Source: startribune.com 10/10/23
[ACSOL note: we are posting this to show how an unusually long delay of charges is possible, even reaching to another state]
Since 2012, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and its law enforcement partners have been chipping away at their backlog of sexual assault kits holding evidence in unsolved cases.
By Paul Walsh Star Tribune
Testing of DNA evidence nearly 20 years after it was collected has led to a man’s arrest on allegations that he raped a woman in a vehicle.
Shawn P. ____, 48, was charged in Ramsey County District Court last week with first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the assault of a longtime friend soon after they met at a bar on Dec. 28, 2003.
____, of St. Paul, was arrested Saturday, appeared in court Monday and was released on $80,000 bond. He’s due back in court on Nov. 2. A message was left Tuesday with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.
Since 2012, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and its law enforcement partners have been chipping away at their backlog of sexual assault kits holding evidence in unsolved cases. As of this week, according to the County Attorney’s Office, its backlog sits at fewer than 30 cases.
…
The break in the case came in August 2023, when the DNA was eventually tested and a match pointing to ___ came back during a periodic profile search of the Minnesota DNA database.
After being notified of the match, the woman told law enforcement that she wanted to proceed with charging Skie for a crime that “has ruined her life,” the criminal complaint read.
Not on a registry for 20 years because a state failed to actually process the evidence they held on to for almost 20 years.
And had he been on the registry, the media would have pounced with a neon sign: headline: “Convicted Sex Offender is charged again.”
So if he raped a “longtime friend” 20 years ago, I assume its safe to say she knew who he was, so my question is why weren’t charges filed against him 20 years ago? Why did it take a DNA match?