Springfield is a college town of 167,000 in southwest Missouri, not far from the Ozark Mountains. It promotes itself as the “Birthplace of Route 66” and is home to the first Bass Pro Shop, a mega tourist attraction. Paul Williams became chief of police in the state’s third largest city in 2010. He said the department has long struggled to keep up with the volume of reported sex crimes. Last year, police recorded 352 rapes and attempted rapes, a jump of about 20% from the previous year. Law enforcement professionals who have overseen sex crimes units said a detective working violent felonies should handle fewer than 100 cases a year. McDowell, who was not the only detective working those crimes in Springfield, shouldered 124 to 164 sexual assault cases a year between 2009 and 2014, according to Williams. (The department did not provide numbers for 2012.) In 2015, Springfield’s primary sex crimes detective carried a load of 208 sexual assault cases, Williams said. Because of the heavy caseloads, Williams said, detectives were encouraged to determine whether an investigation was “going anywhere” within 30 days. “I know 30 days sounds quick, but back then that was a necessary evil — to spend investigative time on cases that the victim was cooperative, and we thought there was some benefit of prosecuting.” The 10-day letter used by McDowell and others, the chief said, is a department-sanctioned tactic intended to spur victims to work with investigators. Though there are no written guidelines on use of those letters, the chief said, they should be sent only as a last resort, after detectives have exhausted all other means to reach victims. McDowell and at least one other investigator did not always use the letter that way. McDowell investigated 57 cases between 2006 and 2013 in which rape kits were destroyed before the statutes of limitations expired. She sent the letters in about 20% of those cases, six on the same day she was assigned to investigate. The chief declined to discuss several examples of McDowell’s work but defended her handling of the 2009 case involving the woman who reported that her assailant cut out the crotch of her pants. The victim never got back in touch with investigators, Williams said, and it was reasonable for McDowell to authorize destruction of the kit after two years. Springfield is a city of 167,000 in southwest Missouri, near the Ozark Mountains. CNN Another officer, Corporal Rod Noble, who is still on the force, also used the 10-day letter. He sent it in almost one-third of the 28 cases he investigated between 2008 and 2012 in which kits were destroyed before the statutes of limitations expired. Noble, who did not respond to requests for an interview, sent the letter as early as five days, and on average 17 days, after being assigned to a case — including one in which a victim repeatedly said she needed more time. That woman reported being raped in 2010 by her ex-husband — who she still lived with — and told a patrol officer she was going to get a restraining order and relocate with her children. Asked if she wanted to press charges, she said she “needed time to consider the results of her decision to prosecute,” the records show. Noble got the case and, in what he indicated was his first conversation with the woman, she told him “she wished to have more time.” According to the case file, he emphasized “the importance of a timely investigation” and noted that the woman would try to give him a decision in six days. When he did not hear from her, he called and left a message. Six days later, he mailed her the 10-day letter. She did not respond, and he ended the case six weeks after she reported being assaulted. Two years later, her untested kit was authorized to be destroyed. It sat on a shelf about another two years, then was disposed. Based on the offense listed in the case file, there was no time limit to prosecute.

In police vernacular, it’s called “trauma-informed protocol.” But in layman’s terms, it’s training designed to help sex crime investigators understand what a rape victim goes through. After an attack, a victim might feel afraid, intimidated and reluctant to work with police. Avoidance and withdrawal are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress. But a victim who reports an assault and then begins to retreat from an investigation may cooperate if given time and support. Victims should not be asked to make complex, pivotal decisions about their cases right away. Springfield detectives, experts said, failed to follow trauma-informed practices, such as working at a pace comfortable for the victim and refraining from discussing prosecution with victims before investigations are complete. “It’s easy to discourage rape victims from working with us,” said Tom Tremblay, a former Vermont police chief who trains officers in best practices in sex crimes investigations. Springfield’s destruction: A breakdown CNN found that since 2010 Springfield police destroyed 108 rape kits tied to cases in which a prosecution was still viable under the law. Seventy-five percent were destroyed without being analyzed for DNA evidence. Reporters determined the statutes of limitations based on the offenses police listed in the case files. Those cases, CNN found, were all reported between 2006 and 2014. Missouri has had no statute of limitations for forcible rape or forcible sodomy since March 2002, yet police destroyed kits in 47 cases that police classified with those offenses. In cases classified as other felony sex crimes, CNN applied the shortest statute of limitations for any felony — three years, also in effect since at least 2002 — and found that 61 kits were also destroyed before the time limit expired. The Springfield case files he reviewed showed, “a real lack of trauma-informed approaches,” he said. “Victims have lost control of the most personal decision we make — who we choose to be intimate with. They want some control back…. When we send them a letter saying, ‘Yeah, do this or else,’… (it) sounds very demanding, it sounds very much like what they may have experienced with the offender.” 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. Sexual assault victims should never be given these so-called prosecution waivers, experts said. McDowell gave one to a woman on the day she reported her rape. In that 2011 case, the victim said a man “went crazy and raped her” after they had done meth together, according to the investigative file. Go inside the Rape Files SPD 11-0043192: Victim who used meth given prosecution waiver The suspect admitted injecting the woman with drugs but denied sexual contact, records show. His assertion could have been challenged by analyzing the woman’s rape kit to see if it contained his semen or DNA. But that never happened. McDowell “explained the whole investigative process and court process” to the woman, according to the detective’s notes, and the woman decided “to put this incident behind her.” The woman signed the waiver just hours after she said she had taken drugs, records show. If she ever changed her mind and wanted to pursue charges, police would be hard pressed to make a case: The kit was destroyed, at McDowell’s request, less than six months later. Guidelines issued as far back as 2005 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police say officers should not introduce any forms for a victim to sign declining an investigation. The association’s president, Louis Dekmar, said he was surprised to learn a department was still using waivers years after the group recommended against it. Police should not discuss prosecution with a victim before a thorough investigation demonstrates that charges are possible, said Dekmar, a police chief in Georgia. And whether someone is charged is a prosecutor’s decision — not a victim’s. “You don’t do that in other crimes — call folks up and ask, ‘Are you going to prosecute?’” he said. “There’s a presumption at the time people report that police are going to do their job and investigate.”

A thorough investigation includes testing all evidence. Until recently, that was not the practice in Springfield. Chief Williams said his agency typically did not submit kits for analysis unless a prosecutor agreed to file charges in a case. But testing kits, experts said, could give a prosecutor precisely the corroborating evidence needed to take a case to court. Testing can confirm abuse, identify a suspect or connect a suspect to other crimes. By uploading test results to the national DNA database system known as CODIS, police have a chance to compare them to more than 17 million profiles taken from crime scenes, convicted offenders, detainees and arrestees. A mother told police her 4-year-old daughter was possibly assaulted somewhere in this park in Springfield. The girl talked about a bathroom “with the red roof.” CNN In 2014, Springfield police trashed a 4-year-old’s rape kit and the shorts she wore the day of her alleged assault without ever testing the evidence. The girl’s mother said she saw a wet spot on her daughter’s shorts that might have contained bodily fluid left behind by the girl’s alleged abuser. Go inside the Rape Files SPD 11-0043192: Child: ‘Uncle hurt my pee-pee' Police had taken the case to a prosecutor, who declined to file charges. The attorney explained her decision in writing: “Unfortunately, no corroborating evidence.” “That’s shocking,” said Nicole Gorovsky, a former Missouri prosecutor who reviewed this case and others for CNN. “No corroborating evidence? Yeah, because you didn’t test it. If the suspect’s DNA is on the victim anywhere near her genitals, game over for the suspect.” The prosecutor should have directed police to get the kit and shorts analyzed, Gorovsky said. The investigator, Chelsea Taylor, did not respond to CNN’s attempts to reach her. The Greene County assistant prosecutor who declined the case, Ami Miller, is now an assistant US attorney in Missouri. CNN’s request to interview her was declined by the office, citing a policy that prohibits her from speaking about cases she reviewed elsewhere. Her former boss, Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson, said the evidence “could have been sent off” for testing. At the time the case was reported, the statute of limitations for prosecuting child sexual abuse was, minimally, 30 years after a minor victim turned 18. Patterson acknowledged the long statute of limitations. “It might have been useful” to maintain the kit, he said. Documents also show prosecutors in his office checked a box that said “release/destroy the evidence” when declining to bring charges in at least seven cases in which kits were destroyed before the statutes of limitations expired. Three of those kits were not tested. Patterson said prosecutors made that choice when they believed rape kits were not going to help prove a case. As an example, he pointed to instances in which suspects claimed sex was consensual. Go inside the Rape Files SPD 11-0043192: Rapist returns, urinates on door But testing kits in those cases could recover a DNA profile that matches an unidentified attacker in another rape. In other words, one victim’s known rapist may be another victim’s unidentified rapist. Testing could also link that suspect to other crime scenes where DNA was found. Chief Williams told CNN his department began submitting all kits to a lab for analysis in 2014 and preserves that evidence. Data and documents show the agency destroyed two untested kits in 2015. He said he was unaware of that destruction. In August, Missouri enacted a law requiring police to submit rape kits to labs within 14 days of receiving the evidence. Though many sex crimes have no statutes of limitations, lawmakers decided to require that rape kits be kept for 30 years in cases that have not been adjudicated.