Mold found on Austin rape kits

Officials say they have no indication that the mold will prevent analysts from obtaining DNA samples.

Hundreds of sexual assault kits in Austin police storage have been determined to have mold growing on the outside of them, prompting officials to seek guidance from state and national experts about how to properly preserve the evidence and raising questions about whether forensic samples may have been compromised.

So far, officials said they have no indication that the mold will prevent analysts from obtaining DNA samples and that, because the kits had never been tested, evidence from them has never been used to build a case against or convict a defendant.

An Austin company recently hired to help test the kits reported to Austin police last week that “there were no observable issues with any of the samples they processed with the case reported to have mold,” Assistant Police Chief Troy Gay wrote in a lengthy memo Friday. Lab staff successfully obtained a DNA profile from the first kit found to have mold, officials said.

The situation still raised alarms among some in the criminal justice community, which has been working to restore confidence in how the Police Department has handled forensic evidence after officials abruptly closed its DNA lab amid a state audit criticizing some of its procedures and staff training.

Part of the concern over the rape kits with mold focused on how Austin police consulted with experts about the problem and why police officials didn’t immediately notify other criminal justice leaders, including those in the Travis County district attorney’s office.

The mold issue also has prompted the department to spend thousands in new equipment to resolve it.

“We’ve been doing everything we need to do since we’ve been made aware,” interim Police Chief Brian Manley said Tuesday.

An audit found that of 1,629 rape kit samples stored in an Austin police refrigerator, about 850 showed some signs of mold on