The Denver Police Department will independently review more than 400 sex assault cases handled by now-discredited Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods to ensure the DNA testing was valid.
The police department’s crime laboratory started a process to review the reports from at least 422 sexual assault evidence kits that Denver police submitted to CBI for DNA testing over the last 12 years, spokesman Doug Schepman said in a statement Friday.
From that initial review, the lab will determine how many kits should be re-tested, he said. If re-testing reveals new DNA evidence, police will investigate the sex assault cases further, Schepman said.
The move to review the cases comes after CBI discovered Woods mishandled DNA testing in more than a thousand cases during her nearly 30-year tenure as a DNA analyst at the statewide law enforcement agency. Woods retired in lieu of termination in late 2023 after an internal investigation found she deleted, omitted or manipulated DNA data in at least 1,003 criminal cases.
She was charged with 102 felonies in January; the criminal case against her is ongoing.
The review by the Denver Crime Laboratory is separate from — and redundant to — CBI’s internal review of Woods’ cases. CBI reviewed more than 10,000 cases that Woods handled — including the 422 Denver cases — and found problems in 1,003 cases.
The agency did identify problems in a subset of the 422 Denver cases, CBI spokesman Rob Low said. He and Schepman both declined to give a specific number.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with the Denver crime lab in its assessment to determine if any Denver PD cases warrant retesting,” Low said in a statement.
During CBI’s internal investigation, Woods admitted to taking shortcuts when she was testing Denver sex assault cases, an internal affairs report shows. She said she did so after Colorado legislators passed a law in 2013 that required authorities to test nearly all sexual assault evidence kits, regardless of whether the case was likely to result in an arrest or prosecution.