The forensic scientist supervisor of the crime lab’s DNA section estimates there are approximately 600 to 700 open sexual assault cases going back six to seven months.
Investigators at the Bexar County crime lab think a new investment could cut its backlog of rape kits in half within a matter of months. The county says it has invested $167,000 to improve the capacity and processing time for the kits.– A supervisor at the Bexar County Criminal Investigations Laboratory says new machinery, in place since June 1, will allow his team to make quick headway on a backlog of sexual assault cases.
“I fully expect us to have or decrease this backlog in half and the turnaround time, I hope, in half within those four to six months,” Foster said. Bexar County has spent $167,000 to improve the capacity and processing time of sexual assault kits, which includes new automated machinery that can simultaneously extract DNA from samples in multiple cases in a matter of hours.Where they previously had to first pore over each sample with a microscope looking for usable material- something that could take an entire day for one case - they can now skip straight to extracting any DNA from the samples.
Although Foster estimates it will still take about two weeks to process each case, the new machines and Y-chromosome screening process will make it possible to work on more cases at one time.
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