Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

A recent legislative audit of the state’s Crime Lab said the facility isn’t meeting its target speed for processing sexual assault response team kits, which include biological evidence gathered after an alleged sexual assault.

A scientist at the lab explained that the process is complicated.

Forensic biology supervisor Michelle Collins flashed her key card to open the doors into the entry room of the DNA laboratory at the state’s Crime Lab.

“We’re gonna wear masks because when you talk, you spit a lot of DNA out,” Collins said, slipping a surgical mask over her face. She said it is easy to taint evidence that only has tiny bits of DNA on it, so the forensic biologists take a lot of precautions.

She goes through another set of doors into the screening room.

Collins said that modifying the screening process has been key to fixing the lab’s DNA backlog problem.

In December of 2014, the lab had 387 backlogged DNA cases, which includes SART kits and other biological evidence. Forensic lab accreditation programs say they should be processed within 30 days.

To fix the problem, lab managers streamlined the process.

Now screeners not only locate DNA on evidence, but they also quantify it to see whether there is enough present to create a DNA profile. That made it easier to finish some cases more quickly, Collins said.

At the end of 2016, the backlog was down to 117 cases.

Being fully staffed has helped as well, Collins said.

“It’s very easy to get in a hole when you lose a staff member, and it takes a long time to get back out of it.”

According to Collins, lab work isn’t what makes processing DNA evidence so time consuming.

It’s the paperwork.

Once a DNA profile is created, it has to be interpreted.

Sometimes it’s simple – a sperm sample collected during a sexual assault exam typically only contains information about one person.

Samples from scrapings under someone’s fingernails aren’t that easy.

“Our reality is that our profiles are often mixtures of two, maybe three, maybe more individuals,” Collins said. “That interpretation is very complex.”

Once a scientist interprets the data, it’s sent to another person for verification. The back-and-forth can take a lot of time.

For the Crime Lab, the goal is to process 90 percent of all the evidence sent there within 30 days.

According the legislative audit, in July it was finishing only about half of its cases within that time frame.

Collins explained that processing some tests, like drug identifications, is easy to do within the time limit, but that’s not the case for identifying DNA in SART kits that contain multiple different samples.

She said her team tries to complete those within 60 days.

“Well, believe it or not, in Anchorage, we feel like the kit turnaround is pretty good,” said Lt. John McKinnon with the Anchorage Police Department.

It used to take over a year to get results from sexual assault kits, McKinnon said. Now he gets preliminary results in about three weeks or a month.

Sometimes faster would be better, he said.

“In some situations where we don’t know who the suspect is, it delays the investigation because we don’t know who we’re looking for,” McKinnon said.

The Crime Lab does prioritize those types of cases, as well as ones involving minors.

However, most sexual assault investigations don’t actually hinge on the SART kit results, McKinnon said.

Often the victim knows the assailant, and the investigation is focused on the issue of consent.

The kit, a small white box filled with labeled envelopes and tools to collect biological samples, is just one tool among many, he said. They also interview people, collect evidence and work with nurses to conduct forensic exams.

All of the information goes into a months-long investigation, McKinnon said.

But Collins, from the Crime Lab, said attention is often drawn back to the kit and the DNA evidence it contains. She called it the CSI effect — expectations created by crime investigation TV shows.

“They solve them a lot with DNA during TV shows,” Collins said. “So they definitely create an expectation that DNA is the answer, and that’s not always the reality.”

As a result, Collins said her lab is sometimes asked to process SART kits, even if the prosecutor doesn’t need the information to pursue the case.

At the end of 2016, the lab had 59 more backlogged kits to process.

Collins said they’re staffed well enough to be on track to finish them all soon.

Updated | 12:03 p.m. Wednesday

Police have charged and identified Brent M. Sanders as the suspect in the assault of Rochelle Stevens and another woman early Tuesday morning.

According to a Juneau police news release, Sanders, 26, was arrested on a felony parole violation warrant related to two previous counts of third-degree assault.

Now police are seeking charges of first-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault in Tuesday’s incident.

Sanders is in Lemon Creek Correctional Center. No bail is set.

He is scheduled for an initial court appearance this afternoon.

Updated | 11:14 a.m. Wednesday

Alaska Native Medical Center spokeswoman Michelle Weston said Rochelle Stevens was in fair condition Wednesday morning in Anchorage.  

Original story | 5:48 p.m. Tuesday

A 37-year-old woman was medevaced to Anchorage after she was found with a knife in her head, and multiple stab wounds in her back in a Mendenhall Valley apartment.

Juneau police responded to a call about 1:35 a.m. Tuesday to a residence in the 1900 block of Cinema Drive, according to a news release. Police said the woman was attacked by a 26-year-old Juneau man.

Juneau police spokesman Lt. David Campbell said a second woman tried to intervene and the man punched her in the face. The male suspect fled the scene before police officers arrived.

Family friend Emily Carrillo set up a Go Fund Me page for the stabbing victim and identified her as Rochelle Stevens. Carrillo described it as a “domestic situation.”

Anchorage’s Alaska Native Medical Center confirmed that Rochelle Stevens was in surgery Tuesday afternoon, but did not have her status.

Carillo said on the fundraiser page that Stevens was stabbed eight times. Campbell said the woman was stabbed at least five times in the back with a folding pocket knife — and at least once in the head.

“She was talking and conscious and able to provide us with some statements, even though she had — a knife sticking out of the side of her head.”

Campbell says he couldn’t guess on the length of the blade.

“I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my 22 years and I’ve never seen that before,” Campbell said.

Both women were transported to Bartlett Regional Hospital. Only Stevens was medevaced to Anchorage.

The man returned to the apartment complex about 5:25 a.m., and residents on Cinema Drive called police. He was taken into custody. Authorities haven’t named him; he has not been formally charged. The investigation is ongoing.

Campbell said he could not say whether the incident was domestic violence related. Drugs and alcohol appear to be contributing factors.

To honor the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers last weekend, a group of advocates gathered in Anchorage.

They said one way to reduce violence is to make information sharing safer, especially with law enforcement.

Dec. 17 marked the 15th anniversary of the capture of the Green River Killer, a serial murderer who targeted sex workers in Washington state.

“He confessed to killing dozens of sex workers,” said sex worker advocate Terra Burns, who helped coordinate the gathering. “He said he could kill as many of us as he wanted because nobody cares.”

Burns is with Community United for Safety and Protection, an organization that lobbies to change laws about the sex industry in Alaska.

An Alaska serial killer, Robert Hansen, also targeted sex workers and was convicted of killing 17 women in 1984. Burns said there have been 11 unsolved cases of murdered or missing sex workers in Alaska since the mid-1990s.

Sex worker and advocate Maxine Doogan said they are easy targets for crime and discrimination because their profession is criminalized. They don’t feel like they can report things like rape or assault to police because then they could be at risk for prosecution themselves, she said.

This mean information about unsolved cases may not be getting back to law enforcement.

Police may not hear about crimes that are happening now, which could lead to more violence in the future, Doogan said.

“Oftentimes those types of perpetrators are going to start out with rape, with robbery,” Doogan said. “And that’s why it’s important for people in the sex trade to have a path to come forward and make those reports before that perpetrator goes on and commits those more horrendous crimes.”

Part of that path was built in SB 91, the criminal justice reform bill that was signed in July.

One portion of the new law says people can’t be prosecuted for prostitution if they report being victims or witnesses of violent crimes, including sex trafficking, assault and robbery.

According to Anchorage Municipal Prosecutor Seneca Theno, it’s unclear how that provision of the state statute applies to the state’s largest city. In some cases, municipal codes can supersede state laws.

“I can’t tell you whether right now, today, it applies to us or not,” Theno said during a phone interview. “I’ve heard some legal arguments as to how it would. I’ve heard some legal arguments as to how it wouldn’t. So we’ve researched the issue. We continue to research the issue.”

Theno said ultimately it would have to be decided in court, but she doesn’t think it will come to that because the city is not focused on charging people with prostitution.

The number of prostitution cases in Anchorage has dropped from 152 in 2009 to just two this year.

Theno said that’s primarily because of a philosophical shift; law enforcement and prosecutors are looking for potential traffickers instead.

“We’re telling APD, focus on the trafficking,” Theno said. “Don’t spend your resources doing prostitution stings down on Spenard.”

Advocates Burns and Doogan said the best way to improve safety for sex workers is to decriminalize the sex industry altogether. It’s a view which is shared by Amnesty International and the British medical journal Lancet. Studies in Lancet show that the criminalization of the industry increases workers’ risk of HIV infection, violence and abuse.

Other international organizations disagree, saying decriminalizing the sex industry in places like Germany has led to more sex trafficking and increased victimization of women of color.

This fall, student wrestlers at Mt. Edgecumbe took part in a program called, ‘Coaching Boys into Men.’ The idea is to teach young players how to have healthy relationships even if, in the case of Mt. Edgecumbe, half of them will grow up to be women.

The entire student body of Mt. Edgecumbe, more 400 students from over 100 villages across Alaska, is packed into the school’s gym for a pep rally– a rally that’s about more than just the regional wrestling tourney.

The Mt. Edgecumbe wrestling team is being recognized for completing the ‘Coaching Boys into Men’ program, an effort to promote healthy relationships and reduce abuse and sexual assault.

Emory Johnson, a four-year senior from Bethel is one of the wrestlers.

That’s right, Johnson is a girl. Despite competing in a sport historically geared towards boys, Johnson isn’t shy about her strength.

“My mom never really wanted me to join because she doesn’t like the way the guys beat on the girls. I’m like, ‘Well, it can go both ways,’” Johnson joked.

Johnson is one of more than 20 girls on the team of over 40 wrestlers. Girls have wrestled here for over a decade thanks to their coach, Mike Kimber.

“I’m at teacher at Mt. Edgecumbe,” explained Kimber. “I teach Japanese, English, and a few other classes and I’m the wrestling coach. I’ve been the wrestling coach here for 17 years at Mt. Edgecumbe.”

Kimber himself is a graduate of Mt. Edgecumbe. When he was a wrestler, he said his coach worked with the athletes both on and off the mat. It’s that mission, to develop not just a good athlete but a good person, that inspired Kimber to join the ‘Coaching Boys into Men’ program.

“Whether you’re a girl or a boy, everybody needs this information,” urged Julia Smith, the prevention director for Sitkans Against Family Violence.

Smith introduced the program to teachers and coaches at Mt. Edgecumbe a year and a half ago.

“And a lot of them asked, ‘I don’t have all boys on my team, can I still use this?’ So, we called the national folks at Futures Without Violence and they said, ‘Yes, go ahead and use it,’” explained Smith.

The program spans an entire season, with one 15-minute lesson each week. The topics include communicating boundaries, digital disrespect, and the importance of consent. The lesson on consent was the only one Coach Kimber chose to teach separately.

“We kept the boys on the mat and the girls went to another room and did that [lesson],” Kimber said.

Mt. Edgecumbe’s wrestling team was the only one in Sitka to take part in the program this year, but Julia Smith said she’s trying to change that. It’s already caught on in other Southeast communities like Juneau.

 “The basketball team in Ketchikan has also used the program,” added Smith. “The basketball team in Kake has used the program, so we’re really trying to build momentum and get this going throughout our state and have all coaches use this as a tool for reiterating the things they’re already teaching.”

That’s the beauty of the program. The messenger is one that’s usually trusted and the message is one that’s critical for adulthood. Wrestler Emory Johnson gets that.

“Yeah, it’s called “[Coaching] Boys into Men,’ but the questions are still the same. It’s just, ‘What does respect mean to you?’ I mean, respect means respect to everybody,” Johnson said.

And that’s a lesson that every Mt. Edgecumbe wrestler now knows well.

Mt. Edgecumbe will host the Region V wrestling tournament this weekend, with matches on both Friday and Saturday.

In 2015, Western Alaska had the highest rate of sexual assault in the state per capita. By far. That’s according to a first-of-its-kind study from the Alaska Department of Public Safety that compiles reports of sexual assault from all state law enforcement agencies.

Three-hundred seventy people out of every 100,000 were survivors of sexual assault in Western Alaska last year. Megan Peters is the spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers, one of the agencies that responds to sexual assault cases.

“The average victim age is 15-years-old, and it would be a female. And for the suspect information, the most likely suspects are male 22-year-olds,” said Peters.

In the majority of cases, the victim knew their offender. They were often an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member, and in most cases, the offender physically overpowered the victim. The majority of assaults occurred in the home of either the victim or the assailant.

In over half the cases, either the victim or the suspect was Alaska Native or American Indian. The most commonly reported charge was sexual assault in the first degree, which includes, among many things, penetration without consent.

Though Western Alaska had the most sexual assaults per capita last year, the Anchorage area had the highest number overall. There were 659, compared to Western Alaska’s nearly 275 cases. The Anchorage data only included the number of cases reported. It did not report other information, such as weapons used, type of sexual assault reported, location, and information on the victim or offender.

Peters, with the State Troopers, says future reports will allow for better comparison.

“The report was done this year for the first time because a couple years ago the legislature mandated that we study this a little more and put out what the findings were. This is the first year that we’ve had sufficient information to put it out,” said Peters.

Also, Peters says the report only includes felony level cases that happened in the state, and it can’t be compared with national statistics – or even Alaska’s statistics – in the FBI’s Universal Crime Reporting system, because the numbers are calculated differently.

The over 1,300 felony-level sex offenses included in the study reflect only reported cases, not convictions. For more information on the study click here.

A southwest Alaska man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a female family member will serve three months and be required to register as a sex offender.

Kenneth Napoka, 36, of Tuluksak pleaded guilty Wednesday to reduced charges of two class A misdemeanors.

He will serve three months, and be on probation for three years with a 14-month suspended sentence. Napoka is required to register as a sex offender for 15 years.

Napoka was arrested in September in an incident in which he allegedly strangled the family member with his hands and attempted to sexually assault her while she was intoxicated. He  was originally charged with class C felony charges.

Robert Schiesser, the attorney representing the victim, called Napoka’s sentence fair, saying that it was a “C felony-type resolution in misdemeanor clothing.” By that Schiesser meant that the suspended sentence that Napoka received with a class A misdemeanor will turn out to be just four months shy of the sentence the defendant would have received had he been charged with a class C felony.

Schiesser said the resolution was appropriate to what the state could prove, since the victim could not provide much information from being inebriated at the time of the event.

There were several eyewitnesses, but they were “essentially trying to divert their eyes from what was happening,” Sheisser said.