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How Rape Kits Work · Stuff You Should Know

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