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For nearly seven years, the rape kit sat on a shelf in storage at Provo's Police Department as untested evidence, along with about 150 other kits that would pile up through the years because Provo, like other departments, lacked the resources to process it.

Then in January, as part of a federal program, Provo sent the kit and 29 others to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Va., and it came back linked to an individual already in the national database that tracks the DNA gathered in such attacks.

Of the 30 kits Provo sent to the FBI lab, a dozen had usable samples. Four of them were connected to other attacks in the FBI database, and now detectives have been assigned to reopen two of those cases. The third was connected to an offender in a neighboring state, and police there have been notified. The fourth kit connected the sexual assault to a juvenile already convicted of a 2013 assault.

Provo's experience is hardly unique, and it could portend a coming wave of investigations and prosecutions.

West Valley City submitted 29 unprocessed rape kits earlier this year through the same FBI program. Of the 17 usable DNA profiles, six were connected to offenders already in the database.

Statewide, 2,700 unanalyzed rape kits piled up at the State Crime Lab and at police departments around Utah because of a lack of funding to process the kits before the Legislature last year decided to spend $750,000 to hire a private company to begin chipping away at the testing backlog.

So far, the state has sent about 305 untested kits to the contracted lab and is in the process of entering the results from the 98 usable results into the FBI database. Another 200 are going out this month and each month until all the kits are tested, said Jay Henry, head of the State Crime Lab.

"The evidence contained inside these kits is an incredibly powerful tool to solve and prevent future crime," said Kortney Hughes, victim-services coordinator with the Provo Police Department. "So that and the sheer affirmation to survivors that they matter and that kit was not done just for fun, that it's actually going through that process now, that there are the funds available to do that," make the testing important.

But given that the kits can be such an important crime-solving tool, was there enough urgency given to getting the evidence processed earlier?

"No. Absolutely not," said Holly Mullen, executive director of the Rape Recovery Center.

It costs a few hundred dollars to process each kit, and the total $750,000 allocated to erasing the backlog is half as much as taxpayers are now spending to help Utah State University recruit athletes, about $250,000 less than the state spent in 2014 on the Sundance Film Festival, and the same amount it allocated that year to the state Sports Commission to try to bring motocross and other sporting events to Utah.

But Mullen, who is on a task force to administer the program, is encouraged that there is a desire to get the kits processed and discover the evidence they may contain.

"This is what the advocates have been saying all along," she said. "If we start to turn them in, we'll come across some old cases or serial rapists who have moved across state lines."

Hughes said it took a shift in thinking for the rape kits to become a priority. Before, there was a mindset that — in most cases — the attacker is known to the victim and they can solve the crime without the DNA evidence. Indeed, some untold number of unprocessed kits belong to cases where the perpetrator is already behind bars.

But statistics also show that rapists typically are serial offenders and will commit the crime again and again until they are caught. The DNA profiles and the federal database can help connect previously unconnected attacks, Hughes said.

"These kits, they can confirm the presence of a known suspect or they identify an unknown suspect. At the very least, they affirm what the survivor is saying about the attack. A lot of times that kit can read just like their story," Hughes said. "And one of the biggest things is connecting some of the suspects to other crimes. ... They're identifying serial offenders by testing these old kits."

In Detroit, for example, the FBI funded a program to study that city's extensive backlog, and nearly 1,600 kits were tested. Half yielded usable DNA profiles, producing 455 hits on the federal database, or 28 percent of the total sample tested. It also identified 127 serial assaults.

In Houston, 6,000 kits — out of an estimated 16,000 in storage — were tested, yielding 850 hits on the database, eventually resulting in charges against 29 suspects with some convicted rapists sentenced to up to 45 years in prison.

And in New Orleans, 40 sex-crime cases were closed as a result of the review of the DNA evidence and investigation by the New Orleans Police Department's Cold Case Sex Crimes Unit. Two perpetrators were sentenced to life in prison for their crimes.

If the statistics from those studies hold true, the 2,700 cases in the Utah backlog could yield scores, possibly even hundreds, of hits in the federal DNA database.

The task force is working on protocols for how to notify sexual-assault victims of the new test results — none has been notified yet, out of fear of reopening old wounds.

"We're going to kind of open up some trauma, so we need to make sure we're prepared to support them," Hughes said. "Because these [cases] could be 10 years old. Maybe they haven't told their family. So there are a lot of things to reconsider before re-engaging victims. It's important and it's a next step."

Mullen said following the cases through to their end is important, and if victims see the DNA evidence is being taken seriously, more will be willing to report their crimes.

"To come forward and go through the rape exam, which takes four to eight hours and have the kit collected and just have it sitting there gathering dust in some evidence locker somewhere for years at a time … it's just awful," Mullen said.

"It's important that every victim be notified that these cases are coming out, and especially the ones that have good, solid hits on them. And even the ones that don't offer some sense of closure for the victim. It's just a feeling that it's the just and right thing to do."

Twitter: @RobertGehrke