Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear announced the project Thursday during a news conference in the Kentucky Capitol. He was joined by Bradley Campbell, an assistant professor at UofL's Department of Criminal Justice.
A 2015 audit revealed Kentucky had more than 3,000 untested rape kits, collections of physical evidence from victims after a sexual assault. Police
check that evidence against a national database of DNA profiles to look for suspects.
In 2016, the state legislature approved spending $4.5 million to alleviate the backlog. The money came from a lawsuit settlement against Johnson & Johnson that the attorney general's office negotiated.
