DNA Results Are In 28 Years After "Rape Kit" For 5-Year-Old Was Filed: Man Indicted

Grand Jury Indicts 52-Year-Old Man For Attacking Young Child In Anchorage Park In 1994 

Over 3,000 Alaskan Rape Kits Languished For Decades, Unexamined 

1994 Was The Year O.J. Simpson Drove His White Ford Bronco Down A California Freeway

In 1994, O.J. Simpson was chased by police in his white Ford Bronco. In 1994, the Whitewater scandal investigation began. In 1994, an outbreak of Ebola began in Zaire, Africa. A first-class stamp cost 29 cents in 1994. Tom Hanks won the Oscar for Forrest Gump. The TV shows "Friends" and "ER" first came to television. The White House launched its first web page...

And, in 1994, a small child was raped in a park in Anchorage. 

At the end of this February – when that child would now be 33-years-old – a "cold case" has finally led to a grand jury indicting a man for that crime. 

Why did it take so long? 

After decades of ignoring the kits, the state of Alaska has – finally – opened up thousands of "rape kits" and tested them for incriminating DNA. 

When criminals rape someone — including little children — they leave behind DNA evidence. In thousands of cases across Alaska, "evidence" is duly swabbed down and placed in a "rape kit". The purpose of the kit is to help convict criminals who are violating others, especially women and children. But, for dozens of years, those rape kits have not been examined.

Alaskans are sexually assaulted at a higher rate than any other people in America. But Alaska is not the only place that backlogs rape kits. According to a story in ProPublica, there have also been thousands of unexamined kits in Ohio, North Carolina, Washington State, Wisconsin and Connecticut, which are also finally being examined.

The wheels of justice move slowly. In spite of the fact that little children are involved. 

In Anchorage, someone has finally, after all these years, been indicted on the basis of rape kit DNA evidence by a grand jury for this 1994 attack. 

The Anchorage Police Department issued the following press release on February 28th: