Most sexual assaults involve people close to the victim, but some of the most harrowing stories involve strangers, breaking and entering, and a long road to justice. In 2010, Ashley Spence finally got to see the arrest of the stranger who attacked her. At the 2021 Human Identification Symposium (HIDS), Spence and the members of the criminal justice community who were involved in the investigation into her assault spoke about the involved, collaborative process that led to her attacker’s conviction.
In 2003, Spence was attacked in her sleep while she was a student at Arizona State University. Spence’s nurse, Jennifer Degner, recounted two pages of injuries when Spence presented herself for a Sexual Assault Nurse Exam (SANE). “It’s devastating when my survivors don’t feel like they were believed or listened to or supported,” Degner relates, “so the power of that first officer that was responding to the call [Torin Williams] is so great.” This trust paved the way for the rest of this investigation. Importantly for our story, the SANE also produced abundant DNA evidence, including saliva and other fluids.
While detectives such as Jeff Gentry, also on this panel, took over the investigation, the Arizona Department of Public Safety Crime Lab processed the DNA that Nurse Degner had collected from Spence. The recovered saliva proved to be enough to generate an autosomal DNA profile. Grant Belancik, the supervising forensic analyst of the crime lab, also used Y-STR testing to analyze Spence’s samples. This testing method focuses on Y-chromosome DNA and thus helps distinguish male DNA in mixed samples, such as fluids collected in SANEs.
There was no immediate match, but the existence of this profile enabled other law enforcement agencies and personnel to cooperate and extend the investigation a few years later. In 2007, a second case of assault by an unidentified attacker matched the DNA profile of Spence’s attacker, proving that they were still active in Tempe, Arizona. A patrol officer intercepted a third attack in 2010 in Spence’s new hometown in California, finally putting a name to the serial rapist (Kevin Lee Francois) and showing that, by accident or design, he had followed her across state lines. Without the combined efforts of Grant, Belancik, Degner, and the rest of the medical and police personnel involved in this investigation, he might never have been found. The combined DNA evidence connected him not only to Spence’s attack but to at least 10 others. Francois’s defense consisted primarily of attempting to cast doubt on the DNA evidence, which did not work when, as prosecutor Ryan Powell notes, the sample was “38 trillion times more likely” to be a mix of Francois’s and Spence’s DNA than anything else. Ultimately, thanks to the power of this DNA evidence and the continued commitment and unified efforts of law enforcement, the crime lab and the prosecution team, Francois was sentenced to nearly 138 years in prison.
DNA analysis technology has continued to improve since this trial. DNA testing is now faster and more discriminating than ever, enabling analyses that once took weeks to be completed in hours and generating usable profiles from mere skin cells when fluids are not available. On the impact of such rapid testing, Detective Gentry reports, “Holy moly, I can’t imagine the closure we could provide people.” Improved, faster DNA tests can both exonerate the innocent and put away the guilty. Gentry notes that, “I can keep somebody in an interview room for an hour” while a test is being processed, but having to re-arrest them if a test that takes days or weeks turns up a match is much more difficult. Belancik, likewise, appreciates seeing DNA matches come up in databases months or years after the fact and has the following message for people involved in court proceedings: “If there’s more that we can do, we’re happy to do it. Don’t ever feel like, as an investigator or as an attorney you’re causing us stress or annoyance by asking for more work, because we know you need it and we don’t always know upfront what you’re going to need. In a case like this, developing a full DNA profile is the best thing we can do.”
Ashley Spence is now an activist working to improve access to both DNA testing and SANE for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
To hear more about how Officer Torrin Williams, Detective Jeff Gentry, analyst Grant Belancik, prosecutor Ryan Powell, Nurse Jennifer Degner, and victim-turned-activist Ashley Spence helped put Kevin Lee Francois behind bars and away from potential victims—and what Spence is doing to help make sure other people like her experience similar justice—watch the panel discussion.
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