DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said Wednesday his office has tested 1,606 rape kits that had gone untested for years.
This comes after the 2017 discovery that more than 4,000 rape kits in Iowa were untested.
Last year, the state processed 300% more kits than it had in 2019. The Attorney General's office said 1,606 kits were submitted for DNA testing.
From those kits, 852 DNA profiles were entered into CODIS and more than 290 profiles had matches.
Officials said the process led to criminal charges in only four cases.
"The main reason prosecution didn't take place is because the victims didn't want to go forward, and that was due to the timing, they were very old cases," Miller said.
A federal grant gave Iowa $3 million to work through the backlog, but that funding expired this year.
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