, sure, which hopefully is a long time.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Long long time hashtag long time.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But just go to end backlog dot org.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: If you don't have money to give, there are other
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: things you can do under the take action banner.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: For sure, yeah.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: So back in twenty sixteen, while everybody was talking about
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: the backlog, worrying about the backlog, doing something about the backlog,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: the Fayevel, North Carolina, Chief of Police held a press
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: conference and said, Hey, the city attorneys told me not
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: to do this, but I feel morally a moral responsibility
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: to tell the public this. But we destroyed about three
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: hundred untested rape kits in cases where the statute of
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: limitations hadn't run out.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this isn't sitting on a shelf, this isn't untested,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: this is we threw them away.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: They were incinerated. That evidence has gone forever and it
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: was never sent off to a lab and the statute
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: of limitations was not up in these cases. And that
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: was huge. That was a big, a big deal. And
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: he committed his town as police department to going through
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: all those cases, contacting the victims and see if they
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: could still build a case for all them. They made
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: it a priority. But it opened Pandora's box around the country,
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: and CNN got a speculum of their own and started
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: crawling around law enforcement agencies all over the country and saying, Hey,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: have you guys ever done that? Have you ever destroyed
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: rape kits? What's your policy for that? When's the last
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: time you did it? Were any of them still within
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: the statute of limitations and they found out that it
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: happens a lot. Actually, like a lot police to make
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: room in evidence rooms, they will destroy rape kits. Some
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: of them have official policies in place. Some of them
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: is just a detective deciding that the case isn't going
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: anywhere and we'll say, yeah, you can destroy that rape kit.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's a misunderstanding of what the statutal limitations is.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, but these kits have never gone on, have have
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: never been tested, and never will be tested. That evidence
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: has gone forever, and that is even worse than the backlog.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Everyone is concluded, and I think rightfully.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: So yeah, this and like you mentioned earlier, just having
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: this stuff entered into cotis is huge because let's say
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: you do nab someone and it turns out that they
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: it comes up with like six hits from sexual assaults.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Over the years, like.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I mean prison sentences aside. The value that that has
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: for a victim to know that that person was caught
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: and is finally going to pay for their crime is
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: can't be measured, you know.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Right, and also like, if you go through this procedure
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: and you still don't get a hit in CODIS, but
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: that DNA evidence is in codis. This if this perpetrator
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: gets caught down the line, you've contributed to a much
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: stronger conviction against them and probably a bigger sentence because
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: you've helped establish a pattern of criminal behavior.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: And in fact, that's how they call the Golden State
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: killer I believe is from this backlog of rape kits
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: being put through. Guy popped up. I think they got
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: him for like twelve or thirteen rapes during his serial
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: killer career through this backlog being moved through, and that
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: opportunity is lost if you just destroy this evidence untested. Secondly,
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: it also gives it ruins any opportunity for a wrongfully
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: convicted person who's convicted previously before DNA evidence was used.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's happened a lot.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you destroy this evidence, it may it removes
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: that possibility as well. So I think the Justice Department
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: issued some guidelines that say you should hold rape kit
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: evidence for a minimum of fifty years or the statute
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: of Limitations, whichever comes first. And then that's that. And
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: everybody said that's really great, but we really only legally
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: have to listen to our states guidelines, which are all
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: over the place.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if any kind of like penalty and
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: accountability would help.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I think CNN, like crawling up everybody's butt is helping. Sure, Sure,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's kind of opened some people's eyes. And
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: that was the same thing that brought so much attention
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: to the backlog, so hopefully the same attention will come
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: to this too. And yeah, we can start funding police
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: departments around the country to like carry the carry out
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: the legwork on.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, I just have one more thing.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: If you just and I imagine you could do this
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: in any given week or day now, if you just
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: type in rape kit and hit news on your search engine,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: many articles will come up like that day of cases
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: like this. Just today there was one Austin Police Department
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: could potentially reopen dozens of rape investigations after getting a
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: backlog results from a backlog of twenty almost twenty seven
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: hundred untested kits. I believe they got a grant from.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure how that happened, but they got like
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: a million bucks from a grant from Manhattan to Austin, Texas.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Like, we got a lot of money.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: You want some of it Austin maybe, but that allowed
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: them to test like almost twenty seven hundred kits. Another
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: story at Tucson man was convicted of raping seven women
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: over a twelve year period after police received a grant
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: to test rape kits and it said in a changed
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: mindset over which kits get tested. And then Orlando, Florida
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: man is now in jail today. He fled the state
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: and found him in Puerto Rico. And once again, this
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: was a long unsolved rape case that they know. They
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: finally cracked up in that kit, tested it and bammed.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: This guy comes up. Wow, and they got him in
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Puerto Rico.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Yep, still a territory, dufus. If you want to know
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: more about rape kits, just do what Chuck said and
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: search it on your favorite search engines news.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, go to indth backlog dot org for sure.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Even better, just poke around there for a while and
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: put on.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: Something to you. Yes, And in the meantime, it's time
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: for listener mail.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think I have anything.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Teal, you can borrow the sweatshirt. Okay, it's mint, but
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: it's awfully close.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not good with my colors. Emily thinks I'm
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: partially color blind. I think you might be too, might be.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to call this ASMR. We've been getting
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of follow up on this from people that
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: get that tingly feeling and people like me that throw
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: up in their mouth a little bit. Hey, guys, been
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: listening for a long time. I'm always intrigued by the topics.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: I'm a crafter, and your show always keeps my mind moving,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: so my creativity can flow in the background.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Nice, I assure it.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: That's the ideal situation crafting.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I seriously thought I was the only person who
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: experienced ASMR. The friends I've talked to about it in
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: the past thing, I'm crazy. No one around here knows
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: anything about it. I love the feeling I get when
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: I can activate the sensation. The best way I describe
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: it is like for me getting goosebumps inside my skull.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Pretty good.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: That's a great one.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I wish I knew what that felt like.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do too.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I envy that I want this sensation.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: I don't have it.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: The first time I found something that triggered it, I
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: was working in a small office in the basement of
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: a hospital. It was getting repainted, and the sound of
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: the paint roller and the people near me and the
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: office set it off. First, I thought it was strange,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: but I really enjoyed it as our office started to
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: grow up again. Wearing headphones on a regular basis and
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: listened to the entire collection of Bob Ross painting, which
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: I famously or not famously, but I go to sleep
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: to that sometimes on Netflix.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: So you're not you don't have a problem with Bob Ross.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I love it, Okay, very soothing to me.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: But I don't think I mean, I don't think he's ASMR.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Is he?
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he's We didn't say that in the episode.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't think.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: So.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like a legendary ASMR trigger for some people. Legendary,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: all right.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I listened to the entire collection and found the soft
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: sound of his voice in stiff bristles on the canvas
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: caused the same reaction. Helped me lately with my anxiety
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: and general stress in the office. Actually, I even created
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: a playlist of people painting. I would listen to it
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: when I was stuck in traffic as I'm writing I'm
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: listening to your episode, and yes, swallowing sounds can give
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: me the tingles too. Bob Ross swallows a lot when
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: he's painting, and his mic is on his collar.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I'm exciting, guys.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: What the the swallowing? Yeah, you might have to have
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: headphones on for that. Okay, I'm so excited, guys. You
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: have changed my life. Thanks so much. Goosebump headed. Candice
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: h Tali or Katali.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Is uh in there?
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that might be her her surtin name. Yeah,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: bearinmermaid art dot com. Nice, I'm gonna shout out your
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: craft site. It's like jewelry and things. It's not barn
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Mermaid art that I could see. It's just a whimsical name.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, There's like it's something about painting like slows people down.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Like when you're painting and you're talking, you're just that
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: much calmer.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: No one paints fast.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: There's this dude like if like some some artists will paint,
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: do Instagram live and paint. Yeah. And I don't know
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: if you remember him or not, but the Gregory Jacobson.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: He was the artist who came backstage at our Chicago
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: show last time. Yea yeah, okay. He did this for
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: years or for a year he had like some show
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: coming and he would just sit there and paint, and
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: you started watching him originally, and then she got me
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: into it and it was just him painting. He wasn't
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: even in the shot. Normally, it's just his hand painting,
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: but he'd be talking about what he's doing and maybe
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: answering some questions. And I never really thought about it before,
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: but it is like super laid back. Something about painting
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: makes you slow, just slows you down. Well, you know,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: you swallow loudly.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: You never hear from a painter an artist. It's like, hurry,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: you got to go knock this painting out right.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Let me put some some players on there.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Or maybe I don't know. I guess you could be
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: under a deadline.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: And he was under a deadline farmer. He had some
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: huge show coming up, and I guess then he decided, well,
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: I think I'll add this extra complication to this, to
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: this crazy deadline. But yeah, it was interesting. Thanks a lot,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: Candice Nay. If you want to get in touch with us,
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: you can go to our website stuff you should Know
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: dot com and you can send us a good old
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: fashioned email to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.