This week, Yvonne “Missy” Woods, a former forensic scientist with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was indicted on 102 counts relating to data mismanagement — ranging from perjury to forgery and attempting to influence government officials.

For nearly three decades, Woods handled critical evidence in thousands of cases. Instead, she cut corners, deviated from protocol, manipulated evidence, and — perhaps most damning — admitted to deleting small DNA samples in sexual assault cases simply because it was easy.”

Of the 58 criminal cases named in the affidavit where Woods tampered with data, the headlines will focus on the six homicides now primed for appeals or overturned convictions. Thousands of other cases remain in limbo, awaiting reevaluation. But one fact stands out: 38 of those 58 cases involve sexual assault.

For survivors, the betrayal is immense. Trust in the criminal justice system is already incredibly fragile. Reporting an assault requires unimaginable courage, with survivors enduring shame and fear in the hope that the system will hold perpetrators accountable. A key part of this process is the Sexual Assault Nurse Examination to collect physical evidence for a Sexual Assault Evidence kit (colloquially called a “rape kit”). This invasive, traumatic procedure represents hope for validation and justice for many survivors.

Yet that hope is repeatedly dashed.

Nationwide, an enormous backlog of untested rape kits sits in police storage, collecting dust. Colorado, once a national leader in addressing this issue, now takes an average of 517 days to process — more than five times the state’s 90-day goal as a result of Woods’ actions. This already appalling delay is poised to worsen due to Woods’ mishandling of evidence and the thousands of cases that now require retesting.

What’s happening in Colorado isn’t an isolated failure. It’s hard to say how many rape kits remain untested nationwide, but estimates are in the hundreds of thousands. That’s hundreds of thousands of women, men, and nonbinary survivors of sexual violence who reached out for help and have heard crickets.

DNA evidence is often the foundation of prosecuting sexual assault cases. Yet deliberate mishandling — like deleting critical data — and a system that can take years to provide actionable evidence betrays survivors’ trust in a criminal-legal system that so often denies and ignores sexual assault. This isn’t a bureaucratic delay; it’s a denial of dignity and accountability.Across the criminal-legal system, survivors are required to label their experience as assault and disclose deeply personal details regarding their trauma with strangers — on someone else’s timeline — in order to receive support. Rape kits need to be collected quickly — before survivors have changed their clothes or showered — for the kit to yield high-quality evidence. To receive Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) compensation for things like medical bills and therapy, survivors have only days or weeks to report their assault to police, depending on the state. And police and the public often scrutinize survivors who report months or years later, once the survivor has had time to process what happened to them.

This system takes away survivors’ choice of how or when or who to disclose their assault to at every stage further victimizing them. When this is how things work, and when even survivors who do everything right still might wait months or years to hear back on a component as important as a rape kit, it’s no wonder that survivors lose faith in the criminal-legal system. This makes them less likely to report their assaults, seek services, or trust institutional protections. We must find a way to help balance the emotional and financial toll of trauma — and clearly, bureaucratic processes will not save us.

Survivors deserve a system that hears them when they ask for help, that values their lives and their safety, and that fights to secure their justice, whatever that may look like to the survivor. It’s time to act — not just to process evidence faster, but to restore the trust that survivors place in the promise of justice.

Ciera Blehm is a Colorado resident and the CEO of Survivor Fund Hub, a Colorado based nonprofit providing flexible financial assistance to college students impacted by sexual violence. She is also a Public Voices Fellow of The Op-Ed Project. You can follow Ciera on LinkedIn. Kaitlyn M. Sims, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Denver whose research focuses on domestic violence, housing, health, and incarceration. You can follow Kait on Bluesky.