Fewer than half of the sexual assault kits held in the custody of the Prichard Police Department have ever been processed, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office disclosed, a revelation that raises the possibility that dozens of criminal cases went nowhere because the evidence that could have advanced them was never tested.
Of 247 collected sexual assault kits, only 99 have been processed and reviewed by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. The remaining 148 are now being expedited. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken custody of those kits and is working to process them. What a Sexual Assault Kit Actually Is For readers unfamiliar with the terminology, a sexual assault kit, sometimes called a rape kit, is the physical evidence collected from a victim during a forensic medical examination conducted after an assault. The exam is invasive, often lengthy and emotionally difficult, and it is undertaken specifically so that biological evidence can be preserved for investigators.
When those kits are tested, the DNA profiles they yield can be entered into national databases, potentially identifying an unknown assailant or connecting a series of assaults to a single perpetrator. When they sit untested on a shelf, none of that happens. The victim endured the examination, and the evidence produced no investigative value whatsoever.
That is why untested kit backlogs have become a national issue over the past two decades, and why jurisdictions across the country have moved to audit and clear them. The Sheriff’s Response Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch framed the disclosure as a step toward correcting a failure rather than an attempt to minimize it.
“This is about accountability and ensuring every victim’s case receives the attention it deserves,” Burch said. “By identifying every kit, securing the evidence, and partnering with the FBI to complete the testing, we are taking an important step toward seeking justice for victims and strengthening the integrity of these investigations.”
In a statement, the Sheriff’s Office said that as forensic testing is completed and results return, investigators will evaluate each case individually and determine the appropriate investigative and prosecutorial steps based on the evidence and applicable law.
“The Sheriff’s Office is committed to ensuring these cases receive the thorough attention they deserve and that every effort is made to pursue justice for victims,” the statement said. An Enormous Evidence Inventory The kits are only a fraction of what has surfaced. According to the Sheriff’s Office, 5,878 pieces of evidence have been gathered so far in the review of the Prichard Police Department. That inventory includes the sexual assault kits and roughly 1,494 firearms.
247 sexual assault kits identified in departmental custody 99 previously processed by state forensic scientists 148 now in FBI custody and being expedited 1,494 firearms catalogued during the evidence review 5,878 total pieces of evidence accounted for
The Corruption Investigation Behind It The audit emerged from a corruption investigation into the Prichard Police Department, spearheaded by the FBI’s Mobile Field Office in partnership with local law enforcement agencies.
Two Prichard officers have been arrested so far. Officer Emanuel Naman Dotch was taken into custody in June. Officer Jihad Hasan Irby was arrested in connection with crimes Dotch is accused of committing, which include bribery, evidence tampering and civil rights violations.
The evidence-tampering allegation is significant in this context. When the integrity of a department’s evidence room is called into question, every case that depended on evidence stored there becomes vulnerable to challenge, and every untested item becomes a potential liability.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office has assumed control of day-to-day operations at the Prichard Police Department while the investigation proceeds. What Happens to the Cases Testing a backlogged kit does not automatically produce a prosecution. Some cases will have passed the statute of limitations. Some victims may be unreachable or may decline to participate in a renewed investigation. In other cases, the identity of the assailant was never in dispute and the kit’s results add little.
But in a meaningful number of cases nationally, backlog testing has identified serial offenders whose crimes escalated while their earlier kits sat in storage. That is the outcome investigators will be watching for as results begin returning from the FBI.
For the residents of Prichard, the number that matters most is the simplest one. For years, 148 people submitted to a forensic examination believing it would help. It did not, until now. The National Backdrop of Untested Kits Untested sexual assault kits have drawn sustained national attention for more than a decade, as jurisdictions across the United States discovered large backlogs sitting in evidence rooms. The underlying problem is well documented: a kit may be collected during a forensic exam, logged into evidence, and then never submitted for laboratory analysis, meaning the DNA it contains is never compared against known-offender databases. When testing finally occurs, years or even decades later, it can surface matches to offenders whose crimes continued in the interim.
In Alabama, forensic analysis of such evidence is performed by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, the state agency responsible for crime laboratories serving law enforcement agencies. When local capacity is constrained, cases may be delayed, and that is part of why the FBI’s assumption of custody here is significant: it routes the work through federal laboratory resources rather than leaving it in a state queue.
The DNA profiles produced by testing are entered into the national databases that allow investigators to link crimes across jurisdictions. A match can identify an unknown suspect or tie together a series of assaults that previously appeared unrelated. None of that is possible while a kit remains untested on a shelf. What the Transfer Means for Prichard and Mobile County The Prichard Police Department serves the city of Prichard, a municipality in the northern part of Mobile County. The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, under Sheriff Paul Burch, has taken over the department’s day-to-day operations while the federal corruption investigation continues. That arrangement places county law enforcement directly in charge of a municipal agency under federal scrutiny.
For survivors, the announcement that the kits are now moving through the FBI is a step, however delayed, toward resolution. Victim-advocacy organizations across the Gulf Coast have long emphasized that testing is not merely a procedural formality but the foundation of any path to accountability. The 148 kits now in federal custody represent 148 forensic examinations that produced no investigative value until this point.
As results return, investigators will evaluate each case on its own facts, mindful that some matters may be beyond the reach of prosecution because of time or circumstance. The work ahead is painstaking, and the community will be watching whether the testing yields the identifications that backlogged-kit reviews have produced elsewhere.
Prichard, a city in north Mobile County, has had a police department that has faced scrutiny in recent years over its handling of sexual assault investigations. The city has worked with state and federal authorities to address those concerns.
Sexual assault kits, often referred to as rape kits, are forensic evidence collections that are taken from victims after an alleged sexual assault. The kits are submitted to crime laboratories for analysis, and they can produce DNA profiles that can be entered into state and national databases.
The FBI’s involvement in the collection of untested kits from a local department typically reflects a federal-state-local partnership intended to clear a backlog of unsubmitted evidence. Such partnerships have been used across the country to address long-standing backlogs of untested kits.
Local governments and community partners are working through the implications of the situation, and several follow-up meetings have been scheduled for the coming weeks. Members of the public who want to weigh in on the matter can find the meeting dates on city and county websites, and written comments can be submitted through the standard channels used by the relevant agencies. Local news outlets will continue to cover the story as it develops.
Across south Alabama, similar issues are being addressed in other communities, and the lessons learned here are likely to inform how those communities approach their own challenges. Local officials have indicated they are in regular contact with counterparts in neighboring cities and counties, and they expect to share best practices as the situation continues to evolve.
The agencies involved in the matter have committed to keeping the public informed as the work progresses, and residents who want to receive updates directly can sign up for email or text alerts through the relevant city or county websites. Local community organizations have also agreed to share information as it becomes available, and several have scheduled public forums in the coming weeks to give residents a chance to ask questions of the officials involved.
For background, readers can consult the official websites of the relevant agencies, the local newspapers that have covered the story, and the public-meeting archives that document the prior deliberations on related topics. The combination of those resources should give residents a thorough understanding of how the current situation developed and how the agencies and elected officials are approaching the decisions that remain.