I want to begin by telling you a story about the Gregory family from Westchester County, New York.

In August of 1979, Diane Gregory, a 22-year old woman, was brutally stabbed to death in her apartment in Mount Vernon, New York.  Bloodstains found at the scene of the crime were preserved as evidence.

The police had some good leads.  They had a fair amount of forensic evidence.  But they could not put their suspect at the scene of the crime, and the case went unsolved for over 20 years.

Fast forward to December, 1999.  Governor Pataki signs a new law in New York expanding my state’s DNA database.  Now, all convicted criminals must submit DNA for testing.  Including robbers.

So in January, a career criminal serving time for robbery named Walter Gill is asked to provide a blood sample to New York prison officials.  The sample is loaded onto the state database.

The Gregory family, hearing of new advances in DNA technology, contacts the Westchester County District Attorney’s office and requests that they reopen the case.

A bloodstain from the crime scene is tested for DNA.

This sample taken from the Gregory murder scene is run through the state database.  It matches the recently-provided sample from the robber Walter Gill.

With the DNA match, Mr. Gill was indicted for the 20-year old murder.

Prosecutors reported that when Mr. Gill was asked to provide a blood sample in January, he knew at that moment that he was in trouble.

In fact, he was only half right.  Because taking his blood, testing it for DNA and uploading it onto computers, still did not solve the case.

It wasn’t until the crime scene evidence was tested that the Gregories got some relief.

This story highlights the two sides to the DNA backlog issue, Mr. Chairman.

The Justice Department reported last year that there are 180,000 rape kits sitting in police evidence lockers throughout the country.  The New York City Police Department has 16,000 rape kits - kits just like this one here - in its possession.

The NYPD’s Evidence Lab in Queens is a vast chamber of unsolved crimes.  I visited there recently and it is chilling to see the boxes, on ice, stacked high on the shelves.

Those kits represent 180,000 women nationwide whose cases haven’t been solved, up to 180,000 rapists who are still at large, and 180,000 injustices.

This Congress, this Administration, and state and local law enforcement have done a fairly good job addressing one side of the equation: convicted offenders’ samples are being uploaded onto state and national databases as quickly as possible.

In fact, in New York state they anticipate their convicted offender backlog will be largely eliminated by the end of this year.  Florida has had similar success.

But the other side of the equation has been largely ignored.  We need to get rid of the crime scene evidence backlog.  My bill, the DNA Backlog Elimination Act, and Mr. Gilman’s bill, seek to help families like the Gregories.

We must devote more funds to the testing of crime scene evidence, so more victims can receive justice.  My bill authorizes $60 million over two years for DNA analysis of convicted offender samples and crime scene evidence.

Mr. Chairman, testing a rape kit like this one for DNA costs between $2000 and $4000.

This Subcommittee could authorize funds today that would bring relief to victims tomorrow.  Testing crime scene evidence can link more killers like Walter Gill to crime scenes across the country.  It would put more criminals away, and would bring relief to countless victims.

It is money, and money alone, that is preventing more victims from taking advantage of DNA to solve their crimes.

The extraordinary power of DNA to solve past crimes is indisputable.  The same can be said for its power to free those wrongly accused.

We have done an admirable job working towards elimination of the convicted offender backlog.  Now we need to do a better job analyzing crime scene evidence so we can link the felons to the crimes that we know they committed.

I thank you again for holding this hearing, I thank my fellow panelists for their work on this issue, and I look forward to the remainder of the testimony.