High-tech help now available for unsolved sexual assaults

When sexual assaults are reported, however, technology plays a crucial role in solving these crimes.

“We have great tools at our disposal,” said Pat Holl, a criminal investigator with the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.

“I certainly don’t think our resources or technology is lacking. When I have corroborating evidence, DNA testing is fantastic.”

A veteran officer with 19 years of experience, Holl is responsible for monitoring sex offenders in Madison County.

Last month, thousands of crime scene experts converged on downtown Atlanta for the 2012 American Academy of Forensic Sciences Scientific Sessions. Some of the conference presentations described new technologies that can up the yield from biological evidence related to sexual assaults.

Pressure cycling technology, for example, speeds the extraction of the most telling information from mixtures of blood, semen and skin collected during a rape examination.

“So, right now, they [law enforcement] use something called an organic extraction, where they first slice the female cells, remove the DNA, and then slice the male cells,” said Deepthi Nori of the International Forensic Research Institute at Florida International University. “And that process takes a long time. What we are trying to do instead is to focus on the sperm cells and break them while leaving the female cells intact and untouched. This will reduce analysis time by a lot.”

According to www.humanrightswatch.org, the United States has an estimated 400,000-500,000 untested rape kits. These kits lay idle in police evidence storage facilities and crime labs across the country.

According to Nori, the organic extraction process will help move along the large backlog of rape cases that have been untouched for several years.

Another study at the forensics conference indicated that the orange-lensed goggles most crime labs use to look for biological materials under fluorescent light may not be the best tool for the job. This can be especially important when the goal is to find traces of semen on clothing, upholstery, or other surfaces.

Researchers in the Forensic Science Program at San Jose University set up a light source and compared how well 34 different filters made semen stains visible under fluorescent light. Among these were the familiar orange goggles, said Kelly Conroy, presenting author of the study.

“Detection could be better improved by using more discreet filters than the orange goggles,” said Conroy. “These filters might be able to detect lower amounts of semen. It’s basically improving the ability to collect more information from a smaller sample.”

The stakes are high because sexual assaults are so common.

The nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), estimates that an American is sexually assaulted every two and a half minutes. This adds up to 210,240 each year.

The term “sexual assault” encompasses rape or attempted rape, as well as unwanted sexual contact or threats, according to The National Center for Victims of Crime. In most states, however, the term sexual assault is used as a substitute for the word rape.

In 2010, 2,051 rapes were reported in Georgia, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s official crime statistics. If national figures hold true here, only 6 percent of the perpetrators – or 123 people – will spend a day in jail for these crimes.

Carolyn A. Dickey is a graduate student at the University of Georgia studying health and medical journalism.