Citation

Wentzlof CA, Kerka JE, Albert JH, Sprague JE, Maddox LO. J. Forensic Sci. 2019; 64(2): 528-533.

Affiliation

Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Richfield, OH, 44286.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1556-4029.13920

PMID

30290398

Abstract

To combat the influx of sexual assault kits (SAKs) that need to be tested, an exploration of data from Ohio's SAK Testing Initiative was carried out to identify variables that impact whether a SAK contains a probative DNA profile that is eligible for the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database. A validation study was completed to confirm the existence of variable relationships from the initial examination of data; new and modified statistical models were introduced to improve the predictive accuracy to determine if a SAK will contain at least one CODIS eligible DNA profile. Descriptive statistics from the validation data set confirmed conclusions about the effects of days between the assault and kit collection, the age of the victim, and consensual sex around the time of the kit collection for obtaining CODIS eligibility of DNA. The decision tree was selected as the best model.

© 2018 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Language: en

Keywords

combined DNA index system; decision tree; forensic science; logistic regression; sexual assault kit processing; statistical modeling; validation study