After 17 years, DNA tied a particular person to her rape. Below Massachusetts law, it used to be too leisurely

Seventeen years had passed by the time Boston police knocked on Louise’s door to claim they had known the actual person that allegedly raped and stabbed her in October 2005.

Reporting highlights

A nationwide outlier: Most states allow a minimal of some outdated rape cases to be prosecuted, but makes an try to elongate the statute of limitations in Massachusetts like failed yearly since 2011.

A transient window: Massachusetts law prevents prosecution of rape suspects after 15 years, even when investigators teach contemporary evidence, in conjunction with DNA, can also lead to a conviction.

A rare uncover: Police reports of rape cases are secret below an uncommon recount law. Nevertheless one Boston-location case affords a rare uncover into the affect of the brief statute of limitations.

The suspect used to be now a father of two, a capacity serial rapist and traipse previous the reach of the law, investigators suggested her. Police had taken so prolonged to title him that they disregarded the recount’s time restrict to prosecute her case.

In Massachusetts, the law says prosecutors like only 15 years to file charges after an alleged rape. Past that statute of limitations, it’s virtually very not vulnerable to lift charges. Silent, prosecutors thought they’ll also be in a location to switch this bid case forward on a technicality.

Louise used to agonize. She had spent years reliving the phobia of that night and combating drug use that spun out of alter after the assault. On occasion she failed out of rehab packages or stayed in homeless shelters. (WBUR does not title victims of sexual assault without their permission and agreed to title Louise only by her center title.)

By 2022, she used to be 42, sober, living in her have condominium and elevating two college-age sons. She will be able to also not fade motivate into her outdated systems.

Nevertheless, because the daughter of a Marine damaged-down, Louise believed she desired to fight: She felt her neighborhood would not be safe till her rapist used to be in detention center.

“You’ve bought to stand for something,” Louise talked about.

Past the 15-365 days time restrict in Massachusetts, no DNA match, eyewitness testimony and even confession can give a rape victim of project at facing an attacker in court.

This statute of limitations locations Massachusetts in the motivate of virtually every diverse recount in the country.

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A review of felony codes by WBUR and ProPublica came across that as many as 47 states allow more time to fee rapes or identical assaults of adults than Massachusetts. As an illustration, Vermont and Maryland are amongst a different of states which like no time restrict to file charges for rape. Other states love Montana and Texas extend their time closing dates when there’s DNA evidence.

In a lot of states, Louise’s case will possible be determined in court on the energy of its evidence. Nevertheless right here, evidence would not topic. The case would possibly perchance be virtually very not vulnerable to secure.

Misplaced probabilities

Legislation enforcement and rape crisis workers across Massachusetts talked about in interviews that they mechanically hit upon cases the set up no charges like been filed forward of the recount’s strict time restrict. How in total rape suspects steer clear of prosecution this signifies that is unclear.

Massachusetts is uncommon in that recount victim privacy regulations bar police from releasing incident reports of rape to the final public. Except a suspect is charged in court, it’s in total subtle to search out any decent data a few rape. And even when somebody is charged, police can restful abet files about what they did — or did not attain — to title and capture a suspected rapist.

This makes it all but very not in point of fact for somebody delivery air law enforcement to examine rapes that are previous the time restrict to prosecute.

In reveal to take hold of the extent of cases lost to the statute of limitations, WBUR and ProPublica spoke to researchers, prosecutors and lawmakers.

Rape crisis center leaders say survivors of sexual assaults that came about many years up to now continuously interrogate whether the felony exact device would possibly perchance assist them. The Suffolk County district attorney’s put of labor, one in all essentially the most populous jurisdictions in the recount, relies in Boston and prosecuted Louise’s case. A longtime intercourse crimes prosecutor there talked about his put of labor experiences plenty of cases per annum that it’s miles going to not pursue on story of of the statute of limitations.

“These are extreme charges. Ladies folk are being raped.”

Bristol County District Legal educated Thomas Quinn

About two years up to now, the Bristol County district attorney’s put of labor known 21 rapes that it’s miles going to also like prosecuted like been it not for the statute of limitations. They got right here to mild when the agency vulnerable a federal grant to review DNA evidence in rape cases that had not been fully tested when it used to be first aloof.

Bristol County District Legal educated Thomas Quinn is one in all the recount’s few prosecutors who has spoken in want of permitting charges after the time restrict in cases with DNA evidence.

“That is to rectify a contaminated, if you will, or a direction of that didn’t work,” Quinn suggested WBUR. “These are extreme charges. Ladies folk are being raped.”

Exiguous print of Louise’s case only was public on story of Suffolk County prosecutors took the uncommon step of submitting charges even in the event that they had disregarded the recount’s charging time restrict. This ended in the release of some data relating to the rape that would possibly perchance otherwise like been shielded by the recount’s privacy regulations.

These data impress that years forward of the time restrict passed in Louise’s alleged rape, police had already gathered many of the clues they would later use to title a suspect, but did not solve the case.

Louise: His title is Ivan

When she used to be 25, Louise’s existence used to be beginning to give scheme. She worked as a waitress and switchboard operator, and he or she used to be experimenting with pills.

In the overnight hours of Oct. 22, 2005, a particular person she had been mates with demanded fee for pills he had given her, in step with a court document, then coerced her into having intercourse with a stranger at a hotel to repay the debt.

Must you or somebody has experienced sexual violence, you would possibly perchance contact the Nationwide Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 or discuss over with RAINN’s websites.

After 2 a.m., the buddy dropped her off in downtown Boston.

It used to be raining onerous, the trains had stopped running and he or she wanted a scamper to a buddy’s house. That’s when she thought she saw a friendly face.

The man who drove as much as her in a Lexus SUV launched himself as Ivan and talked about he knew her from UMass Boston, the set up she had taken classes, she recalled. He talked about he used to be on a look ruin, and he regarded the piece. He had a younger face and wore a baseball cap with a college title on it.

She talked about the actual person supplied to pay for intercourse and he or she refused, court data impress. He drove her to a secluded location in Everett, and raped and stabbed her, she suggested police. When Louise escaped his automobile, he chased her down with a knife and he or she fell.

“He saved stabbing me,” she talked about in an interview. “I be conscious my head jerking motivate for the reason that knife used to be in my head.”

The man fled to his automobile after the war. Louise sought assist at a nearby house.

At the clinical institution, it took bigger than 100 stitches to shut the stab wounds that covered her body. Doctors suggested her the knife barely disregarded her valuable organs.

Louise let a specialist swab her body for the actual person’s DNA. Whereas she talked about she did not express on the time that she had been coerced into intercourse work earlier that night, she suggested investigators every thing else she knew: Police data talked about she gave the title her attacker vulnerable, his bustle, which she talked about used to be both white or Asian, and a description of his automobile. At the time, she suggested police that he talked about he had attended UMass Boston and used to be now at Tufts. She hoped this files would lead to an arrest.

Had police checked with UMass Boston, they would favor chanced on that 18 men named Ivan attended the college in the years surrounding the assault, in step with student data reviewed by WBUR. The man who police in the slay linked to DNA evidence in Louise’s case used to be amongst them.

Everett police interviewed Louise plenty of times and reviewed surveillance camera footage, she talked about, however the calls and visits from police waned over the coming months.

Louise stopped calling the police to test on her case because the years glided by. She talked about she had moved on from the use of painkillers to counting on heroin, cocaine and diverse pills to impress it thru the day. She feared that her rapist would return to homicide her, and the pills like been her scheme of facing extreme despair and submit-annoying stress disorder, she talked about.

In 2008, Boston police bought contemporary evidence suggesting that whoever attacked Louise can also be a serial rapist, a detective later talked about in court data. The division’s crime lab came across that DNA from her case matched an unsolved 2006 assault. That victim used to be picked up in Boston’s North Cease, then stabbed and raped in suburban Wellesley.

It’s unclear how police replied to this contemporary files. With the assist of WBUR and ProPublica, Louise vulnerable an exception for survivors in the recount’s privacy law to present her Everett police document. Nevertheless the 2-web page document crucial aspects nothing of the investigation previous the first 24 hours after the assault.

Everett police declined to commentary on the case. The Middlesex County district attorney’s put of labor, which had jurisdiction on the time of the assault, did not commentary. The Suffolk County district attorney’s put of labor, which took over the case after Boston detectives in its jurisdiction known a suspect, talked about it did not like crucial aspects about how prior agencies handled the case. Boston police did not present a response to plenty of requests for an interview.

Louise talked about she does not recall whether police or prosecutors suggested her that DNA tests confirmed her unknown assailant can also like attacked one other lady.

Years later, when police sooner or later known a suspect, it’d be too leisurely to abet somebody to blame. The time restrict to fee a suspect with tried homicide in Louise’s case had passed after 10 years and the time restrict for rape had passed at 15 years.

Extending the statute of limitations

Currently, the one states which like shorter time closing dates than Massachusetts and don’t affect exceptions for DNA evidence are North Dakota and New Hampshire, a WBUR and ProPublica review of recount regulations came across. The most restrictive is New Hampshire’s six-365 days time restrict.

A protracted time of review into how rape is reported and investigated has driven lawmakers delivery air of Massachusetts to extend their statutes of limitations.

At some level of the 2000s, plenty of states passed exceptions for cases with DNA because it was firm that this roughly forensic evidence can also assist solve even very outdated cases.

Other states adopted as police departments began to express in the 2010s that they systemically did not test DNA evidence in rape cases. In the intervening time, a rising body of review came across that police continuously performed inadequate rape investigations, deciding reports like been untrue forward of interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence or testing DNA. Across the country, most reports of rape attain not lead to prosecution, review reveals.

“They teach the victim,” talked about Michigan Speak University professor Rebecca Campbell, who has authored plenty of review on how police behavior rape investigations. “That’s what I expose in my review, and it’s been replicated by diverse review teams and diverse jurisdictions at some stage in the united states.”

The frequent problems ended in nationwide reforms. In 2015, the U.S. Division of Justice launched its Nationwide Sexual Assault Equipment Initiative to commit hundreds of tens of millions of bucks to testing beforehand disregarded DNA. This effort produced enough evidence to sooner or later lift charges in these form of cases, and lawmakers in diverse states revised their time closing dates so prosecutions can also switch forward.

The switch to extend the time restrict has been a bipartisan set up of dwelling off in many states. Truthful last 365 days in Oklahoma, frail recount Sen. Jessica Garvin, a Republican, led a profitable effort to secure rid of the recount’s statute of limitations in cases the set up there would possibly be a confession or DNA evidence. The invoice passed unanimously.

“We like been in a location to attain that last session with in point of fact runt or no, if any, pushback,” Garvin talked about. “It’s not a Republican inform. It’s not a Democratic inform.”

In Massachusetts, regulations that would possibly perchance extend the time restrict has been launched at some level of every session since a minimal of 2011. Nevertheless whenever, it has did not build steam.

Defense attorneys like adversarial any modifications, announcing that making the time restrict longer risks violating the rights of the accused.

Witnesses, surveillance footage and diverse evidence that would possibly perchance also determined a suspect becomes more subtle to search out as time passes, talked about Shira Diner, a board member of the Massachusetts Affiliation of Prison Defense Lawyers.

“The additional and additional you secure far flung from the alleged commission of the crime, the more difficult it’s for somebody to ever mount a protection,” she talked about.

The last time recount lawmakers changed the statute used to be in 1996 after victims got right here forward to claim they had delayed reporting their rapes on story of of neighborhood backlash or unfortunate treatment by police.

Legislators lengthened the recount’s time restrict to prosecute rapes of adults from 10 to fifteen years.

Connecting the dots

In leisurely 2021, the Division of Justice initiative awarded Boston $2.5 million to reexamine as much as 100 of the metropolis’s most extreme unsolved rapes. The funds paid a minute neighborhood of investigators to comb thru outdated case recordsdata to leer clues.

The contemporary group revisited Louise’s rape within months. This time they obvious that her case and the North Cease rape like been identical to earlier assaults, court data impress.

Most like been unsolved, but a particular person named Ivan Cheung used to be arrested in a single in all them. Boston University police took him into custody in 2003 after they came across him in possession of a knife and the property of a girl who used to be allegedly raped at knifepoint. The Boston Police Division, which took over the case, talked about in court data that they suspected the victim used to be retaining up her ties to the intercourse work commerce. Prosecutors dropped the costs plenty of weeks later.

When the contemporary group of investigators revisited this case in 2022, they seen that Cheung resembled the assailant Louise described in her assault: a particular person named Ivan who had attended UMass Boston. At the time of the rape, he owned a Lexus SUV.

This focal level on Cheung ended in a breakthrough. That June, undercover officers tailed him to a mall automobile parking location in Dorchester, the set up they watched him smoke and toss away a cigarette.

DNA from that cigarette matched two assaults: Louise’s rape and the North Cease assault.

By September, police had arrested Cheung for Louise’s assault, the North Cease rape and two diverse delivery cases appealing teenage girls. He used to be living in the Boston location and working as a financial products and companies govt.

The arrest used to be capacity on story of investigators bought the time and sources to take a recent uncover at outdated cases, talked about Suffolk County Assistant District Legal educated Ian Polumbaum, who prosecuted the case.

A detective confirmed Cheung a photograph of Louise and requested if he had raped her and others. Cheung suggested police that he did not stare the girls folk and that there used to be no scheme his DNA can also like been came across on any of them, court data impress.

“I’m telling you no f—ing scheme. I don’t even know her title. I don’t even know her face,” he talked about at some level of the recorded interview with police. Cheung and his attorney declined an interview with WBUR.

The sole scheme Suffolk County prosecutors can also switch forward with Louise’s case and the North Cease assault used to be on a technicality: A recount law suspends the time restrict if a suspect lives out of recount. Prosecutors talked about Cheung traveled continuously, but they couldn’t impress he had relocated. In October 2023, charges against Cheung for the assaults on Louise and the North Cease victim like been dropped.

Along with her case over, Louise talked about she pinned her hopes on the 2 closing cases linked to the suspect. Police talked about in court data the alleged victims like been 13 and 14 and being trafficked for intercourse on the time of their assaults. Attributable to they like been so younger, the recount’s statute of limitations did not block their cases from intriguing forward, and there used to be of project a teach would allow Louise to testify in the event that they went to trial.

Nevertheless these two cases had diverse problems: They’d no DNA evidence, and prosecutors acknowledged that the evidence tying these cases to Cheung used to be not as sturdy. In a single in all the cases, Boston police had not interviewed the alleged victim till virtually two a protracted time after her assault, and he or she used to be unwilling to testify, court filings impress. In the assorted, a teach eminent in a ruling that police conducted no forensic clinical examination of the victim and regarded as if it would possibly perchance affect no try at discovering a crime scene.

“The police response used to be severely unfortunate,” Suffolk Superior Court Make a resolution Christopher Belezos wrote in the December 2024 ruling.

The district attorney suggested the teach they wanted Louise’s testimony to impress the rapes like been so identical that Cheung used to be the one capacity assailant. Nevertheless Belezos barred Louise from testifying, announcing her case used to be too diverse: The assaults had came about in diverse areas and their descriptions of their assailants’ bustle and cars did not match.

Prosecutors dropped Cheung’s closing charges in January.

“ It used to be stressful, but at that level, legally we had no different,” talked about Polumbaum. In court data, Cheung furthermore denied any involvement in these alleged assaults.

Now that the court war is over, Louise is combating to preserve her peace of thoughts. She crowds her spare hours with therapy and toughen teams, and he or she fills her condominium partitions with symbols of renewal, alternate and religion. A pink foil decal with the notice “Imagine” hangs amongst prints of butterflies, dragonflies and birds.

When WBUR interviewed Louise, it used to be the first time she had talked about her rape publicly. She talked about these interviews, and the failure to convict Cheung, helped her realize she desired to attain more.

In June she testified forward of the recount Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary to speed them to cross Apartment Invoice 1987, which is pending. It would possibly well perchance allow prosecutors to fee suspects after the time restrict in some rape cases with DNA evidence.

“ It in point of fact needs to be changed for the protection of all, for the final public at dapper,” she testified. “That’s why I’m talking.”

WBUR’s Patrick Madden contributed reporting, and WBUR’s Jesús Marrero Suárez contributed review.