Police Arrest Rapist Years Later Despite DNA Evidence

By Anthonia Akitunde in News on Oct 17, 2009 5:45PM

In a haunting story detailing the backlog of DNA evidence overwhelming the Chicago Police Department, the Tribune reports police had DNA evidence to arrest an alleged serial rapist a year before he was finally apprehended.

In that year, Tommie J. Naylor, a Forest Park postal worker, allegedly raped another teen girl who was forced by a group of men into a car at gunpoint in November 2008.

According to the report, the state crime lab contacted Chicago police in June 2008 to let them know DNA evidence connected three rapes together, the report said. However victims claim police did not make an effort to contact them for more interviews and information. It wasn't until June 2009, when more DNA evidence linked the alleged attacker in the November 2008 rape to the first three assaults. Yet police claim they tried to find "the victims and additional leads" with no luck.

The Naylor case is just one example of the reported difficulty the Chicago Police Department has handling the avalanche of DNA evidence without funding or a devoted team of detectives. Between 2001 to 2008, the police department "received 4,449 DNA hits, which link known felons to unsolved crimes or tie multiple crimes to the same unidentified person," according to the report. Police expect 1,500 more in 2009.

Although DNA evidence is found for burglary and murder cases, "most of those came in sexual assault investigations" and 41 percent of those cases are still open, the report said.

[Tribune]