TBI rape kit testing shortened to less than 12 weeks, | News

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Testing rape kits at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) crime lab in Jackson, Tennessee, was down to 11.7 weeks at the end of March, according to State Senator Brent Taylor.

That’s down from the 43.8-week average it took to complete a rape kit test at the end of 2022 and faster than the 18-week average in November 2023.

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The long waits gained local and national attention following the death of Eliza Fletcher in September 2022. Her alleged murderer, Cleotha Abston, was found guilty of raping Alicia Franklin. Franklin was raped in September 2021, almost a year before Fletcher was murdered. However, Franklin’s sexual assault report was not analyzed at a government laboratory until almost a year later. This DNA test came back three days after Fletcher’s abduction as a match for Abston. Franklin and her lawyers argued that Fletcher’s murder could have been prevented if the test had been conducted sooner and Abston had been arrested.

In 2014, a lawsuit was filed against the city of Memphis after Memphis police disclosed that there were 14,000 untested rape kits from the 1980s. The city argued that until 2016 there were no regulations on testing rape kits.