Joyful Heart in the News

After she was allegedly raped at knifepoint on September 1, 1993, a 23-year-old Ohio woman, "S.W.", did all the things sexual assault victims are supposed to do. She reported the rape and her alleged attacker, Demetrius Jones, to the local Cleveland police, detailing how she screamed for help, how she fought, how her attacker's brother and mother were in the same apartment when he vaginally raped her but never came to her aid. She also went to the hospital for a full rape kit, where medical staff took vaginal swabs, collected pubic hair, fingernail scrapings, a saliva sample, a nasal mucous sample, and a DNA standard.

But after the local sex crimes police attempted twice to contact S.W. following the incident and were unsuccessful, the investigation was dropped. And her rape kit sat, untested, for nearly two decades.

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