DENVER — Half of the lab work done last year at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was dedicated to reviewing cases conducted by a former forensic scientist accused of mishandling DNA who retired in November of 2023. The resources needed to investigate Yvonne "Missy" Woods, who worked within CBI’s Forensic Services for nearly three decades, exacerbated a backlog of DNA rape kit tests.
Now, approximately 1,400 sex assault cases are waiting on results, and have been waiting roughly five times longer than CBI would like. State Representative Jenny Willford, D-Adams County, said one of those cases is her own.
She's behind an amendment on Senate Bill 25-105, a Department of Public Safety Supplemental, which would allow CBI to roll over around $3 million of the $7.4 million the State of Colorado provided originally to address the fallout of the Woods investigation. A spokesperson with CBI said the funding would allow them to send an estimated 1,000 cases currently waiting in the backlog to be tested at private labs.
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Willford, who filed a lawsuit against Lyft in January following her own alleged 2024 assault, never thought she would have to share something so personal with the public.
"You never expect that you have to tell the world that you've been sexually assaulted. It was hard enough to tell my parents," Willford said. "I didn't want to be quiet. I don't want anyone else to get hurt. And it was... it was one of the hardest things I've ever done."
Willford explained that January marks essentially the halfway point in a budget year when state departments submit supplemental bills to the legislature to make changes within money that has already been allocated.
"Every year, we get a bill from every department that says, 'Hey, we overspent a little bit over here. Medicaid reimbursements were more than we anticipated here. Hey, we have this extra pot of money. Can we use it for this purpose?' And that's when the General Assembly gets to say, 'Yes, no, give me more information,'" Willford explained. "Senate Bill 105 was the Department of Public Safety coming back to the legislature and saying, 'We have this pot of money that has not been expended. We are not clear if we can use it for the purpose of backlogged cases.'"
State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican who represents Larimer and Weld counties, is a member of the Joint Budget Committee. Kirkmeyer said the Joint Budget Committee did not originally agree to roll forward the funding.
"We felt, at the time, when it came through the Joint Budget Committee, that we just feel like there needs to be more accountability to how the funds are going to be spent," Kirkmeyer explained. "It was just really more about accountability because we didn't have a plan. We didn't really get a lot of information from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation."
Kirkmeyer said CBI did not have to wait until January to come before the Joint Budget Committee with a supplemental request, and said they could have entered an emergency supplemental request near the end of 2024.
"We wanted more answers, and we told them we weren't going to do the roll forward in a supplemental knowing that we have the ability through the Long Bill, which is the budget, to do what's called an add-on — and add on legislation and take care of it in the March time frame," Kirkmeyer said. "We would have been kicking it out for about 30, 45 days somewhere in there. But we were expecting accountability, and transparency. What were they going to do? How are they going to spend the $3 million? How are they going to affect the backlog in a more timely manner?"
While the authority was not granted to CBI to roll over the funds from the Joint Budget Committee initially, an amendment was made on the Senate floor that pushed the plan forward.
"The amendment went through. We all supported it in on the Joint Budget Committee, which isn't typical. We don't typically support amendments to supplementals, but we did support that one, knowing that it was going to go over to the House and hopefully get a few more guard rails," Kirkmeyer said. "In the meantime, CBI came forward with a plan, so to speak, of how they were going to address the backlog by contracting out with other labs."
Within the House of Representatives, Willford's amendment expanded on the guard rails Kirkmeyer expected to see.
"Not a single colleague spoke against it. It passed unanimously, and then the House passed it on third reading on Thursday, and I exhaled a huge sigh of relief," Willford said about her amendment. "That roll forward money would still have to be accounted for in the state budget. But what it would do with this supplemental bill is give the department, CBI, the authority to start spending the money now. Which effectively means that they could start contracting with a lab right now to start clearing the backlog, and they would have the authority to spend that money through next June."
In addition to allowing the CBI funding to roll over into the 2025-26 fiscal year, Willford's amendment would also require CBI to provide lawmakers with monthly email updates explaining their progress on the rape kit backlog. Those updates would detail:
- The number of cases with pending tests in each category
- The turnaround time for the different categories
- The number of cases that have been completed within the prior 30 days by both the internal lab and contract labs
- The expected timeline to achieve CBI's 90-day turnaround goal for sex assault kits
- Updates on CBI lab analyst staffing levels
- Any issues with contract labs that could impact the testing capacity, volume, or turnaround expectations
As part of the amendment proposed by Willford, CBI would implement a "public facing dashboard" reporting the caseload numbers and turnaround times related to the backlog of DNA and sex assault cases.
"Running that amendment wasn't just about me. It was about the 1,406 other people who are waiting," Willford said. "When you feel like you have that one opportunity to get it right, and that one opportunity to move the needle — I know I couldn't let it go."
The Senate must concur with the changes made in the House of Representatives before the supplemental bill would go before Governor Jared Polis. If the Senate disagrees with the version the House of Representatives sent to them, Willford said a Conference Committee could be requested to make changes to the bill, which would then have to go through both chambers again.
Currently, the turnaround for DNA rape kits at CBI is over 500 days. CBI's goal is to reduce that time frame to 90 days.
Willford said it is absolutely awful having to wait on the results of her test.
"Every day, I wake up hoping I'll have answers, but I know that there are hundreds of cases before mine, and they deserve answers before I do, because they've been waiting a lot longer," Willford said. "It's there with you all the time. I've described it as the little cloud that follows you around, reminding you that nothing's changed today."
The number of sex assault cases waiting to be tested changes daily as CBI receives new submissions and completes others. A spokesperson with CBI said they are "committed to transparency in this matter" and hope to have backlog numbers posted on their website "in the very near future."
It was in September of 2023 when an intern research project discovered "DNA anomalies" within Woods' work. The investigation into Woods claims she impacted more than 1,000 cases. She now faces 102 criminal charges, including cybercrime, perjury, and forgery.
