Criminal investigations in the State of Colorado — more specifically, sexual assault investigations — have been facing hurdles due to internal factors at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) since September 2023.
For one, Yvonne “Missy” Woods, a former CBI forensic scientist of nearly 30 years, is facing 102 charges related to perjury, forgery, attempting to influence a public servant and a cybercrime, all for allegedly manipulating DNA evidence from hundreds of criminal cases.
“The CBI had to review more than 10,000 cases she worked on over her 29-year career. In the calendar year of 2024, this meant approximately 50% of the work our DNA scientists did was related to reviewing Woods’ work, and this reduced our testing capacity accordingly,” CBI Strategic Communications Director Rob Low told The Sopris Sun.
This inevitably created a backlog as scientists at CBI were unable to perform day-to-day case loads due to having to retest evidence Woods had processed. “Fifty percent of their time that year was devoted to assisting in the review,” said Low. “So we got further behind on actual case work.”
According to reports from Colorado Public Radio, victims of sexual assault are waiting more than 90 days to receive results from sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) kits. As of June 30, the backlog for SANE exams across the whole state sat at 1,236, with an estimated turnaround of 570 days. There were 838 cases submitted between July 1, 2024 and June 30 this year, making up the bulk of the current backlog.
There has been some progress, however, and CBI outsourced over 1,000 SANE kits to private laboratories following a decision by the state legislature earlier this year, which also allocated $3 million to addressing the backlog.
“This project will allow CBI to cut the backlog in half by early 2026 and to be able to meet our goal of completing testing within 90 days by late 2026,” said Low. “I can tell you any case that was in the backlog at the beginning of 2025 should be tested by the end of 2025.”
Low shared that CBI typically processes results on a “first in, first out” basis, but some cases may be prioritized to meet court case deadlines. DNA results are also run through the National Combined DNA Index System, better known as CODIS, in order to identify a suspect, but only if their DNA is already on file.
The Carbondale Police Department (CPD) has been investigating a reported sex assault since November, and a significant barrier was that the evidence submitted was “taking longer than expected” to be processed, CPD reported in April.
The Sopris Sun reached out to CPD and the District Attorney’s Office for an update on this case, but did not receive an update as of press time.
For more on CBI’s backlog, visit www.cbi.colorado.gov