PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon State Police announced Wednesday that the statewide backlog of untested rape kits was eliminated.
And those now tested kits are bringing convictions.
A Multnomah County judge convicted 67-year-old Jihad Moore Jr. on two counts of rape and one count of sodomy Wednesday afternoon, according to the district attorney’s office.
The attack happened at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland on June 14, 1996. Testimony during the trial revealed it was a stranger on stranger rape.
After all these years, the rape kit was still ready to tell its story.
Another kit helped convict Curtis Williams of a rape seven years ago in Multnomah County. He's now serving 33 years in prison.
Steven Stubbs raped a woman at his home eight years ago. Evidence in another untested kit pointed to him and now he's spending eight years in prison.
They are three of the five men in Multnomah County sent to prison by evidence in those old kits.
“The backlog being cleared is really great news, I think, for all of us in this state,” said Amity Girt, who prosecuted Tubbs and Williams.
She said clearing the backlog is important for survivors.
“I think it’s a very important piece of actually processing the trauma and moving through the trauma and knowing your case was treated the same as other people's cases,” she said.
State and federal money helped Oregon clear all of its roughly 5,000 untested rape kits.
Washington is not doing as well. The state has 6,4000 untested kits and is struggling to get them tested.
But it’s also created a first of its kind system that allows victims, as well as prosecutors, to keep track of where the kit is in the testing sequence.
Now, it just needs to find the funding to speed everything up.
Back in Oregon, deputy district attorney Girt said the cleared out backlog should be a warning to the bad guys: the evidence is hidden no more.
“We've had success with some of these cases that have gone through our backlog kit testing project. And there's really nowhere to hide,” she said.