WEBVTT - The Survivor 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.040 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.239 those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:10.160 represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:15.080 This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:22.720 discretion is advised. Previously an algorithm. I feel I should 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:25.000 have got locked over them. Yeah, I'll beat her, I 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.920 rape you, rape you. I standard y'all call it right, 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.239 but we don't call it ran in streets like you 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.320 pay here? So what is she complaining about? After Vaughan's 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.400 release from prison in August, he moved back to Gary 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:45.440 first time. He really didn't go over okay and true 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:50.839 World War for for a couple of days, and in January, 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.800 Vaughan appears to have committed the first of his confirmed murders, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:01:02.560 killing twenty eight year old Tierra Baby and Way call 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:07.920 it never happened. Her fiance, Marvin Clinton, investigated her disappearance 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.920 and discovered a man, likely Vaughan, had stolen her cell 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.319 phone and was using it to call prostitutes, and Marvin 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.240 says he took that information to the police. He didn't 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.120 have me thank but from that point on it what 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.679 he did would director. I have no idea. And around 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.920 that same time, another woman had a run in with Vond. 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.280 She was one of the very first person that ever 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.880 weighing into HOW, but she happened to get away from HOW. 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:41.040 From I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This is Algorithm 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:47.240 and I'm ben Key Brick at eleven am. On February, 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.120 just over a month after Tierra Batty disappeared, Darren Von 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.160 contacted a woman who placed an ad as an escort 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.480 on backpage dot com. That's the same site that Von 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.880 would later use to contact Africa Hardy. The woman who 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.000 will call Sarah, came forward with her story after Vaughn 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.720 was arrested and she saw his picture on the news. 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.560 Detective Ford looked into it. He found the report that 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.799 Sarah had initially filed, and then went out to interview her. 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:16.440 How did it make you feel when you saw him 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.639 on the news? Ford recorded this interview. With the way 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.320 it's recorded, you can hear him well and how do 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.200 you spell your last name? But many of Sarah's responses 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:32.760 aren't audible. Luckily I got access to Detective Ford's report 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.480 about this interview, so try to fill in some of 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.920 the gaps. When the audio isn't clear. I'd prefer to 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.760 hear things firsthand from Sarah, and I reached out to 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.800 her for comment, but I couldn't get in touch. You 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.639 can tell from the get go that she doesn't trust police, 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.040 which makes sense given her story. And I know it's 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.160 hard for you to believe, but we're here to try 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.959 to help himself. Okay, how did you wind up meeting 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.960 this guy? You had a back page ad, so you 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:06.600 were in Chicago, you drove the Gary. Okay, so you 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.400 met him at one house and he asked you to 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.080 drive to another one. Now, how did you find it? 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:13.880 Did he give you directions to it? Or did you 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.400 put it like in your phone for GPS? So he 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.840 just told you kind of how to get there. Now, 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:25.720 in the report, do you say that it's fourteen East Court? 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.320 East fifty Court was the street that von lived on 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.360 with his brother, and the address Sarah had given police 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.120 was just across the street from where Vaughan was staying. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.320 What happened when you get to the house. When you 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.960 when you meet him the first time, Sarah says that 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.680 as she was getting out of the car, Vun ambushed her. 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.360 He put a knife to her neck, and he told her, 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.280 you're going to listen to me. Get in the fucking house. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:57.240 What did he look like the guys? Sarah says that 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.680 because of Von's facial ticks, the way he ground his teeth, 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.040 she thought that he used to be addicted to crack, 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.320 used to be okay, So he put a knife to 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.280 your next and he said, you're gonna listen to me. 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.080 Sarah says Von took her to a back room in 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.080 the house. He made her hand over her cell phone 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.039 and car keys and told her that if she did 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.080 what he said, then he'd let her go. But she 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.039 didn't believe him because she saw duct tape and gloves 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.440 in the corner of the room, and he started asking 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.640 her questions. He was asking about your car, who knows 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.480 you're there? And he took your cell phone right so 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.760 you're saying that these are all science and NFL like 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.680 you were probably wind up dead. Okay. I used to 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.200 work in narcotics a lot, and I did undercover words. 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:45.080 I have the same sign as you do. When things 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.760 started going weird, I started going, okay, it's time to 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.320 get out of here. Sad's about and half behind. Sarah 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.000 says that Von then repeatedly raped her. He seemed to 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.200 be toying with her. He would stop and tell her 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.440 he was going to let her go, only to then 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.279 begin again. At one point, she tried to escape, but 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.719 he caught her and started beating her and tighter wrists 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.120 behind her back with a small rope any other weapons 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:17.880 against jubisides tie you off. After hours of holding Sarah 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.400 at knife point, choking her and raping her, Sarah says 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.039 that Von gagged her through a coat over her head 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.719 and drug her outside to her own car, some of 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:28.919 the staff and outside with him punching you and choking you. 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.960 This part of the story reminded me of something. It 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.280 reminded me of an incident that Vaughan's brother, Reginald, had 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.400 described police. Reginald said Vaughan had once called him at 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.400 work out of the blue. It was like like the 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.680 only time he's ever calling me over. And when he said, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.800 you say, you know he brought a chap back to 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:55.680 the house and they got your food anything doing it, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:58.680 I think it really told me is because of the 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:04.400 neighbor across the street. So now to be clear, Vaughan 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.880 just told his brother that he'd gotten into a fight 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.240 with a woman. He didn't tell his brother about any crimes. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.160 And I don't know for certain that the incident Reginald 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.359 was describing has anything to do with Sarah, but I 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:21.480 wonder Regardless, Vaughan forced her into the car and started driving, 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.800 and she felt certain that he was taking her somewhere 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:30.080 to kill her. They got the t Brawway and he 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.719 got stuck at a red light and it's a pool hall. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:38.120 We got on twenty Broadway and there was two old guys, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.640 two old gentlemen that was standing outside. Sarah managed to 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:44.960 get the gag out of her mouth and she screamed 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:49.040 for help. They say what they heard was somebody in distress, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.880 and they looked and they see a woman tied up 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.919 in the back feet of the car. The men snapped 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.920 into action. They were armed, so they pulled out their 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.159 guns and stopped Vaughan at the intersection. They helped to 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.320 call at the light, and they were trying to make 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.920 him get out the car so they can get the 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.320 young lady out, and one of the guys shot off 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.920 his pistol. One of the men fired a warning shot 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.400 and Vaughan ended up bailing out of the car and 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:35.720 running away. So basically, these people intervening for you shoot 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.960 a shot in the air. He takes off, run in 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.120 and the police show up. Sarah told police what had happened. 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.040 She gave them the address where she'd met Vaughan and 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.160 the fact that he'd said that his name was Darren. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.120 And after she finished up with the police, she met 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.920 up with her boyfriend and it was actually while she 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.640 was talking to her boyfriend that she decided to go 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.600 to the hospital and get a rape kit because victim 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.200 went through several hours in an exam. They had someone 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.480 swabbing intimate parts of their body and taking pictures and 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.560 you know it's not done for fun. My name is 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.960 Dr Rachel Lovell. My area of expertise is around gender 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.840 based violence and I am a research assistant professor at 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:23.440 Case Western Reserve University. So a centual assault kit is 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.400 a set of items collected by healthcare professionals, primarily in 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:34.360 a hospital setting. The items can be swabs, combs, hair, photographs, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.280 any number of things. Level says that about six of 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:43.199 sexual assault kits will have enough DNA to be analyzed 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.040 and submitted to a database. It has to meet a 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.560 certain number of criteria to be uploaded into CODIS that's 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.880 the us IS Federal DNA database. When a new sample 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.720 is uploaded to CODIS, it's compared against all the other 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:03.000 samples sun Vaughan's previous crimes. His DNA should have been 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:07.120 in the federal database. So if Gary police had analyzed 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.240 Sarah's rape kit and it had enough DNA, they should 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.760 have been able to link the kit to Vaughan. They 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:16.040 would have discovered he was a registered sex offender living 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.079 just across the street from the address that she had provided, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:21.960 And they also would have found out that Vaughan had 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.120 been convicted for an almost identical crime to the one 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.920 Sarah described. Now, to be clear, we can't know for 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.080 certain what would have happened if police had tested Sarah's 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.000 sexual assault kit, but it seems quite plausible that they 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.640 would have been able to arrest Vaughn before he committed 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.920 any more murders. But that's not what happened. Did the 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.720 police ever follow up with you or take any steps 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:50.439 to to investigate this? Is there any reason you didn't 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:56.000 want to prosecute him for it? Well, heage you, right. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.000 Sarah is saying there that she didn't press charges because 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.839 police told her quote, if he had paid you then 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.360 it wouldn't have been rape. Right. That's the exact same 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.000 logic that Vaughan had used to justify his rape in Texas, 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.120 And according to Sarah, that same logic was now coming 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.600 from the Gary Police Department. You can hear Detective forward 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:22.960 Si after he heard that, well, and like you said, 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:27.320 I'm sorry, is that happened. I'm going to continue to 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.760 work on this, and i am going to check the 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.320 rape kit. It's actually a Gary Police department. I'm going 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:35.920 to get that. I'm gonna send it down to the 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.280 state Lab. So if there is any you know, DNA 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:44.000 evidence will be trying to put that together. Instead of 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.160 analyzing Sarah's sexual assault kit, police let it sit on 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.240 a shelf for over a year. Sarah's kit was part 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.840 of a backlog that's frustratingly common across the US. They 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.120 are thought to be hundreds of thousands of untested kits. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.160 The exact numbers are hard to come by. This victim, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.400 how a sexual assualt kit collected, and the idea that 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.600 nothing would be done from that, that that would just 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.040 be put on a shelf, I think is painful to 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:17.160 think about. Dr Lovell says that many people are shocked 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.120 when they find out how many sexual assault kits never 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.600 get tested. How can you have so many rape kits 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.520 that were not tested, Like, how could you not test those? 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.160 And that's a, you know, a very understandable, legitimate question. 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:34.520 But the problem is even worse than many realize. The 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:38.520 kit is a symptom of a much larger problem. Doctor 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.200 Level was part of a project called the Sexual Assault 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.040 Kit Initiative. The initiative was to analyze all the backlogged 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.000 rape kits in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where Cleveland is located, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.480 and Level and her team then look through all the 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.600 police records from when these kits were submitted. What we 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.560 really found through our research is that many things as 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.360 part of those investigations were not completed. It that includes 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:06.800 taking victims statements, offender statements, running someone's criminal history, you know, 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.320 all the sort of traditional investigative practices. Kids weren't tested 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.720 because lots of things weren't done on these cases. These 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.000 cases were close pretty quickly. I think one of the 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.720 most important things that people should understand is that the 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.920 investigations are often not what you see in TV. People 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.160 have a sense that law enforcement has the resources to 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.400 thoroughly follow up on all of these leads and test 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.280 whatever they want. And you know, do all these sorts 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:38.440 of things. You sexual assaults in particular, the departments are 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.880 under resource, they're not followed up on. And this is 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.480 what happens when you don't follow up on them, sexual 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:50.080 offenders continue to offend. I was curious what had led 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.119 Cleveland to analyze all the rape kids in its backlog. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.160 Why did they decide to go test their untested kids, 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.520 Like many things came out of something really bad. On 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.760 Halloween in two thousand and nine, they found the bodies 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.240 of eleven decomposing women in the house of this man 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.880 named Anthony soul so Well was under investigation by Cleveland 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.199 police for rape. In two thousand and nine, so Well 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.160 killed eleven women and buried them in and around his 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:24.120 Imperial Avenue home. Neighbors remembered that stench of rotting flesh 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.719 so wrongly attributed to raise sausage store next door. When 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.920 they were sort of following up on these women's bodies, 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:36.280 they identified that several reports had been made from women 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.360 who were able to escape from Anthony Sowell and said 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.520 that he had raped them and that they had taken 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.800 him back to this house, and one of these women, 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.240 maybe more, had a sexual salt kit collected that wasn't 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:50.280 tested at the time. Ohio saw a backlog of thousands 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.160 of untested rape kits. The plain Dealer reported that one 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.080 from two thousand nine was later linked to so well, 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.520 but by then he had killed at least four or more. 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.280 You never know sort of the counterfactual, So what had 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.559 happened had they done that? However, if those cases had 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.080 been followed up on, you know, there's a strong likelihood 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:11.920 that he might not have been able to murder the 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.320 subsequent victims. You know, the story I'm working on right 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.840 now actually has a lot of eerie similarities. People reporting 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.240 it to police, reporting the house, and you know it 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.920 wasn't followed up on and led to more sexual assaults 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.760 and murders. I don't know, it's really hard looking from 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.360 the outside kind of understanding how this stuff can happen, 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.440 or how someone can kind of throw so many obvious 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.000 red flags that don't seem to get caught. You know, 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.800 the departments are under resource, they're under reported, they're not 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.360 followed up on, and when you don't solve those crimes, 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.560 they continue to go on. And commit sexual assaults as 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.520 well as other crimes. The Sexual Assault CAN initiative is 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.040 sort of pulling off a band aid and showing actually, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.200 there's much worse under here than what we thought, and 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.840 really trying to transform the way we think about sexual 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:07.440 assault and how to investigate it. I asked Dr Lovell 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:09.720 how we ended up with this rape kit backlog in 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.240 the first place. You have to start with the fact 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.239 that DNA testing wasn't really available until the late nineties, 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.160 but earlier on police did collect biological samples, not for 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.800 DNA testing but for blood typing. When DNA testing did 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:30.160 become available, it was expensive, it was very cost prohibitive, 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:34.400 so police departments only really tested kits where there was 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.720 a very strong likelihood that it was going to go 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.120 to prosecution and the testing could take sometimes years to 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.600 get the DNA evidence back. So by and large, most 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.440 jurisdictions may have started to test the kids going forward 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.360 when it became cheaper, or primarily those where the victim 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.960 wanted to prosecute and the offender was a stranger. That's 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.400 the only kids that they were really testing. They never 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.320 really thought about going back to the old ones. To 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.960 be fair, they didn't know what was going to be 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.360 in there. They didn't know how many would have hits. 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.360 Would it be worth it to test these kids? And 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.120 there was a lot of conversation about should we only 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.360 test the stranger ones or the non stranger ones, because 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.200 the idea is that DNA will help you identify someone, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.160 But if you already know who raped you, what's the 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.280 point of testing. What they didn't foresee from that is 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.880 that kids can hit to each other. So here's one 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:33.360 person who might have sexually assaulted for acquaintances, and although 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.680 each person had their own police report, the kids have 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.280 now linked them together. We also have a strong research 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:46.000 to show that because offenders often sexually assault strangers and 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:51.000 non strangers, one person's known offender is somebody else's unknown offender. 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.280 So when the kids hit to each other, you now 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.400 have a name suspect. They didn't really have a larger 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.320 sense either about how many of these kids would be 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.440 hitting to each other. Here's these seasoned law enforcement officers 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:06.480 and I would be sitting in meetings and they would be, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.720 you know, just shocked at the number of rapes that 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.879 this person had been connected to and how different the 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.040 rapes were in terms of victim preference and age and 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.520 gender and raise and all these sorts of things. They're like, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.080 how did we never would have put these together had 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.679 it not been for DNA because they're so different? Was 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.119 this a shock to researchers as well? I think the 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.520 number was a little shocking when you started to pull 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.320 the ball together. I mean, in Kyoga County, a fourth 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.160 of these cases are linked to known serial sex offenders, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.639 so they know that they're connected to some other sex 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.840 crime or they're connected to another rape kit. Almost a 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.720 quarter of the kids that were analyzed contained a DNA 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.000 sample that matched the sample in another kit or a 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.320 sample from a noon sex offender. Can we say then 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:59.760 that of these offenses are serial offenses or does that 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.600 work for some reason? I think you can extrapolate to that. 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.480 There's also researchers from the Detroit Sacchi Project about a 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.320 third of their's were connected to more than one sexual assault, 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:15.480 so we estimated at being at and then in terms 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.320 of absolute numbers, how many are we talking about with? 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.840 So as of December, there was about eight hundred and 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:27.359 fifty known serial sex offenders. And again that that's the 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.320 ones you know. Don't forget though, that sexual assault is 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:35.080 the most underreported violent crime and still eight hundred and 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.600 fifty known people who are connected to some other rape. Yeah. 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:40.879 It's it's kind of like if you compared it to 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.040 like murder something like that, right, if you thought about 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.520 eight hundred serial killers active in this county, that that 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:53.080 would sound completely insane. Uh, And it does sound completely 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.960 insane with serial rape to right, right, you know, to 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:01.520 what extent has this actually led to, you know, opening 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:07.160 back up investigations or convictions? So u Kyoge County started 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:12.720 completely new investigations for seven thousand rape kits from nineteen 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.679 three through two thousand and eleven UM. They just finished 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.680 testing and investigating all of those. Over eight hundred defendants 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.680 have been indicted. It shows that you can get convictions 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.640 from old sexual assault cases when there are sufficient resources 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.840 for victims in terms of victim advocacy and victim support, 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.919 and there's sufficient um political will to make sure that 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:41.400 these cases are investigated and prosecuted. Cuyahoga Counties investigation into 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:44.720 their rape kit backlog has been an enormous success, in 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.320 part because they had buy in at the county, state, 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.959 and national level after they'd begun addressing the problem at 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.080 the county level. They got federal funding from the Sexual 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.400 Assault Kit Initiative, a national initiative to end the rape 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.439 kit backlog, which launched in tw Cayuga County has the 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.119 most number of convictions relative to the number of kids, 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.360 and there's several reasons for that. Most notably is that 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.399 Calga County is one of the first ones to do this, 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:15.240 so it's an early adopter jurisdiction is before the federal 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.600 money was available to do this, so they kind of 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.280 got a head start. And the other head start that 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.159 they got was that the state Crime Lab paid for 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.080 the testing of all the kids, so they didn't have 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.320 to use resources to pay for the testing, but instead 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.359 put those resources towards investigation and prosecution. So they really 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:37.680 got a large number of staff and personnel. So they've 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.600 seen a very large number. Over eight hundred defendants have 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.480 now been indicted. Do you know how many of those 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:48.480 eight hundred were kind of already in prison for something else? 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.400 For sure, some of them were in prison for long 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.680 periods of time, But for all indicted defendants, we looked 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.280 at their criminal histories and the median amount of time 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.240 that they had been in cars rated that could be 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.080 jail or prison was around six months. Some of them, 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.160 you know, were convicted of murder and had life sentences, 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:13.520 but overall they weren't incarcerated for long periods of time. Yeah. 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.400 I was speaking to another researcher about how you assess 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.200 the threat of recidivism given that so many of these 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.480 crimes go unreported, so that kind of makes it hard 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:29.119 to figure out how much people are reoffending. Do you 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:33.240 have a sense of how the data from rape kits 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.800 is changing, or or should change the way we think 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.960 about reoffending. Yeah. I think that's a great question, and 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.760 in fact, sachy data the connection is made when the 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:46.920 victim reports and there's DNA collected, not at the time 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.200 of conviction, so you have a much more representative sample 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.600 of sexual assaults. I think the Sexual Thought Kit initiative 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.840 is telling us that serial offending is much more common 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.960 than previously assumed, because now we're getting a less biased 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.200 view of what that actually looks like, and that in fact, 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.760 law enforcement should start with the assumption that that they've 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.800 done this before. I guess I was just shocked at 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.680 kind of what people can do and how light that 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:19.200 punishment seemed to me as someone not familiar with this stuff. Yeah, 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.399 I think one of the sort of larger existential problems 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.399 with this is that individuals have to come back to 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.080 the community, right most of them. The problem is, oftentimes 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:31.280 the offenders will come out of prison worse than what 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.119 they went in, and there's no good treatment for sexual 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.359 offenders adult ones. There is some stuff around juveniles, but 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.800 for adult male sex offenders, the research is pretty consistent 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.360 that treatment is not very effective. What are we supposed 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.200 to do when these individuals are out? I don't have 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.880 the answer to that, but I think it's an important 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:53.560 conversation to have. I know that. For example, in Washington State, 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.520 there's this place called sex Offender Island. The first time 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:58.800 I heard someone talked about, I was like, sex Offender Island. 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.679 That sounds like a place I certainly don't want to go, 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:05.000 you know, like that sounds terrible, and it's a it's 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:09.600 a place where they have civilly committed individuals who are 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.280 the worst of the worst sexual offenders, and so this 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.520 is kind of like they've served their sentence. You can't 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:18.280 legally keep them in prison, but you can involuntarily commit 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.320 them kind of like a psychiatric condition. But it's essentially 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:25.280 an extra judicial prison or something. Yes, And sometimes some 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:28.119 offenders say, you know, put me in this because I 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.560 will continue to offend. And sometimes they're just civilly committed 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:35.879 by saying, you know, we've deemed you as being too dangerous. 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:39.679 I'm not suggesting that's the right answer, but you know, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.720 I think these are conversations that should also be had 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.000 as well, like what do we do with individuals who 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.479 may have a hard time being reformed and they are 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:52.720 still a danger to society. I don't want myself for 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:55.240 my children to live next to that person. But at 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.680 the same time, that person has served their debt to society, 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:01.639