‘One case at a time, one victim at a time’: An inside look at the lab where rape kits are tested for

By Jon Paepcke

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    JEFFERSON COUNTY, Alabama (WVTM) — Scientists in Hoover are making significant progress in clearing Jefferson County’s backlog of untested rape kits, which date back to the 1990s.

“It’s going to take those tubes, add the chemicals and breaks open the cell and puts it in a clean, sterile tube,” said Angelo Dellamanna, director of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.

In 2018, the Hoover lab typically tested about 250 rape kits a year. They were then tasked with helping eliminate approximately 4,000 untested kits from Jefferson County.

“So this is approximately 10 to 15 years worth of sexual assault kits that were found in the city of Birmingham,” Dellamanna said.

Since then, investigators have sent the lab up to 50 backlog kits a month. The process starts with finding the DNA in each kit, using high-tech light to locate bodily fluid stains invisible to the naked eye.

“Here’s a stain that has been marked 15. You can tell this circular stain is really fluorescing underneath this light,” said Nathan Rhea of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.

The samples are then placed in a tube and run through a machine to identify a DNA profile. These results are entered into a national database with 22 million other profiles, looking for a match.

So far, the Jefferson County backlog kits have produced about 500 hits.

“Of those 500 offenders, 11%, a little over 50 are serial offenders that previously were unknown in and around central Alabama,” Dellamanna said.

Men like Quindarrius Carter, Luther Ikner, and Jonathan Lockett, who violated multiple women, have been identified. Carter and Ikner both pleaded guilty in 2022.

A jury convicted Lockett the following year, sentencing him to 776 years in prison.

“Helping bring justice to hundreds and hundreds of survivors who thought their cases were forgotten. What kind of satisfaction does that bring you?” asked Jon Paepcke.

“It’s what puts gas in our tank, to be honest with you,” Rhea responded.

“We continue to just address the backlog one case at a time, one victim at a time, until it’s completed,” Dellamanna said.

So far, Jefferson County’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative team has sent the lab 2,735 rape kits, or 68 percent of the backlog, for testing. Based on the lab’s ability to test fifty a month, that backlog should be eliminated in the next two years.

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