FDLE says Florida’s rape kit backlog cleared “for all intents and purposes"

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says it has cleared a backlog of nearly 13,000 untested rape kits.

In July 2015, 10Investigates exposed evidence collected from sexual assault victims had gone unprocessed for months, sometimes years.Our investigation inspired a law and the legislature set aside money for FDLE to clear the backlog.

FDLE told us in February they anticipated fully processing those kits by June 30th.

Jeremy Burns, the communications coordinator for FDLE, says "for all intents and purposes, the SAK Backlog is complete."

He says there are a few kits, submitted by law enforcement agencies in late June, that are being processed.

FDLE will now conduct a manual count of the completed kits and will have those numbers in late July. We also hope to learn how many of these now processed kits have led to new leads in unsolved crimes.