"OLYMPIA — The state has cleared a decades-old backlog of more than 10,000 forensic kits collected from sexual assault survivors, state officials said Thursday.
The kits contain forensic evidence collected by medical professionals in the wake of sexual assaults. State auditors wrote in 2022 that 'this evidence has the power to identify the assailant, exonerate the innocent, and link cases together.'
Officials attributed the milestone to a combination of new laws, additional funding and a concerted effort between different government agencies.
...It took 14 months for Leah Griffin’s kit to get tested, she said at a news conference Thursday. Griffin, who was raped in 2014, struggled to find a hospital that would provide a kit and persuade law enforcement to get it tested.
'What I want to say to the survivors out there is that what happened to you was not your fault, that this backlog was not your fault,' Griffin said. 'You were not uncooperative. You were working in a system that was not designed for you.'”
