CORNELIUS, N.C. — A sexual assault survivor is pushing for North Carolina to address its backlogs in evidence collection kits so she can hopefully get justice after she says she was raped.
Sexual assault evidence collection kits are used to recover DNA from a victim after an assault in hopes of leading to an arrest. Witlee Ethan said she can’t bring her abuser to justice because her kit is held up in the state’s crime lab.
Witlee went to the Cornelius Town Hall to urge the town council and police to help her. She shared that she was held hostage and raped multiple times in Cornelius in January 2020 but her abuser is walking free partly due to the backlog in test kits.
“It shouldn’t happen to anybody else, and it shouldn’t have happened to me,”
Ethan said tearfully to the Cornelius Town Council.
Ethan also feels her case isn’t being taken seriously by Cornelius Police.
"If they brought him in for questioning, if they took his DNA, it would help my case so much,” she told WCNC Charlotte.
Ethan said she met her abuser on the dating app Hinge. After she said she was freed, she went to the hospital to get a sexual assault kit.
Those kits are sent to a state crime lab to be processed once a victim decides to press charges. However, thousands of kits in North Carolina are waiting to be tested for DNA.
"Everything was very delayed and I didn’t understand why it was taking so long,” Ethan said.
The Attorney General’s Office says the lab is now processing kits it received from police in September 2021. Ethan’s kit was sent in by Cornelius Police almost a year after that in May 2022.
Since it may take months or longer until Ethan's kit is tested, she’s hoping Cornelius Police can do more to hold the suspect accountable.
Cornelius Police Chief David Baucom told WCNC Charlotte he could not comment on the investigation.
After Ethan addressed the town council, Mayor Woodrow Washam addressed her.
"We're sorry for your experience," Washam said. "I think you know this is an active investigation being conducted by our police department and we just can't make any further comments at this time."
Ethan hopes her case takes a turn soon so she can move on and protect other women.
“There is a rapist at-large who is out there to rape again, and he knows he won't be held accountable so why wouldn’t he?" Ethan asked. "And it's putting everybody's safety in danger and nobody seems to care."
Addressing the rape kit backlog
The backlog of rape kits is a nationwide problem, but some states are doing worse than others.
North Carolina has about 1,800 kits waiting to be tested for DNA, according to the Attorney General's Office. Virginia and Kentucky have reportedly cleared their backlogs.
The AG's Office says analyzing evidence takes about 40 days but the turnaround time for testing in North Carolina is about 15 months. Advocates say the long wait period is due to a lack of resources nationwide.
“It's really a failure of the criminal justice system to treat sexual assault as a violent crime that it is and to prioritize evidence testing from sexual assault," Ilse Knecht said.
Knecht is the policy and advocacy director for the Joyful Heart Foundation, which runs the End the Backlog initiative. She said the clock is ticking to ramp up testing because, “each one of these kits represents a potential offender who is on the streets right now, potentially harming other people."
While the process is slow, North Carolina has kickstarted its efforts since 2018, when there was a backlog of about 16,000 rape kits.
In some cases, testing can be expedited if police believe there are public safety concerns with the suspect. WCNC Charlotte asked Knecht if victims can have their kits tested elsewhere for a faster process and she said no.
Attorney General Josh Stein wrote to WCNC Charlotte in a statement that the labs are hiring and training more scientists to help with the workload.
“We will never stop working to improve public safety and get justice for victims of sexual assault,” Stein added.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
If you or a loved one are a victim of sexual assault, contact No More, the NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault or call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE for help. Or if you or a loved one are facing domestic violence, help is readily available. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788. Resources for help are available in both North Carolina and South Carolina.