KETTERING — Update@5:39 p.m. (Jan. 16)
The rape kit in this case is among thousands that are backlogged, and law enforcement agencies across the state are working with Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations to process them, officials said Tuesday.
BCI and the Miami Valley Crime Lab have been working on 14, 600 rape kits since Attorney Mike DeWine started an initiative in 2011.
“It’s been a fairly overwhelming project,” said Tom Strickrath, superintendent at BCI. “We had no idea it would be 14,000 of these rape kits that would be in evidence lockers and closets across the state of Ohio.”
The AG’s office has processed all but 300 of the kits statewide since the initiative was launched, he said.
Locally, of the 367 kits that were processed in Springfield, 133 suspects were found. In addition, they’ve processed all 17 kits in Fairborn and identified five suspects, Strickrath said.
Eight kits remain in Xenia, although they’ve found 11 suspects, and they’ve tested eight of the 13 kits they received from Trotwood, he said.
Investigators are not just finding the suspects in the rape cases, they’re convicting many of them as well, he said. They’ve also gathered data that will help doctors, nurses and law enforcement determine the best way to collect information in the hours after a rape is reported.
“One thing we’re trying to do is learn from this data we have now,” Strickrath said.
First report:
A February trial date is set for an accused kidnapper and rapist in Kettering.
Ted A. Mullins, 47, faces a felony kidnapping charge and three counts of rape.
His trial is expected to begin Feb. 12 in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court.
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Mullins remains in Montgomery County Jail where he has been since his July 2017 arrest. Mullins is accused of raping a woman he did not know in June 2009. He was not identified as a suspect until a rape kit finally tested linked his DNA to the incident, according to Kettering police.
Mullins was indicted in August 2017.
This news outlet is working to gather more information about the 2009 case.
Kettering police Officer John Jung said the suspect was unknown to the victim. She is now in her 30s and living in Cincinnati.
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The victim, who this news outlet is not naming, said she wants her story to be shared about how this was a random abduction. She plans to study nursing and help other victims of sexual assaults.
The victim told police she was abducted from the 3200 block of Wilmington Pike around 1 a.m. June 27, 2009 as she was walking from her apartment to a Speedway.
