Selects: How Rape Kits Work

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Selects: How Rape Kits Work"

Stuff You Should Know – iHeartPodcasts

Hosts: Josh Clark and Charles W. “Chuck” Bryant
Original Air Date: April 2, 2019 (republished Aug 16, 2025)

---

Overview

In this deeply important and sensitive episode, Josh and Chuck break down the history, mechanics, and real-world impact of rape kits (sexual assault evidence collection kits). They focus on the necessity of these kits, the challenges around access, backlogs, and the distressing reality of untested and destroyed rape kits. The discussion is direct but compassionate, offering a crucial resource for understanding the intersection of criminal justice, public health, and survivor advocacy.

---

Trigger Warning

“If you saw the title about rape kits, hopefully that is the trigger warning you need. But we might as well just say it out loud. Trigger warning for this one.”
— Chuck Bryant (04:41)

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Definitions and Purpose of Rape Kits

• What is a rape kit?
  • Also called Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kits (SAECKs)
  • A box containing tools and step-by-step instructions for collecting potential evidence of sexual assault
  • Meant to be used by professionals in forensic settings; thorough enough that even someone not specially trained can follow directions (06:09)

"Inside this box is all the stuff you need to collect the evidence of a sexual assault."
— Josh Clark (06:19)

• Chain of custody is crucial
  • Kits must be collected, documented, and stored by professionals to maintain legal integrity (07:16)

2. Origins and Evolution

• Invention and Spread
  • Standardized rape kits emerged in the late 1970s, first adopted by Chicago PD (07:48)
  • Early versions called “Vitullo kits,” attributed to Chicago forensic officer Louis (or Lou) Vitullo, who standardized kit procedures (08:35)
• True Inventor: Martha “Marty” Goddard
  • Survivor and activist who created the functional concept, sourced funding (notably from the Playboy Foundation), and advocated for affordable, accessible kits (10:18)
  • Kits deliberately kept inexpensive to widen access ($5–$25 per kit) (07:09, 13:19)

“She formed a group called Citizens for Victims Assistance in the 1970s and went to work [...] learning and working on everyone she could about how to get a better system going.”
— Chuck Bryant (11:31)

3. How Rape Kits Actually Work

• The Exam Process
  • Ideally performed within 24 hours of the assault (can be effective up to three days)
  • Emergency rooms are the primary setting, often with specially trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (“SANE nurses”) in larger cities (20:10, 26:24)
  • Invasive, multi-hour process:
    • Oral and physical history is taken
    • Swabbing, evidence collection from relevant body areas
    • Blood and urine samples for DNA baseline and drug screening
    • Clothing and any materials that may hold evidence sealed for analysis (23:32, 29:41)
  • Consent is sought at every step; survivors can refuse any procedure (27:56)
  • Evidence is strictly sealed, labeled, and chain of custody established (34:20)

4. Accessibility and Barriers

• Cost and Funding
  • The kit/examination itself should not incur a charge to the victim; however, medical treatment and prescriptions related to injury or post-assault care often do (31:55)
  • Pre–Affordable Care Act, rape could be considered a “pre-existing condition” for insurance purposes (33:02)
• Reporting
  • Undergoing a forensic exam does not obligate the survivor to file a police report (24:06)
  • Options for anonymous “Jane Doe/John Doe” evidence collection until/if the survivor is ready to report (24:27)
• Geographic Disparities
  • Rural hospitals often lack SANE nurses and may have more trouble funding complete and compassionate care (26:24)

5. Challenges: Backlogs and Kit Destruction

• The Backlog
  • Tens of thousands of completed kits sit untested for years, due to lack of lab resources, police priorities, and physical storage issues (40:43)
  • Examples: Detroit (11,000), Phoenix (3,000), Dallas (4,000), Memphis (12,000) (41:13)
• Consequences
  • Each untested kit represents a survivor who underwent a traumatic process, expecting justice
  • Recidivism rates for sexual offenders are high; backlog means repeat offenses are more likely (42:34)
• Efforts to Address
  • Federal and local funding (e.g., $150 million from Congress) have helped, but not eradicated the problem (43:12)
  • Laws in some states now mandate testing timelines (e.g., NY kits tested within 3 months) (44:17)
• Kit Destruction
  • Police departments have destroyed untested kits to make space, sometimes before statute of limitations runs out—irretrievable loss of evidence and chance for justice (46:30)
• Advocacy
  • High-profile figures like Mariska Hargitay (“Law & Order: SVU”) and her Joyful Heart Foundation advocate for clearing the backlog (45:28)
  • Call to action: donate and get involved at endthebacklog.org (46:02)

6. The Human and Legal Stakes

• The importance of preserving evidence
  • Helps catch serial offenders, exonerate the wrongly convicted, and provide closure or justice years after the fact (49:59)
  • DOJ recommends storing rape kit evidence for 50 years or statute of limitations, but state policies vary (50:01)

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the role of the victim’s body:

  "The very reason that these kits exist is because sexual assault is a very unique kind of crime in that the victim, the body of the victim, is a crime scene."
  — Josh Clark (19:14)

• The emotional toll of reporting:

  “It's going to take a few hours. It's not a quick procedure. ... You should expect to be treated very gently and with a tremendous amount of respect... and I would guess to a hospital, there will be counselors.”
  — Josh Clark (25:27)

• On chain of custody:

  “Every single person who takes custody of that [kit] is supposed to sign the label... so there’s a clear chain of custody.”
  — Josh Clark (34:20)

• On backlog impact:

  “Every single one of those kits represents a person who found the wherewithal to drag himself or herself to the ER and go through this hours-long procedure and suffer a second violation… and the cops didn't even bother to send it to the lab. That is a third violation.”
  — Josh Clark (42:13)

• The shock of destruction:

  “This isn't sitting on a shelf. This isn't untested. This is, we threw them away.”
  — Chuck Bryant (47:06)

• Call to Action:

  “Go to inthebacklog.org for sure [...] if you don't have money to give, there are other things you can do.”
  — Chuck Bryant (46:29)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:27 – Connection to Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Day of Action
• 05:06 – Sexual assault impacts across gender spectrum
• 07:09 – Discussion of at-home kits and chain of custody
• 08:12 – History: First kits and early impact
• 10:18 – Martha Goddard’s activism, the role of the Playboy Foundation
• 13:19 – Kit cost and Goddard’s influence on affordability
• 14:01 – DNA evidence and current kit standards
• 19:14 – “The body as crime scene” explanation
• 20:10 – Time sensitivity: 24-hour window
• 23:32 – Clothing and evidence collection tips for survivors
• 24:06 – Not required to report to police for kit/exam
• 26:24 – SANE nurses and rural care
• 27:56 – Consent and trauma-informed care
• 31:55 – Cost breakdown: what is/is not charged
• 33:02 – Pre–ACA “rape as pre-existing condition”
• 34:20 – Chain of custody explained
• 40:43 – National scope of the backlog
• 41:10 – City-by-city backlog statistics
• 42:13 – Emotional toll and impact on justice
• 43:12 – Federal funding overview
• 44:17 – State laws and the SAFER Act
• 46:30 – Kit destruction and advocacy
• 49:59 – Importance for exonerating the innocent, Golden State Killer example
• 50:01 – DOJ storage recommendations
• 51:35–52:14 – Recent news examples of kits cracking cases years later

---

Resources and Follow-Up

• End the Backlog / Joyful Heart Foundation – Advocacy, resources, and actions for addressing rape kit backlog
• National Sexual Violence Resource Center: nsvrc.org
• Find state-by-state laws and resources: RAINN

---

Final Thoughts

Chuck and Josh urge listeners to recognize the ongoing crisis around rape kit funding, backlogs, and destruction, and to advocate and donate where possible. They emphasize the systemic and tragic barriers still facing sexual assault survivors and the critical, yet often under-resourced, role of forensic evidence in seeking justice.

“Just having this stuff entered into CODIS is huge, because... the value that that has for a victim to know that that person was caught and is finally going to pay for their crime can’t be measured…”
— Chuck Bryant (48:39)

“If you want to know more about rape kits, just do what Chuck said and search it on your favorite search engines. News. Okay.”
— Josh Clark (52:14)

---

Note: This summary omits advertising and unrelated podcast promo segments. The approach of the hosts is earnest, careful, and direct, creating an accessible resource for understanding a difficult but critical subject.

Transcript

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[iHeart Big Three Playoffs Announcer]

IHeart presents the big three playoffs this Sunday. The remaining four teams battle to make the championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. The action starts with the big three Monster Energy celebrity game. Then Dwight Howard and his LA Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets. The finale will see popular Miami 305 with stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas power who will make it to the big three championship. The no holds barred action starts Sunday at 3P Eastern, 12 Pacific. Only on CBS.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Here at Stuff they don't want you to know, we celebrate curiosity. And that's why we'll be talking about Hendrix gin. Yeah, Opening a bottle of Hendrick's Gin is about being open to the extraordinary, the unusual, and I'll say it, the delicious. Pick up Hendrick Oasium Grand Cabaret or Flora Adora to try these fleeting expressions before they're gone. Hendrick's Gin is crafted with care in Scotland by master distiller miss Leslie Gracie and is uniquely infused with rose and cucumber. To learn more about Hendrix and to find more cocktail recipes, visit hendrix gin.com us Drink responsibly. Hendrix gin, 44% alcohol by volume 2025. Imported by William Grant & Sons Incorporated, New York, New York. Hey, everybody. Happy Saturday. Chuck here with the Selects pick for the week. And this week it's a pretty heavy one. Everyone, this is about rape kits and the episode is how rape kits work. And this is from April 2, 2019. And the reason that I chose this select is because it's just a super important topic about the funding of rape kits, the lack of funding rather for rape kits and the backlog of processing rape kits. And it's something that should be known far and wide. So that's why I picked it for this week's episode. Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. And now whatever chipperness you might hear in my voice can decline from here on out.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, man, this, this is another one of those that's a tough topic. It's not gonna be loaded with jokes.

[Josh Clark]

No, I can't. I couldn't. I can't think of a single one. And anytime, like I started, it'd be like, oh, maybe we should come up with jokes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, it's not like we do that anyway, right? Like, this would Be a good place for a joke. Let me get our writers on it.

[Josh Clark]

Insert joke here in brackets.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yes, obviously. I mean, if you saw the title about rape kits, hopefully that is the trigger warning you need. But we might as well just say it out loud. Trigger warning for this one. That's all we need to say, I think, right?

[Josh Clark]

Pretty much. I mean, we're talking about rape, sexual assault in general. And specifically, I want to say, Chuck, I've had on the list for a really long time rape as a topic itself, I think it definitely deserves it, but I've just been kind of walking past it every time I go down the list, you know, I think it's due, especially after this one. But it's almost like we needed to do this one first or else it wouldn't be stuff you should know if we didn't do something tangential to a bigger topic. So we'll do that eventually.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And also, this comes out. This is one of those happenstance things. As I was researching and reading this stuff, I was like, oh, you know what? We should check and see when Sexual Assault Awareness Month is. And it turned out it's April. And it turned out that April 2, the day that this drops, is Day of Action. So they encourage people to wear teal on April 2, which is today.

[Josh Clark]

I'm almost.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And you're wearing teal today.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's mint green, but it's awfully close to teal.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's weird how this is all coming together like this. So you know what Action Day should.

[Josh Clark]

Be for Sexual Assault Awareness Month?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

What?

[Josh Clark]

It should be like a purge, like the movie? Yeah, that's what it should be.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I haven't seen the movie, but I get it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I haven't either, but I know.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The premise and that Sexual Assault Awareness Month is carried out by nsvrc.org, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. And also, I know that we're doing a lot of precursoring here.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But there is one section here on what to do if you've been sexually assaulted. Two dudes explaining this. Like, just do this. Like, we're not taking it that lightly, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Like, we know that it is extremely difficult to do anything, much less, like, follow all the exact steps. So many sexual assaults and rapes get unreported for a thousand reasons. So we're not taking this lightly. But this is our job. This is what we do. And this is an important topic. So please excuse two dudes explaining a section on what to do when you're sexually assaulted.

[Josh Clark]

But I think that also raises another point that I want to touch on too, Chuck. Sexual assault doesn't just happen to women.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

It happens to men. The trans community is also a big target for sexual assault, unfortunately. So while it is largely women, and from what I've seen, women between 18 and 35, it hits all demographics and targets for sure. Across the spectrum of human beings, including men. So I wanted to say that as well.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right. Now on with the show. Should we do the history part first?

[Josh Clark]

I think I was thinking. So I think we should say what a rape kit actually is.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that's something we always do wrong.

[Josh Clark]

We're doing it right, though. We've hit everything right so far. I think, I think a rape kit. And I'm so sorry, everybody, to keep saying rape kit. They're also called sexual assault evidence collection kits. You can understand why people call them rape kits. But from here on out, maybe we'll just try to say kit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

They are really simply a box. I saw shoebox size. Ed says microwave oven size.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Guess it depends on the oven.

[Josh Clark]

It's a big old box.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And inside this box is all the stuff you need to collect the evidence of a sexual assault.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That a professional uses. Yeah. This is not like a home thing.

[Josh Clark]

No. But it does include such thorough, step by step directions that someone who's not specifically trained to do this can carry out this kind of examination.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I wonder if anyone does this. Like, can you buy these and perform this at home if you're too. A thousand reasons why you wouldn't go into a hospital.

[Josh Clark]

I think that you. You can, you can buy them from medical supply or law enforcement supply places. Both of them sell kits and they're actually relatively cheap. I saw between 5, 15, 25 bucks. So, yeah, you totally could.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Is it still evidence, though?

[Josh Clark]

Probably not. The defense would just shoot holes in it all day long and the jury would be like, I'm sorry.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which they're already looking to do.

[Josh Clark]

Part of the. Part of the process of collecting this evidence and combining it all together to create this kit is it begins a chain of custody. And if you do it at home and then bring it in, they're going to be like, come on.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. And there are a lot of problems with the chain of custody that we're obviously going to cover as well. When you leave it to the professionals.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's just a big mess.

[Josh Clark]

But it is a big mess. But it's still. More often than not, it seems to be. It seems to have been a good invention.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

And that is a thing. It is an invention. And it wasn't always around. It's actually a relatively new invention. It wasn't until, I think, 1978 that the first ones actually came into official use by the, I believe, the police department in Chicago, and then later on Illinois, which served as a bit of a laboratory for it. And it was so successful that within another year, it started to spread around the country.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And just, I mean, it sounds like it's hard to believe, but just collecting and having the tools in a box and collecting the evidence and putting it in a box for storage, just that alone coming around went a long way toward helping victims be taken seriously.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Legitimizing rape and sexual assault.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, it's sad, but that's the case. When they were first brought out, they were called vitulo kits in a lot of circles. V, I, T, U, L L O. And Louis or Louis. I never know.

[Josh Clark]

I'm thinking since he's in Chicago. Louis. Louis Vuvatillo.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I thought you were gonna say Louie.

[Josh Clark]

Cause Chicago, I think it'd be ie if it were in Chicago Louie.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, we'll go with Louis.

[Josh Clark]

Let's just call him Chicago Lou.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Chicago Lou Vitullo. Now he sounds like a mobster. Yeah, Chicago Lou Vitullo.

[Josh Clark]

I think the Vitullo's really not helping.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, but he was not a mobster. He was actually worked in the Chicago PD's forensic crime lab. He was a sergeant and lieutenant who did not invent the rape kit, but he was charged with sort of codifying it and putting his stamp. Because he was one of the first people in law enforcement that was trying to create a standardized procedure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He was already a very well respected forensic investigator. And so for him to say, hey, I'm a big city forensic investigator, widely respected, and this thing is the bomb. Yeah, this is a great invention. We should all start using it. And here's how it really helped spread and give it a boost early on. But even though they were called vitullo kits, it's not to say like he was like, yeah, I invented this. Colin Vetula.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Not at all.

[Josh Clark]

I think he was just known in the mind of other law enforcement agents that, like, they associated him in these kits. So that's what everybody else called it. But really, if you want to nail down an inventor of the rape kit, it was a woman named Martha Marty Goddard.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Goddard and Betullah. I read some interviews with his grandkids, and it's like a really proud legacy. They still get letters from people and from women. Goddard, she has unplugged. Like I saw one interview with her where they talked about, and we're gonna cover this heavily later, but the kit backlog, she didn't even know about it because she's like, no tv, no Internet, no newspapers. She really just sort of checked out. And she was like, that's really sad to hear about that.

[Josh Clark]

It is very sad. So I saw a quote somewhere that I think is Vitullo's grandkids said that he would be spinning in his grave if he knew about this backlog, which we'll get to later.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So Goddard was a survivor of sexual assault and she got together with some other victims. Basically the writing was on the wall like that, you know, things weren't being taken seriously in many police departments.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. She saw firsthand that, like, that they weren't collecting evidence correctly, that they weren't taking it seriously. Which is still a huge problem.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And she decided to do something about it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, the first questions, and still in a lot of areas, probably the first questions still are like, well, what was the situation?

[Josh Clark]

What were you wearing?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And if it starts with, well, I met a guy at a bar, then you're sort of discounted, like out of the gate. Very, very sad and very unfair. But she formed a group called Citizens for Victims assistance in the 1970s and went to work. Like she said, she was doing 16 hour days visiting hospitals, talking to cops, going to police stations, lawyers, judges, basically learning and working on everyone she could about how to get a better system going. But she needed money and she got that from, of all places, the Playboy foundation.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Hugh Hefner's foundation. His daughter Christy was friends with Marty Goddard and I think playboy gave her 10 grand, which is equal to about 42 grand in today's money. And that was enough to go start assembling these kits. Because one of the points from the outset of these kits, these kits was that they be inexpensive because they wanted to remove as many barriers as possible for hospitals to start implementing these widely. And one really easy way to do it was to say here, these are virtually free, or in some cases these are free. Because this community group raised a bunch of money to purchase the implements of these kits, put them all together, and now here you just use them, that's all.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which is a success story in and of itself when you know how big pharma works and the medical community in America, like I could have seen this being like, well, these swabs and envelopes and combs, this will be $7,000 per kit. Yeah, it's true, because we put it all in a box for you.

[Josh Clark]

Marty Goddard got in the way of that from the outset. And still to this day, I mean, that's why they're not any more than $5 to $25. Even from, like, a medical supplier.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. She's a hashtag hero.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Are we doing that now? Hashtagging it?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

We're late to the game, my friend, as always.

[Josh Clark]

Chuck, have you heard about this hashtag thing?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

You gotta go, like your two fingers on each hand hashtag. Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

See, I knew you'd get a funny in there. So they were developed before DNA evidence was even around. So this was back when it was just like hair and fiber, fingernails, stuff like that. Still very valuable. And I think one of the kits that's sort of common these days is what's known as the Southwestern Sexual Assault Evidence collection Kit.

[Josh Clark]

It's like the gold standard.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I guess so. And it's called Southwestern, obviously. It was in Texas. The Attorney General's office there, in 1998, kind of created this one. And that's sort of, like you said, the one that people look to or base theirs on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because, I mean, they took the groundwork that Marty Goddard came up with, going from. To all of what you call in the corporate world and buzz speak, all the stakeholders in the process of apprehending and convicting people who are. Who sexually assault other people.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, scumbags.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You can just say monsters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, monsters. And she figured out exactly how to put this together and laid the groundwork. And then, from what I understand, in the late 90s, the Texas Attorney General's office said, let's purify this. Let's make it even better, like using what we know. And then that's what's in use largely today. Although you're going to find different kids, there's no actual standards, a de facto standard. And in the same point, different hospitals you go to, even in the same state, are gonna follow slightly different procedures. They might use slightly different kits. But some states have said, no, this is important enough. Like, here is how you do this. Here is the law of how you conduct a rape kit examination.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And so Goddard and Vitullo, you know, his stamp of approval, her working hard to get these things, you know, built from the ground up. The work that they did together was, like, really set the standard in the late 70s for this across the country, just becoming just a more normalized way to collect evidence and take it more seriously.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It was a big, big deal.

[Josh Clark]

Big one. Yeah. Not just literally having all of the implements you need to conduct this investigation, but just the very presence of these sexual assault evidence collection kits. The fact that they exist says law enforcement is saying, okay, yeah, this is a bigger deal than we've been treating it right. You want to take a break?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Josh Clark]

We're going to take a break, everybody. I don't know if you just heard, but we'll be right back.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It is hot out there this summer, right? But don't sweat it. We got tons of ways to save on your family's favorite personal care items to keep yourself feeling cool and smelling good. Now through September 9th, earn four times points when you shop for items from your favorite brands like Right Guard Raw Sugar, Dove Soft Soap and Olay. Then use your points for discounts on groceries or gas on future purchases. Offer end September 9th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Big Three Basketball Promo Announcer]

The reviews and ratings are in and Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. And to cap off the season, iHeart presents the Big 3 Basketball Championship and 8th Annual Big 3 All Star Game this coming Sunday, August 24th. Live from Orlando, the remaining two teams fight it out for the Big 3 Championship Dr. J Trophy in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. Don't miss the wild conclusion of Big Three's eighth and most historic season ever. This is the game no one wants to lose and there's no crying in the Big Three. The action starts with the Big Three eighth Annual All Star All Star Game. Don't miss All Stars Dwight Howard, Montrez Harrell, MVP Michael Beasley, Lance will make you Dan Stevenson, Jordan Crawford, Craig Monroe, Earl Clark, Nazir Kor and more show you why they are the best three on three basketball players in the world. Big three's exciting all star game plus the crowning of a new big three champion. The no holds part action starts Sunday at 2:00pm Eastern, 11 Pacific. Only on CBS.

[Dana Schwartz or Lizzie Logan]

In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine articles claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks These are the questions we explore in Hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood, and me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeares to balloon boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's stuff you should know.

[Josh Clark]

All right, Chuck, So the very reason that these kids exist is because sexual assault is a very unique kind of crime in that the victim, the body of the victim, is a crime scene. Yeah, a walking, talking crime scene. I mean, like, if you're murdered or something and like your body is dumped somewhere, your body is still a crime scene, but you're walking around moving, you can actually contaminate the very crime scene from your assault just by doing things that any normal human being would want to do after being sexually assaulted. It's in that sense, a very unique kind of, kind of crime scene. And that's what sexual assault evidence collection kits are for, is to step by step, methodically, systematically collect that evidence and preserve it so that it can later be analyzed and used in court.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So these are the recommended steps if you've been a victim. And like I said, there are a thousand reasons that you would not want to do any and all of these things. And we totally get that. And I think Ed puts it in a really good way in this article. He said, to receive the best possible care just medically for yourself and to have the best chances of collecting good evidence, it needs to be within a 24 hour window. Ideally, that's critical.

[Josh Clark]

The 24 hour is critical. And then apparently up to three days, it's still viable. But after three days, most experts are like, it's not gonna get anything as.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Far as DNA, which is the real, you know, really what you're looking for. You will be very upset and you may be in literal shock. You may have had one or more panic attacks. All of these things make it very difficult to carry out, like, logical steps. But experts say that the first thing you wanna do, obviously, is get somewhere safe as soon as you can get away if your attacker is around, and try and find someone, an advocate for you, whether it's a friend or a family member, who can kind of be with you in the first hours after this horrific event has happened. Go to the emergency room. Even if you're not injured physically, you really should go to the emergency room as soon as you Can.

[Josh Clark]

This is a big one. Not just because the emergency room is where you're going to have this kid administered, but also because it takes such tremendous reserve to draw in such tremendous reserves to take yourself out of the comfort and safety of your home, which is probably where you went to not take a shower, which is another huge step, too. And to just say, I'm going to go to the emergency room and undergo this procedure and let a bunch of strangers poke and prod me and tell them about what just happened. That's the ideal of what you're supposed to do. But if you look at it in that respect, that's just such a. That's such a huge thing on top of what just happened, that this is required of you to catch the person who just did it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, from a bystander's perspective, it just makes you want to catch them even more. You know that that's on top of the assault as well.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because it's not like the trauma is over for you in any way. It may never be. But go to the ER as soon as you can. If it's not right, if you go to sleep and wake up the next day, you can go to the emergency room. Then it's just important that you go whenever you feel like you can do so. And like you said, it's probably the least intuitive thing you could imagine to not want to shower and bathe yourself. But that gets rid of a lot of evidence. So it's terrible. But they say please do not shower. Yeah, they say please, please with a.

[Josh Clark]

Capital P. If you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You should keep the clothes you're wearing on, if you can. If understandably you can't or don't want to save them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Put them in a bag and take them to the ER with you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. If you have the wherewithal to change clothes, and this is something that they will have you do in the hospital, have you stand over like butcher paper or maybe even a towel, if you have the wherewithal to do that, wherever you are, whether it's at home or in a hotel or someplace, put that in there, too. Because when you're changing your clothes, that's when DNA evidence can fall out, whether.

[Josh Clark]

It'S a hair or whatever, skin particles.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Just collect everything you can and put it in a bag. Certainly do not wash those clothes and then take those with you to the emergency room.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then the last thing you should know, just because you're going to an emergency room, and even if you are tested with this forensic Kit, you're not required to file a police report ever.

[Josh Clark]

That's a big one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But especially right away. It's not like they're going to have a cop in there grilling you. You can file this police report whenever you want to.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If you are not comfortable filing a police report. Right. Then you can do what's called a Jane Doe or imagine a John Doe exam examination where they just go through all the steps and collect all the evidence, but you never see a cop. They don't call the police until after you've left. So that's a big one for a lot of people.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Ed points out though, in some states there is still a statute of limitations of between 10 and 21 years, although some states have removed the statute of limitations for a felony sexual assault. But there can be a clock ticking. But we're talking 10 years at the least, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, yeah, you don't have to. This isn't something you have to knock out that day if you don't want to. If you're not ready to. When you go to the ER for this kind of examination, you are signing up for a few hours. It's going to take a few hours. It's not a quick procedure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

And there's something else that you should know that I really hope won't discourage you, but you should go into it knowing it's an invasive procedure. They have to collect evidence from everywhere that the guy who did this to you or the person who did this to you was. And they're also going to ask you, they're going to take an oral history and they're going to ask you to basically recount the worst thing that's ever happened to you within 24 hours after it happened. And then they're going to go over all of the spots with things like swabs and tweezers and combs and things like that to collect this evidence. And it's going to take a while, but you should expect to be treated very gently and with a tremendous amount of respect from the people who are going to administer this examination. And I would guess to a hospital, there will be counselors available there to be there with you if you don't have like a friend or a family member there with you or anything.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In rural areas are where they still need to do a lot of catch up work in hospitals and things like that. But if you're in any major city, there will almost 100% chance that you'll have what's called a sexual Assault nurse examiner on staff. This is a nurse who has received extra training on how to administer this exam. Like we said before, like, any nurse can do this and do a great job, but if you have a S, A N E, a sane trained person on staff, then that's who you'll be seeing. And, you know, like I said, in rural areas, it's just tough to staff up for things like this. So they're still doing all they can to get grant money and stuff like that to get these people trained up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's just a question of extra funding. Because if you give a hospital funding that's set aside for sane nurses, you just created a new position in a hospital that wasn't there before. You've given the nursing staff there an incentive to go further their education, invest in their education so that they can have this better job in the same hospital and help people. People as well. So it's really just a question of funding. That's it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know, I mean, a lot of this stuff, sadly, is a question of funding.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Luckily there is enough agitation at the bottom up that, like, the pocketbooks have kind of loosened up over recent years.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

It is something that hasn't been. It's been as the result of agitation and bad press rather than, you know, this is the right thing to do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Consent is a big part of the entire procedure. They're going to ask you basically before everything, like, hey, I have a speculum here. We need to do a vaginal exam. Is that okay with you? And you can say no to any and all of this stuff. This is all up to you on how you want to proceed with this.

[Josh Clark]

If they're going to ask for your consent for the whole procedure first, and then step by step, before each step, they're going to ask for your consent as well, and they're gonna explain what's coming up, like you said.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And as far as the interview portion, this is really important stuff as far as what will eventually wind up with investigators and the questions about, like, were you on drugs or had you been drinking? Like, this isn't to set you up for future grilling by a prosecutor necessarily, but you may have been drugged or you may have had a drink spiked or something like that. So all of this is just super, super important.

[Josh Clark]

So they need to know. They need to say, hey, future lab tech, test for roofanol or something like that. Whatever. If you were in a bar and you suddenly woke up on the side of the road.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

That's the kind of History they're taking for you for those reasons, not, you know, what were you doing in a bar by yourself?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's not what this is. Again, this is not a detective asking you or performing this exam. They might not even be aware of your case yet. This is a trained nurse, or at the very least, a registered nurse who is performing this with. One would expect a tremendous amount of compassion and respectfulness.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Absolutely. You're gonna be giving blood and urine. Samp. This is super important to provide a DNA baseline. They will pluck hairs from your scalp. They will swab your mouth. They will use a comb to collect pubic hair. There will be, you know, we already mentioned a genital exam, whether it's vaginal or anal. They really, like you said, they just. They have to go over with a sort of a fine tooth comb everywhere where the assault happened.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So they're gonna ask you awful questions like, were you penetrated anally? Was an object used? Did the perpetrator lick you or kiss you or anything like that?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And depending on these questions, they're going to investigate further, but they're going to follow certain steps that no matter what. But then if you say yes, the guy licked my face on, like, my left cheek. There's gonna be a swab on your left cheek that they otherwise may not have included in the normal steps.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And again, this. I mean, I can't imagine having to relive something like this. And there are.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Within, like, 24 hours, ideally 24 hours after it happened, like the worst thing that happened to you in your life. Let's talk about it here. Point to where it happened, you know, from a stranger.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, and there are plenty of interviews that we both read where, you know, women said it was reliving it. And I felt like I was being even with a great caregiver, like I was being assaulted all over again. It's just so important to try and do if you can get there, if.

[Josh Clark]

You can't, there's no blame, there's no judgment. That's a normal reaction. This is a lot to ask from somebody, but this is what it takes to collect the evidence and preserve it in a way that you can catch the person who did this.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They're going to test for. Well, it's not required, actually, to test for STDs, but they will ask you about STDs, I would imagine. Ask if you want to be tested.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They will offer emergency contraception as well. And you're not going to be charged for that procedure. Or the kit.

[Josh Clark]

Here's the thing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Or you shouldn't be.

[Josh Clark]

No, you won't be. Not for the administration of the kit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Which is. That's great. That's substantial. I mean, it's a $16 kit, but this is also four or five hours of an ER nurse's potentially a highly trained ER nurs versus time. So that's great. They're not charging you. But what's a shame. What's shameful, I should say, is that you will still be charged for any treatment of injuries, say, like you were hit and you need to be treated with stitches or whatever. You'll get a bill for stitches. If you say, yes, I do want antiviral drugs because I'm afraid of having contracted an std, or I do want emergency contraception, they'll say, here's your prescription, and the pharmacist will charge you for that. That's not ok. As a society, we should not ask rape and sexual assault victims to pay for their own medical treatment directly coming from a rape or a sexual assault. We should bear that burden ourselves. And then it should give us that even slighter additional incentive to go get the guy who did it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

You know what I mean? Nobody should pay a cent. And then even worse than that. I'm sorry, I realize I'm standing on a pretty big soapbox right now, but. But worse than that, Chuck, prior to the Affordable Care act, you could not. It was possible that you would be denied future health care coverage insurance if you were the victim of a sexual assault or rape who went to go get treatment because they treated it as a pre. Existing condition.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Unbelievable.

[Josh Clark]

A preexisting condition was rape. Can you believe that?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sadly, I can.

[Josh Clark]

All right, Step down.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They're gonna take this kit, they're gonna seal everything up, they're gonna store it. Everything is like, you know, all the clothing and everything and all the swabs are dried out and labeled, and then it's sealed back in that original box. That's part of the. I guess the genius of this kit was that everything that comes out of it goes right back in. And it is also the storage device and where it's labeled and then it's all shipped to local law enforcement, and then it's stored, quite possibly till the end of time. Sadly or destroyed, we'll get to both of those things.

[Josh Clark]

And ideally, under just about any procedure, every single person who takes custody of that is supposed to sign the label outside of the box. So there's a clear chain of custody. It goes from the ER nurse to the cops, to the prosecutors, to the lab to the prosecutors and so on. But there's supposed to be a clear chain of custody so that there's no questions about whether it was tampered with or anything.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I always. That's the one thing that weirds me out about any kind of blood sample I'm ever asked to give or any kind of procedure I'm ever tested for is when I see them take my blood or whatever specimen and they're riding on the little thing and it leaves the room. I don't know why. My first thought is always like, well, they're gonna mix that up with somebody, which is not true. But I'm always just like, all right, well, it's out of my vision, so I don't trust it.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I don't know what that is.

[Josh Clark]

It probably stems from having been switched at birth in the hospital. That's the only explanation.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna come back and talk after this about the horrific problem of rape kit backlog and destruction right after this.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Feel good and look good this summer with savings on your personal care favorites and earn four times points now through September 9th. Shop in store or online for items like Dollar Shave Club razors, hydro silk razors and Edge shave gel. Plus some favorite brands like Tampax, Pearl Dep and Poise to earn four times points to use for later discounts on groceries or gas. Hurry in before these deals are gone. Off run September 9th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Big Three Basketball Promo Announcer]

The reviews and ratings are in and Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. And to cap off the season, iHeart presents the Big 3 Basketball Championship and 8th Annual Big 3 All Star Game this coming Sunday, August 20th, 24th. Live from Orlando, the remaining two teams fight it out for the Big 3 Championship Dr. Jake Trophy in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. Don't miss the wild conclusion of Big Three's eighth and most historic season ever. This is the game no one wants to lose and there's no crying in the Big Three. The action starts with the Big Three eighth Annual All Star Game. Don't miss All Stars Dwight Howard, Montrez Harrell, MVP Michael B. Easily Lance will make you Dan Stephenson, Jordan Crawford, Greg Monroe, Earl Clark, Nazir Kor and more show you why they are the best 3 on 3 basketball players in the world. Big 3's exciting all star game, plus the crowning of a new Big Three champion. The no holds part. Action starts Sunday at 2pm Eastern, 11 Pacific only on CBS.

[Dana Schwartz or Lizzie Logan]

In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine articles claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes. The man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in Hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood, and me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeares to balloon boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's stuff you should know.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we told you the history of the kit, how it works. Your ideal scenario for what you should do if you're ever a victim, and the great ending to this story would be is and then those kits go off and they all get tested. 100% conviction rate, and they have great conviction rates.

[Josh Clark]

There's no more rape. It's a long rape.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sadly, that is not the case. This is all over the news for years now, as it should be. But. Well, first of all, this is what happens in the ideal scenario. They do store this. It is tested in a DNA lab and then it's checked against the codis, the C O D I s, the Combined DNA Index system. That's the database from the FBI of DNA profiles of bad people. And if a hit comes up, then you have a pretty good chance then of finding this person.

[Josh Clark]

The other thing about CODIS is this. When you submit a sample, a DNA sample to CODIS from a crime like a sexual assault, and there's not a hit, that sample, you know, you just go, okay, sorry, codis. Can I have my sample back? Like, that sample stays there, right? And so future detectives say they have a suspect or somebody who comes in and as a matter of routine, they run the suspect's DNA, which I think, like, just a matter of course. Now, when you're charged with a crime, they swab your cheek and then run it through codis. That DNA may be hit. And all of a sudden this thing like you got caught Robbing somebody's house. But now you're up for a rape charge from two years ago because your DNA was entered through this rape kit. So even if you don't get a hit, that doesn't mean that there's not going to be a conviction. That's not like the rape kit was all for naught.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Sadly, that's not the way it always works. In the 2000s, there started to be some. There were some reporters digging around, found a story and found out that there are tens of thousands of rape kits all over the country sitting in warehouses and sitting on shelves for years and years and years untested.

[Josh Clark]

It was so bad, Chuck, that it became known as the backlog.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Like some dating back to the 90s where they just like you said, sitting in warehouses, untested. And at first when I think some reporters started digging this up and found out like, whoa, this is not okay. How widespread is this? And started looking around and found it's like everywhere. And some towns are worse than others. Like Akron, Ohio had something like 3,000.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think 2,000 kits in Akron, Ohio alone.

[Josh Clark]

So Detroit had. Sorry, Akron, I didn't mean to put more on you than you had. I was confusing you with Phoenix. Phoenix had 3,000 kits, Dallas had 4,000, Memphis has 12,000. And. But in Detroit a few years back, somebody wandered into a police storage facility and was like, oh, there's 11,000 untested rape kits that have just been. That we just forgot we had. Here's the problem with that. There's a couple of problems with it. But the first one, Chuck, is that every single one of those kits represents a person who found the wherewithal to drag himself or herself to the ER and go through this hours long procedure and suffer a second violation, basically is what it feels like in order to give the cops the evidence that they need. And the cops didn't even bother to send it to the lab. That is a third violation.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And the other problem is that this could be like while they're sitting in there. And this often, sadly is the case, is that these people commit more sexual assaults when they could be behind bars.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. In Detroit. So there was 11,000 untested kits. They found, let's say that each one was a different perpetrator.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

The recidivism, that's a bonehead word. The recidivism rate, they think for sexual offenders of sexual assault is between 5 and 32% over a 15 year period. So if those kits sat there untested for 15 years. That means that an additional 550 to 3520 rapes were carried out by the same people whose DNA was in those kits. Untested.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Unbelievable.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So that's unacceptable. Right. And as a result, Congress was like, here's $150 million to get rid of this backlog.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That should solve.

[Josh Clark]

Did. It helped a lot. Right. It got the labs going and everything like that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's still not enough.

[Josh Clark]

Right. The problem is it funded labs. That's what everybody said was, well, the labs are overworked. What are you gonna do? So they got more technicians, they got more labs, and the backlog got worked through. In a lot of cases in Detroit, in particular, one of the prosecutors there named Kim Worthy, who's another hashtag hero of this story, has been like, this number is going down. We're going through those kits, and it's systematically and methodically.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's what it takes. It takes someone or a body of people not just, like, throwing money at something, but specifically following up on the ground.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Okay. So the funding went toward the labs, but that left another half of this formula, which is a big one. The cops. So this backlog got moved through the labs, but that doesn't mean that the cops followed up on the results. And including cases where there were hits in codis, later research by reporters found that, like a lot of these cases in the backlog that got worked through hadn't been followed up on.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which is another problem.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. There have been some federal guidelines laid down since then, specifically the SAFER act of 2013, sexual assault, forensic evidence reporting. Different states have new laws in place. Like in New York State, it is law now that requires kits to be sent in within 10 days of collection and tested by the lab within three months. And they set up a timeline for processing backlog kits. But it's, you know, it still depends on what city you live in and what state you live in, because it still happens. It still happens a lot. It says here in 2011 report from the National Institute of Justice, 18% of all unsolved rapes between 2002 and 2007 involved this kind of evidence that had never been processed.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

18%.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. And so in the cops defense here, they're basically saying, most of them are saying, okay, so great. That was great. You guys funded the lab. We're still overworked and understaffed and out of room.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Out of room, literally, to store these kits.

[Josh Clark]

So here is another thing, right? So all this stuff went. All this focus went on the backlog As a matter of fact, the third hashtag hero from this story is Mariska Hargitay from Law & SVU. Just from doing Law & SVU, her eyes were so open to this whole backlog problem that she started a foundation called the Joyful Heart foundation that is basically dedicated to getting rid of the rape kit backlog.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, actually, that's a larger foundation, but within that is inthebacklog.org and here's what you can do, everyone. Since it is National Awareness Month, first.

[Josh Clark]

Put on something teal.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Put on something teal. On April 2, go to inthebacklog.com and click on Take Action. And there are a number of things you can do, but at the bottom, there's a donation button and donate. I set up a monthly today that as far as I'm concerned, I'll donate monthly till the day I die.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which hopefully is a long time.

[Josh Clark]

Long, long time. Hashtag longtime.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But just go to inthebacklog.org if you don't have money to give, there are other things you can do under the take action banner.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

For sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So back in 2016, while everybody was talking about the backlog, worrying about the backlog, doing something about the backlog, the Fayetteville, North Carolina, chief of police held a press conference and said, hey, the city attorneys told me not to do this, but I feel a moral responsibility to tell the public this, but we destroyed about 300 untested rape kits in cases where the statute of limitations hadn't run out.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this isn't sitting on a shelf. This isn't untested. This is. We threw them away.

[Josh Clark]

They were incinerated. That evidence is gone forever. And it was never sent off to a lab. And the statute of limitations was not up in these cases. And that was huge. That was a big. A big deal. And he committed his town, his police department to going through all those cases, contacting the victims, and seeing if they could still build a case for all of them. They made it a priority, but it opened Pandora's box around the country. And CNN got a speculum of their own and started crawling around law enforcement agencies all over the country and saying, hey, have you guys ever done that? Have you ever destroyed rape kids? What's your policy for that? When's the last time you did it? Were any of them still within the stat limitations? And they found out that it happens a lot, actually. Yeah, like a lot. Police to make room in evidence rooms. They will destroy rape kits. Some of them have official policies in place. Some of them, it's just a detective deciding that the case isn't going anywhere and will say, yeah, you can destroy that rape kit.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sometimes it's a misunderstanding of what the statute of limitations is.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, yes. But these kits have never been tested and never will be tested. That evidence is gone forever. And that is even worse than the backlog everyone has concluded, and I think rightfully so.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And like you mentioned earlier, just having this stuff entered into CODIS is huge, because let's say you do nab someone and it turns out that they. It comes up with like, six hits from sexual assaults over the years. Like, I mean, prison sentences aside, the value that that has for a victim to know that that person was caught and is finally going to pay for their crime can't be measured, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Right. And also, if you go through this procedure and you still don't get a hit in codis, but that DNA evidence is in codis. If this perpetrator gets caught down the line, you've contributed to a much stronger conviction against them and probably a bigger sentence because you've helped establish a pattern of criminal behavior. And in fact, that's how they call it. The Golden State Killer, I believe, is from this backlog of rape kits being put through. And that guy popped up. I think they got him for like, 12 or 13 rapes during his serial killer career through this backlog being moved through. And that opportunity is lost if you just destroy this evidence untested. Secondly, it also. It ruins any opportunity for a wrongfully convicted person who was convicted previously before DNA evidence was used.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, that's happened a lot.

[Josh Clark]

If you destroy this evidence, it removes that possibility as well. So I think the Justice Department issued some guidelines that say you should hold rape kit evidence for a minimum of 50 years or the statute of limitations, whichever comes first, and then that's that. And everybody said that's really great, but we really only legally have to listen to our state's guidelines, which are all over the place.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I wonder if any kind of, like, penalty and accountability would help.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I think cnn, like, crawling up everybody's butt is helping for sure. I think it's kind of opened some people's eyes, and that was the same thing that brought so much attention to the backlog. So hopefully the same attention will come to this too, and we can start funding police departments around the country to, like, carry out the legwork on this.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I just have one more thing. If you just. And I imagine you could do this in any given week or day. Now, if you just type in rape kit and hit news on your search engine, many articles will come up like that day of cases like this. Just today, there was one. Austin police department could potentially reopen dozens of rape investigations after getting a backlog. Results from a backlog of almost 2,700 untested kits. I believe they got a grant from New York. I'm not sure how that happened, but they got like a million bucks from a grant from Manhattan to Austin, Texas.

[Josh Clark]

Like, we got a lot of money. You want some of it? Austin, maybe.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But that allowed them to test like almost 2,700 kits. Another story, a Tucson man was convicted of raping seven women over a 12 year period after police received a grant to test rape kits. And it said, and a changed mindset over which kits get tested. And then Orlando, Florida, a man is now in jail. Today, he fled the state and found him in Puerto Rico. And once again, this was a long unsolved rape case that they finally cracked open that kit, tested it, and bam. This guy comes up.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And they got him in Puerto Rico.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Still a territory doofus. If you want to know more about rape kits, just do what Chuck said and search it on your favorite search engines. News. Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, go to inthebacklog.org for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Even better.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Just poke around there for a while.

[Josh Clark]

And put on something teal.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And in the meantime, it's time for listener mail.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I don't think I have anything teal.

[Josh Clark]

You can borrow this sweatshirt.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

It's mint, but it's awfully close.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm not good with my colors. Emily thinks I'm partially colorblind.

[Josh Clark]

I think you might be too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Might be. So I'm gonna call this asmr. We've been getting a lot of follow up on this from people that get that tingly feeling and people like me that throw open their mouth a little bit. Hey, guys. Been listening for a long time. I'm always intrigued by the topic. I'm a crafter and your show always keeps my mind moving so my creativity can flow in the background.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. That's the ideal situation.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Crafting. Yeah. I seriously thought I was the only person to experience asmr. Friends I've talked to about it in the past think I'm crazy. No one around here knows anything about it. I love the feeling I get when I can activate the sensation. The best way I describe it is like, for me, getting goosebumps inside my skull. That's pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

That's a great one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I wish I knew what that felt like.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I do too. You know, I envy that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I want this sensation.

[Josh Clark]

I don't have it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The first time I found something that triggered it, I was working in a small office in the basement of a hospital. It was getting repainted and the sound of the paint roller. The people near me in the office set it off. First, I thought it was strange, but I really enjoyed it. As our office, I began wearing headphones on a regular basis and listened to the entire collection of Bob Ross painting, which I famously. Or not famously, but I go to sleep to that sometimes on Netflix.

[Josh Clark]

So you're not. You don't have a problem with Bob Ross?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, I love it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Very soothing to me. But I don't think. I mean, I don't think he's asmr. Is he?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Is he? Yeah, he's. We didn't say that in the episode. I didn't think so. Yeah. He's like a legendary ASMR trigger for some people. Legendary.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I listened to the entire collection and found the soft sound of his voice and stiff bristles on the canvas caused the same reaction. Helped me greatly with my anxiety and general stress in the office. Actually, I even created a playlist of people painting and would listen to it when I was stuck in traffic. As I'm writing, I'm listening to your episode. And yes, swallowing sounds can give me the tingles too. Bob Ross swallows a lot when he's painting.

[Josh Clark]

Gulp.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And his mic is on his collar.

[Josh Clark]

I've never noticed.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm so excited, guys. What, the swallowing?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You might have to have headphones on for that.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm so excited, guys. You have changed my life. Thanks so much, Goosebump headed Candace. Tali or Katali is in there. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's weird.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Middle name. That might be her certain name.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. BearandMermaidArt.com.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna shout out your craft site. It's like jewelry and things.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's not bear and mermaid art that I could see.

[Josh Clark]

I gotcha.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's just a whimsical name.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha. Yeah. There's like. It's something about painting, like, slows people down. Like when you're painting and you're talking, you're just that much calmer.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No one paints fast.

[Josh Clark]

There's this dude, like, if, like some. Some artists will paint. Do Instagram live and paint. Oh, yeah. And I don't know if you remember him or not, but the Gregory Jacobson, he was the artist who came backstage at our Chicago show last time. Okay. He did this for years or for a year. He had like some show coming and he would just sit there and paint. And Yumi started watching him originally and then she got me into it and it was just him painting. He wasn't even in the shot. Normally it's just his hand painting, but he'd be talking about what he's doing and maybe answering some questions. And I never really thought about it before, but it is like super laid back. Yeah, something about painting makes you slow. Just slows you down. Well, you know what, you swallow loudly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You never hear from a painter, an artist that's like, I'm in a hurry, I gotta go knock this painting out real quick.

[Josh Clark]

Let me put some players on there.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Or maybe, I don't know, I guess you could be under a deadline.

[Josh Clark]

And he was under a deadline. If I remember correct, he had some huge show coming up and I guess then he decided, well, I think I'll add this extra complication to this, to this crazy deadline. But yeah, it was interesting. Thanks a lot. Candace Nay if you want to get in touch with us, you can go to our website stuffyouchou.com and you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuff [e-mail].

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

[Dana Schwartz or Lizzie Logan]

Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[iHeart Big Three Playoffs Announcer]

Iheart presents the Big three Playoffs this Sunday. The remaining four teams battle to make the championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. The action starts with the Big three Monster Energy Celebrity game. Then Dwight Howard and his Ellie Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets. The finale will see popular Miami 305 with stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas Power who will make it to the big three championship. The no holds barred action starts Sunday at 3:00pm Eastern, 12 Pacific only on CBS.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It is hot out there this summer, right? But don't sweat it. We got tons of ways to save on your family's favorite personal care items to keep yourself feeling co and smelling good. Now through September 9th, earn four times points when you shop for items from your favorite brands like Right Guard, Raw Sugar, Dove Soft Soap and Olay. Then use your points for discounts on groceries or gas on future purchases. Offer end September 9th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Josh Clark]

At T. Rowe Price Their experience helps them see investment potential differently. Instead of quick answers, they know that what really leads to confident investing is true curiosity. In other words, they love a good deep dive. It's what drives them to ask the questions that really matter in our ever changing world, like can healthcare innovations create a healthier world? And how will intelligent systems be part of a new tomorrow? Their curiosity runs deep, and with it comes the power to help you invest more confidently. Better questions, better outcomes. T. Rowe Price. Learn more@t roweprice.com Curiosity this is an iHeart podcast.