SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation noted their backlog of testing sexual assault kits following the DNA tests of Cleotha Henderson in the abduction and killing of Eliza Fletcher.
Since then, the TBI has notified ABC24 that the Jackson Crime Lab’s average turnaround time for sexual assault kits ranges from 33 to 49 weeks from September 2021 to August 2022.
As a part of former Mayor Wharton’s Memphis Sexual Assault Kit Task Force, Deborah Clubb assisted with an agreement between the force and Memphis Police Department to tend to more than 12,000 stored rape kits.
“They would submit every new rape case kit for testing serology and DNA testing within 96 hours,” Clubb said.
It seems this agreement has moved the delay of kits being tested to another location – the Jackson Crime Lab. An email from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations states that in 2021 Shelby County submitted 316 sexual assault requests to TBI, the most of any county in Tennessee with Knox County behind Shelby.
Although the Jackson Crime Lab is fairly new, opening just over one year ago, the staff has yet to meet the demands of Shelby County. Clubb said this is an issue that naturally comes with hiring people in this profession.
“When you hire somebody to be known as a DNA scientist, you’re gonna spend two or three years giving them everything they need to know to be that,” Clubb said. “So, getting hired next month doesn’t fix the problem.”
The TBI said they are in the process of hiring more scientists and technicians to offset the backlog of sexual assault kits. In the meantime, survivors can track the status of their kit as it makes it’s way through the lab system.
“This is devastating that we’re back to this moment, but we have to use this moment once again to demand answers about what do you do when someone comes and reports a rape - so that we assure people that it’s worth reporting and that we will have services, we will have justice, we will have protection,” Clubb said.
Multiple organizations against sexual violence are organizing the eleventh annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes men’s march. It will take place at the University of Memphis on September 22, 2022, at 5:30 p.m. with registration beginning at 5 p.m.
