After an investigative report from a national news outlet singled out his department for destroying rape kits, Springfield's police chief said parts of the Thursday report were misleading and other parts were correct.

It was wrong for CNN to make it seem like his department was still destroying rape kits, Chief Paul Williams said, when that hasn't happened in at least three years.

It is correct that the Springfield Police Department destroyed almost 200 rape kits — some of which were never tested — between 2010 and 2014, Williams said.

"We should never have destroyed rape kits. We should never have not had them all tested," Williams said. "...That was wrong. And I wish it hadn't happened. We can't go back and re-create those... We're sorry that happened."

The department began keeping and testing every rape kit in 2014, Williams said, after he attended a conference that discussed the issue.

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Williams said he realized his department was mishandling rape kits and changed the policy. He said he never made any public statement or news release that rape kits had been destroyed and a new policy was in place.

Should he have?

"Maybe so," Williams said.

According to the CNN report, about 80 untested rape kits were destroyed in cases in which the statute of limitations had not passed.

When asked if it was possible that a suspect rapist went free because those rape kits were destroyed, Williams said yes.

"To your point that someone could have been connected to a crime: Absolutely," Williams said.

Williams apologized to victims of sex crimes who might have had a rape kit destroyed.

"I want to assure people that absolutely won't happen moving forward, hasn't happened since 2014," Williams said.

CNN said two more rape kits were destroyed in 2015.

Williams said that's accurate, but those actions went against the department's policy and have been reviewed internally.

Williams said it's clear today that rape kits should never be destroyed.

"That was not the culture of law enforcement or the protocols that were in place 10, 15, 20 years ago, and things have changed for the better," he said.

However, the department was destroying rape kits regularly up until 2014 — four years ago. Williams said the culture has changed even within the last few years.

"There's been a massive shift in how we address, certainly, sexual assault investigations and how the evidence is collected," Williams said.

Williams said the Springfield Police Department was quicker than most agencies to adopt a policy of keeping and testing every rape kit after he attended the 2014 conference.

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"I came back, I remember sitting down with Lt. Wilson going, 'Hey, do we have any untested rape kits lying around? How many do we have?'" Williams said.

He said the backlog of untested rape kits was more than 300.

"Now we're down to 237 and slowly whittling that down," Williams said, and new rape kits do not get added to the backlog.

Instead, new rape kits are sent to the Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime Lab to be tested, Williams said.

The crime lab is in charge of the order in which evidence gets tested, he said, though Springfield police sometimes ask for severe cases to be bumped up.

Williams said the rape kit backlog stretches back to 2000, but he hopes to have every kit tested within the next two years.

Every month, he said the Springfield Police Department sends 10 kits from the backlog to be tested, but last year the crime lab paused intake for several months.

The CNN report also focused on a specific detective — Maggie McDowell — who was the department's primary sex crimes investigator when many rape kits were still being destroyed.

Williams said there are now two detectives who share that role.

Williams called McDowell an "excellent investigator" who solved cases and brought justice to victims.

"I think it's harsh to characterize this detective's entire career based on a small sample size of cases that you don't feel were handled appropriately," Williams said.

CNN's reporting leads to policy change

The destruction of rape kits was not the only focus of CNN's report, which is part of a larger series on how police handle rape investigations nationwide.

"Springfield police asked victims soon after they reported their rapes whether they would pursue prosecution of their attackers and provided a form for them to sign," the CNN report said.

This practice of asking sexual victims to sign "prosecution waivers" is an anomaly, CNN reported, and an expert said it discourages victims from cooperating with police.

Williams referred to them as "decline to prosecute" forms and said he is re-evaluating their use department-wide.

Williams said he has already determined the forms are "not a best practice ... in sexual assault cases and something we've discontinued."

That determination came after CNN started asking questions.

"It was a result of the inquiries from CNN because I wasn't aware we were using them in that manner," Williams said. "...When they inquired about it, it caused us to look at our practices."

Williams said his department recently stopped using the "decline to prosecute" forms in sex assault cases, but he did not recall a specific date.

"It wasn't a policy, it wasn't a procedure," Williams said. "Some detectives use them, some don't."

Lt. Culley Wilson said the department is currently working on a policy about the forms.