CRIME LAB BACKLOG ANGERS RAPE VICTIM

Vincennes Woman's Frustration Grows As State Police Blame Delays On Slim
Budget, Crushing Caseload.

VINCENNES, Ind. -- Laura Koenig survived rape.

She picked herself up after a man on a bike knocked her down and violated
her. She ran and found help, endured the excruciating hospital exam,
recounted in detail what the man did to her and described him to police.

Koenig expected the system designed to protect her and punish criminals
would now do just that.

Then the case became one of 5,287 backlogged at Indiana State Police crime
labs, where law enforcement agencies in most of the state's counties send
evidence to be analyzed.

State Police have asked for more money from the legislature this session,
so far unsuccessfully. But even if the agency got what it asked for, it
would take two to three years to clear the cases waiting for analysis and
get the labs on a schedule State Police believe is acceptable. They
describe the situation as a crisis.

It's a crisis for the 23-year-old Koenig, too.

In the beginning, she'd seen promising signs: Police obtained a warrant and
got a DNA sample from the man she identified. The sample was sent to an
Indiana State Police crime lab, where scientists were to compare the DNA of
the suspect against the DNA taken from Koenig's body and her clothes.

Laura Koenig was raped May 3. The man she identified as her attacker
remains free -- his arrest pending the results of the DNA tests -- and
Koenig has run into him around town.

The State Police Laboratory Division's logjam isn't new. As long ago as
1995, work held up at the division was causing delays in trials; in 1997,
the Indiana State Police stopped accepting new cases for DNA testing for
several months as the pile of unfinished cases grew and they switched to a
different kind of DNA testing.

For a time, the new DNA technology allowed the Laboratory Division to catch
up, but demand continued to outstrip resources and DNA testing is again
almost at a one-year backlog.

A few states have beefed up their crime lab capabilities to cope with the
growing demand, but most are like Indiana -- struggling to meet a huge
appetite for crime analysis, including DNA testing.

The State Police Laboratory Division has crime labs in Evansville, Fort
Wayne, Lowell and Indianapolis. All but Fort Wayne conduct DNA tests, and
all perform other tests, including firearms and bullet examinations,
fingerprinting, drug analysis and document exams.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 81 percent of DNA crime labs
reported they were backlogged in January 2001. That's up from December
1997, when 69 percent reported they could not keep up with DNA testing demands.

None of that makes Laura Koenig feel better. It just makes her feel
violated all over again. She no longer separates her fury against her
attacker from her rage at the state for allowing him to remain on the streets.

"It's all one big anger," Koenig says evenly, softly.

The Star does not publish the names of sexual assault victims without their
permission. Koenig decided to go public because she is frustrated that she
has been left hanging while the man who attacked her remains free. The Star
is not publishing the name of the man she identified as her attacker
because he has not been charged with a crime.

DNA Testing Necessary

Vincennes Police Detective Mark Dupire is overseeing Koenig's case. He said
DNA testing, when DNA is available, is critical for a successful
prosecution in today's world.

"It's obviously something that you cannot not do," he said, "because if you
don't, then the defense will kill you."

State Police said the swamped labs frustrate them, too.

"We're a victim of our own success," said Indiana State Police
Superintendent Melvin Carraway, citing cases in which forensic testing was
key to getting a conviction, such as the 1997 murder of Franklin College
student Kelly Eckert.

Law enforcement agencies around the state saw the power of scientific
evidence and "rushed the barn door" to ask for help from the State Police
labs, Carraway said.

The Laboratory Division is doing all it can to meet those demands, he said,
but it is simply swamped.

This legislative session, a measure was introduced to raise $8 million a
year for the State Police labs with a new $15 fine added to those already
paid for such things as speeding and other traffic tickets.

The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee but died in the Senate
Finance Committee. Carraway and Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who supported the
measure, pledged to continue to look for ways to get the proposal through
the legislature this year.

The $8 million the new fee would generate annually would fund a second
shift at the crime labs, essentially doubling the current staffing of 57
scientists and technicians.

In addition, Carraway in 1999 sought to have $30 million included in the
State Police budget to expand and modernize the Indianapolis lab. That
money did not make it into the agency's budget.

As of Feb. 1, all four of the agency's labs had cases stacked up in every
testing area, with one exception: The Evansville lab was caught up on the
analysis of documents. However, Maj. Robert Conley, commander of the
Laboratory Division, noted that some level of backlog is to be expected and
can be managed. Within the testing areas, the division's maximum
capabilities also vary: It can do as many as 12,000 drug tests a year but
is currently limited to about 800 DNA tests.

By last summer, the state's shrinking budget significantly deepened the
problem. According to an August memo that Conley sent to agencies across
Indiana, services would have to be trimmed.

The overtime allotment for the year was $136,000, Conley wrote, down from
the $422,000 spent the year before. That would mean fewer cases could be
processed, so law enforcement agencies should take that into account and
set priorities.

Prosecutors across the state are becoming increasingly anxious as the cases
pile up.

"I think it's desperate," said Steve Johnson, executive director of the
Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council. "There are probably some cases
coming in now that they'll never test before trial.

"They're almost close to declaring a moratorium," he said. "I just don't
know if they can take any more."

Laura Koenig isn't sure she can take any more, either.

About a month ago, when she was checking in with Detective Dupire, he told
her the last word from the State Police was that it would be another 12 to
18 months before results came back. Koenig practically snapped -- that's
when she began complaining to public officials, and that's when she moved
from grief to anger. Now she's learned from Dupire that tests have been
started on her case.

"I grieved for eight months," she said. "Now I'm angry."

Pushed Off The Road

Last May, Koenig had stopped by a neighborhood tavern after work to meet
some friends. It was a little after 11 p.m. when she got there. She left
about 1 a.m. and found that her aging car wouldn't start. She was just a
mile or so from home, so she decided to walk.

After a few blocks, a man on a bicycle rode up and began talking to her. He
seemed nice enough, and she wasn't alarmed. He told her his name. She told
him hers.

"In this town, you stop and talk to anybody," she said.

Things changed quickly. Near some bushes, he got off his bike, pushed her
down, tore at her clothes and raped her. Then he left.

Scratched, bruised, disheveled and frightened, Koenig ran. A motorist
stopped to ask whether he could help; she wasn't in the mood to talk to a
stranger in a car but asked him to call for help and kept running.

Someone did call police, who eventually found Koenig. She gave them the
name her attacker had given her and described his bicycle in detail and his
distinctive teeth.

In the weeks after she was raped, Koenig moved to a different house. As she
walked out to collect more items to carry in that day, her attacker was
suddenly outside, on his bike.

"He said, 'Miss me, baby?' " Koenig recalled.

She called police and got a temporary restraining order to keep the man
away from her at home and her job, where she works with mentally
handicapped adults. Since then, she also took on a second, part-time job at
a gas station.

One day, the man walked in to buy a pack of cigarettes. She has cut her
hair and changed the color since the attack; she doesn't think the man
recognized her.

But she was terrified. She said court personnel told her it would cost her
another $30 to add her new job site to the restraining order; otherwise,
police couldn't prevent the man from coming there.

Becky Koenig, Laura's mother, supports her daughter's decision to go public
to draw attention to her case and the chronic problem at the state lab.

"This is not something to be taken lightly," she said. "It's a brutal act,
and I just don't understand why they don't treat it as such."

O'Bannon, in a written answer to a question about the backlog issue, said
he appreciates the importance of DNA testing in the prosecution of criminal
cases and therefore supported the bill to create a new fee.

"In this year of great budget difficulties, when I am asking for revenue
enhancements so that we can balance the budget," O'Bannon said, "I
considered support of this measure a big step -- but a crucial one -- to
fight crime."

He also said his administration will continue to look for a way to gain
approval for the new fee during the current legislative session.

Becky Koenig doesn't have much empathy for that defense. Tight budget or
not, she said, she'd have the same question for the governor:

"I'd look at him and ask him what he would do if it was his daughter."