Just Analyzing At-Home Kits

Introduction [00:00:05] Now this is recording, RTI International Center for Forensic Science presents Just Science.

Voiceover [00:00:19] Welcome to Just Science, a podcast for justice professionals and anyone interested in learning more about forensic science, innovative technology, current research, and actionable strategies to improve the criminal justice system. In episode six of our Perspectives on At-Home Sexual Assault Kits season, Just Science sat down with Jay Henry, the former Crime Laboratory Director of the Utah Department of Public Safety. Mr. Henry, an experienced forensic scientist and former crime lab director, understands the complexities that surround the collection and testing of evidence, especially biological samples. Listen along as he discusses the critical role forensic laboratories have in the sexual assault kit testing process, as well as his perspective on the considerations for testing at-home sexual assault kits in this episode of Just Science. This season is funded by the National Institute of Justice's Forensic Technology Center of Excellence. Some content in this podcast may be considered sensitive and may evoke emotional responses or may not be appropriate for younger audiences. Here's your host, Tyler Raible.

Tyler Raible [00:01:17] Hello, and welcome to Just Science. I'm your host Tyler Raible with the Forensic Technology Center of Excellence, a program of the National Institute of Justice. Today, we're continuing the conversation around the at-home sexual assault kits and to help guide us in this conversation, I'm joined by Jay Henry, former Crime Lab Director of the Utah Department of Public Safety. Jay, welcome to the podcast. It's great to see you.

Jay Henry [00:01:35] Thanks, Tyler. Good to be here.

Tyler Raible [00:01:37] First and foremost, I want to say congratulations on your recent retirement, and I know prior to retiring you were a crime laboratory director with extensive and respected service in the field of forensics. So could you tell us a little bit more about your career in the crime lab?

Jay Henry [00:01:50] I began my career with the Sacramento County Crime Lab in 1989, and in fact, one of my first casework assignments was processing sexual assault kits. I then transferred to Utah in '90, worked in the drug section for a while, then I was back in serology testing sexual assault kits and other biological evidence. And in that November, I got the chance to learn DNA typing - the new technology at the time - at the FBI Academy in Quantico. From there, I worked in serology DNA cases for about seven years and promoted to quality assurance in 1997, became deputy director in 2001, and finally laboratory director in 2007. I'm the past president of the Northwest Association of Forensic Scientists and the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, and I retired in January of 2021.

Tyler Raible [00:02:38] After your extensive service, have you found that you're still engaged with the criminal justice system at some level?

Jay Henry [00:02:44] Absolutely. My time of working the bench full-time is over. However, I still enjoy advocating for crime laboratory and forensic science. I still dabble in consulting with investigators and attorneys and try to assist with the occasional cold case. You know, there's still a lot of work to be done out there, and I also enjoy teaching.

Tyler Raible [00:03:03] Jay, I want to dive into the topic of today's conversation because I want to make sure that we can really, really unpack it. So this season has been dedicated to these at-home sexual assault evidence collection kits that are publicly available and not associated with a hospital or a medical facility. We've been referring to them as at-home kits. Jay, could you give us a little background - what is an at-home kit?

Jay Henry [00:03:22] So actually, the topic is pretty new, so I'm still not quite sure how something like this, an at-home kit, would work. What standards, for instance, will the kit manufacturer follow to make sure the correct items for the jurisdiction are included while at the same time minimizing product contamination? The forensic community has spent a considerable amount of time just trying to figure all this out over the years, and like, what is needed in each kit, the quality of the supplies, and the quantity needed. I think at some point there may even be a national standard for the composition of the sexual assault kit or at least minimum requirements, but I don't think we have anything yet. You know, back to the original question, I guess these at-home kits would be purchased by the victim. I guess they would hope for a timely delivery, and then try to collect the sample themselves or have somebody help them. Then, after the collection, they'd have to sort of securely store that kit at their home. For someone that hasn't been trained, a sexual assault kit is a, is a complicated product, and it varies by each jurisdiction. So by each city, county, state, they can each have their own separate sexual assault kit. So they all have different distinctions based on jurisdictional legal precedents and things like that. Each kit is really a box and may include cotton swabs - designated vaginal, cervical, oral, rectal, anal, or body - along with manila envelopes or cardboard swab drying boxes and evidence stickers, all labeled with requirements to collect specific information like location, date, initials, anything unusual about the sample - all of this designed to best document the forensic unknown. Where they're at today because they've been designed and evolved in a way over the years to answer questions about criminal investigations and ultimately to present those findings in court, the kit also contains swabs for the collection of reference or known samples from the victim. In the past, it was a blood tube, and in a cold case, you still may come across a blood tube. Another important swab is the consent partner swab from the husband or significant other. When DNA testing is done, there can be multiple profiles developed with them. Some of them are potentially overlapping. So the purpose of the reference samples, these victim samples and consent partner samples, is to be able to know which DNA profile came from the victim or a consent partner and which from suspect. The focus on this has been for DNA, the collection of DNA. But, you know, it's more than that. You know, when they're designed, there also includes packaging for trace evidence collection. This could be suspect hairs, pubic, head hair, clothing, carpet fibers, and packets for miscellaneous collected debris like soil, plants, cosmetics, lubricants. All of these can be used as good associative evidence, meaning trying to associate the suspect with the victim or the victim to the suspect or the crime scene. One of the concerns of forensic scientists, like myself, is the tendency to want to jump to right to DNA testing and ignore all other potentially probative evidence. Trace and fingerprint evidence, it can be just as valuable, so the goal of any kit should be to solve the case and not just collect and test DNA.

Tyler Raible [00:06:26] Jay, you mentioned that they used to use the blood vial in lieu of the swabs. I was curious, could you tell us a little bit about how the sexual assault kits have kind of evolved over the course of your career?

Jay Henry [00:06:37] In the beginning, we had less swabs and because DNA just wasn't as powerful as it has been, and we never really had any swabs for bodies, but we had tubes for ABO blood typing and gray top tubes for the toxicology samples. And a lot of

those tubes have changed where they're located so that the EDTA tube or the ABO blood typing or the DNA typing blood tube is just kind of disappeared. It's no longer included a part of that because DNA technology has evolved to the point where you can get a great profile from the swab itself. And so we've changed some of our approaches to it and made an emphasis on DNA, but also continue to make room for any sort of trace evidence collection because you don't, again, the goal of the kit is to solve the case, not necessarily to just test DNA.

Tyler Raible [00:07:30] What would you consider to be the major difference between an at-home sexual assault evidence collection kit and one that a person would receive at a hospital?

Jay Henry [00:07:38] Sure. In short, really experience, training, and professional processes. You know, many jurisdictions are similar to my state, but the main difference is that a trained medical professional has access and consulting with their local crime lab will be completing the kit. If you think of the sexual assault kit, it's like a miniature crime scene with potentially 20 to 30 samples collected. In my state, there are statute requirements too that dictate timelines for how long an agency can possess the kit before it's transferred to the crime lab. You know, a system is being created to provide feedback to the victim about the status of their case, which they can check with their computer or phone at their discretion. Also, the system is designed to provide policymakers with feedback on the whole testing program. That is, you know, how fast we are, how fast a crime lab is, the number of kits they've tested. All of this is useful to ensure that appropriate resources are dedicated to the future of this program. You know, finally, a major difference is just the chain of custody because it begins with the nurse, flows through the law enforcement agency, and typically ends with the crime laboratory - a short, succinct, professionally optimized process waiting for court.

Tyler Raible [00:08:45] Jay, it's- it's fascinating that the first thing that you mentioned was the quality of the evidence collection and the, I would imagine, the care associated with it. There are two things that you mentioned that I do want to unpack a little bit. You talked about chain of custody and in quality of evidence collection, so- so could you explain a little bit about chain of custody and why it's so important, especially from a lab perspective?

Jay Henry [00:09:07] Chain of custody is really just a document handling history of an item of evidence. The purpose is to provide confidence to the criminal justice system - you know, these are the courts and the attorneys - that the evidence has been properly maintained. This is important because, you know, cases can take years to resolve, even decades with cold cases. And so, you know, people's memories fade and change. And so if it's been years before, you know, that the incident happened before the case is actually being tried, you have to have a system in place that's documented all of that so you can have confidence in it. Now, when the court considers this evidence, the attorneys may thoroughly examine each item to make sure that it was one, properly collected. So that means a trained person, typically with authority - so you know, you're looking at traditionally a police officer, detective, crime scene investigator, forensic nurse, or a lab person - they're also going to look to make sure that the evidence has been preserved appropriately, so no contamination with, say, excess moisture, bacteria, anything like that. And certainly, no cross-contamination, such as between victim, consent partner, or our suspect sample - you all want those appropriately collected. And then the evidence has to be protected from deleterious change so that it's not inadvertently destroyed in the handling process. The evidence also has to be documented with a historical log, either

with paper or electronic, that describes who signed for it - that is, who possessed it, how securely it was maintained - like under lock and key, evidence locker, vault, a locked freezer in the evidence room. Each of these storage locations must have like limited access, and anybody that goes in there has to be a need and complete transparency about who had access and when. All these considerations are subject to a rigid cross examination. It's a good practice to have a very short chain because each person that had possession can be called as a witness in court. Most experienced criminal justice practitioners realize that it's a good idea to only be included in the chain unless absolutely necessary. Otherwise, stay out of it. In fact, in the lab, one of the challenges is just getting people to pick up their evidence and return it back to the agency. And even if you have a person from the same department, they won't pick up another colleague's evidence and bring it back because they don't want to get involved in the chain. Most crime laboratory systems have optimized their chain of custody process to keep it as simple and robust as possible. This makes the court process smoother. However, you know, in one case, I spent half a day testifying on the chain of a 1984 cold case. The attorneys were thoroughly evaluating each item of evidence for the integrity of how they were stored and managed. They take this process seriously, and one misstep means that evidence may not be admitted and could mean the end of the case.

Tyler Raible [00:11:55] What kind of problems would you see in terms of, you know, chain of custody as a concept when applied to an at-home kit?

Jay Henry [00:12:01] You know, I was trying to figure out how would I secure an at-home kit in my own home? Do I have a safe to keep it there? Who has access to it? All of these issues can come up in court about, you know, my family members have access, any guests in the house might have access to it. All of those areas are open to scrutiny by the court's systems, and they can be pretty rigid in that. And I've seen cases where other criminal justice practitioners have made just some minor missteps where they didn't follow their procedure - instead of taking it to the evidence locker, they- they put it in their personal locker, forgot they had the evidence on them, then the next day transferred it there. But even though it was in their own personal locker, the judge considered that evidence not secure. And so the evidence was tossed and so wasn't admitted in the court. So depending on the jurisdiction and the court, they can be pretty scrutinizing. So it's something that you really have to take into consideration that any evidence at home, I just I really don't know how you secure it. You know, that's something that's kind of perplexed me,

Tyler Raible [00:13:09] You know, coming from a former lab director, that's really kind of highlights an issue, right. If you can't figure out how to contain it, then you know, I would imagine that somebody who's recently been victimized during an assault would probably have an even more difficult time. And Jay, you also mentioned the- the quality of evidence collection. And from my perspective, it sounds like, especially with DNA, the collection of evidence requires a certain amount of skill. Could you tell us a little bit more about evidence collection and maybe some of the quality concerns you would expect?

Jay Henry [00:13:40] You know, for us, scientists and nurses, we've been taught from the beginning of our education at the university on really how to collect or handle samples. We're always handling something in our lab classes. So for us, it becomes an innate skill that we've developed. But even when we go to work at the crime lab, we're still evaluated on our ability to collect and retain samples and handle samples so that it also becomes even innate for the forensic scientist to be able to handle the sample. It's interesting when we teach technical people, say at our crime scene academies, then so really, we're taking

profession- already professional people with some training and we're giving them more specific training. And it's funny because, you know, some of the basics that we still find we have to teach that we never really thought much about was one, just like how to properly put on gloves without sort of flinging DNA and bodily fluids across the crime scene. The other thing is telling people why they have to wear a mask during collection. For instance, some people just tend to shed more DNA than others. The other aspect is to show them how to use that swab to best absorb as much of the sample as possible without introducing contamination and really minimizing the background. You know, the goal is to collect the whole crime scene sample without adding anything else. So if the sample is deposited on something, we just want the sample itself, not the underlying material that it was sitting on - that's referred to as the substrate. In my 30 years of teaching crime scene responders about sample collection, I found that you just can't talk to them about and tell them about it. You have to provide practical. So we found- we finally ended up doing in our academies is we put bodily fluids on different substrates like blood on tile, seminal fluid on carpet, and required them to collect the sample. It was funny, it is still interesting, even after all that training and collection, they sometimes, they still didn't feel comfortable. So if, for instance, we happened to be on a crime scene together like, say, crime lab people and crime scene people or detectives, a lot of times they'll still defer to us to want to collect that sample. So, you know, ultimately, I really don't know how an untrained victim could optimally collect the sample. You know, it's a challenge we found just to train crime scene investigators and- and police professionals, much less somebody that's never done this type of activity. And the victim is probably, you know, traumatized. So even if you're proficient in the collection of DNA samples, there's also some still some inherent challenges with collecting samples say on yourself or by yourself. For instance, you know, how would you collect a rectal swab? What about like a bite mark on the back? All of these are challenges that I just I don't see how somebody at home using these kits can really overcome.

Tyler Raible [00:16:26] I can definitely see the value of the training, especially when it comes to, you know, something that requires precision. In that same vein, can you tell us a little bit more about what the lab needs in order to receive a kit and then test it?

Jay Henry [00:16:40] Every crime lab has its own procedures, but you know, there's a lot of similarities across the country. You know, I'll just speak from my system and what we used to require. Recently, we started a list of requirements. One was that each kit had to be entered into the sexual assault kit tracking system. This is a system that is separate from our laboratory information management system in that it kept track of the kits by themselves. So number one, it had to be entered into the system. Two, the kit had to be a sealed evidence kit, and it had to be properly documented with appropriate chain of custody. Number three, it had to be submitted by a criminal justice agency like a law enforcement, prosecutorial defense. Basically, a victim can't submit a kit in our system directly to the crime lab, and most crime labs operate this way. Now, we really wouldn't turn a victim away if they approached the crime lab, but I have to say it would really complicate the system. So what we'd probably do is point the victim back to the originating jurisdiction. So the city or the county or that- or the state that the assault occurred and maybe try to hook them up with a victim advocate or something like that and then have them work it out with their investigators and prosecutions and have them submit it to the crime lab. Again, most crime labs need a law enforcement agency to submit the evidence to them. Another item that we need, which is really important, and I haven't mentioned any of this is, is the sexual assault kit report. These are one of the most important features of the kit, and it has to be included with every submission. What this sexual assault kit report is is a standardized report that the crime lab and forensic nurse examiners have

collaborated on to create the best possible format to document the collection, locations, and quantity of evidence recovered from the victim. The nurse uses these forms to document what they collected and from where. The examiner uses the notes to decide what samples to test and what process to follow. DNA testing - I don't really think I need to tell you this - but it can be pretty complex, and there's a wide variety of testing options available from standard short tandem repeat DNA testing to male specific Y-STR tests. Without a proper guide, the examiner won't know which sample to test or if there's something unusual about, say, the contents of the kit. So, for example, is this a bite mark with saliva? Was it a grab mark with touch DNA that, you know, maybe a Y-STR test is a better approach to that sample? Or is it just DNA collected on the outside of the body? Hell, when I was on the bench, again, this was a while ago, but this was still my go-to document. If I didn't have that report in the box or in the kit somewhere, then I would start researching where is that because I wasn't going to start my analysis before I had that document. So really, you have to have this report filled out appropriately. Both the nurses and examiners are trained on this document. I don't think that a victim would be able to do that and give the examiner enough feedback on where to start with the kit. Another requirement is actually more of an encouragement than- we asked for the police report. So this is separate from the sexual assault kit report. The police report is made by the investigator, a responding officer. We use this information with the sexual assault kit to better understand the samples and results that we test, and for instance, an investigator or nurse will sometimes get information from the suspect or the victim that, say, the suspect didn't ejaculate or did ejaculate. And that can be helpful when we're trying to determine what sample to test or why we end up getting a certain result. Our goal really is always to get a probative result. That is, when I say probative, that is test a sample that makes an impact and allow the investigator to make a decision on the case. Ideally, we select the sample allows for the development of a full, non-mixed, unambiguous DNA profile from their perpetrator that we can either compare directly from a swab that the police provide us or enter it into the CODIS database to see if we can develop a suspect. And finally, we need information so that we can, if we have to enter the sample into CODIS, that we can. For example, if we don't have a suspect to compare, then we can enter into this CODIS federal DNA database. CODIS stands for the combined DNA indexing system - it's a network of databases of all the states and is managed by the FBI. So Utah and all the states are tied into the system. CODIS has a lot of rules that have evolved over the years, and we have to follow them. We don't really have a choice. In fact, there's a constant misunderstanding between us and our partners about what DNA profile we can put in and what we can't put in. So basically, to upload a DNA profile, that testing has to be done by an accredited laboratory such as the Utah system. This lab has been pre-approved. Labs- all public labs get pre-approved by the FBI by signing MOUs and all sorts of legal documents. Also, a crime has to be committed. The sample has to have proper documentation, so chain of custody, and it has to point to the putative perpetrator. Now I use that term putative because that's in the FBI rules, and what it means is the alleged, accepted, or supposed suspect. We don't want ever, and we can't, put a consent or victim sample into the database. So that's why we need all of these particular rules.

Tyler Raible [00:22:06] Based on that explanation and my understanding, it seems that there's a huge amount of multidisciplinary collaboration that goes into this, right? So can you maybe elaborate a little bit on how, how important, you know, these good relationships are in this kind of multidisciplinary approach is to work in these kits?

Jay Henry [00:22:25] Yeah. Thanks, Tyler, for asking that. You know, teamwork is critical, and I can't really emphasize it enough on this podcast, how our relationships are with our crime scene responders, our detectives, the SANE nurses - everybody is linked together.

We meet regularly. We have annual updates where we collaborate to make sure the system is operating appropriately. And it's these relationships that allow us to get this information. So for instance, if we didn't have a police report and we needed it, we could contact the agency and they could submit it to us without much trouble. It's this team approach that allows us to get the information that we need to process the kit and also to put it into the- into CODIS and to be able to take this information and solve the case. This didn't happen overnight. All of this work, this took probably, you know, I'd say, you know, 10, 15 years to really develop and get to the point where we're at right now. So it works pretty well. It continues to evolve, and it gets better and better.

Tyler Raible [00:23:35] What's interesting to me is how there's so much value in the- in the network that's associated with it. If a person were to have an at-home sexual assault kit done, and they wouldn't really have that kind of network, couldn't they just pay a private laboratory to test it?

Jay Henry [00:23:50] Well, yes, they could actually have a private lab to test it. Again, I don't know what it would look like, but if you took the kit and the swabs, sent it to a private lab, paid to have it tested, I imagine if a profile was developed great, but that doesn't tell you anything unless you have something to compare it to. So there's really two ways to compare it to. One is you have to have a suspect comparison sample. So to confirm the forensic DNA profile from the kit matches the, again, putative profile, the suspect profile, the private lab needs that sample, and it still needs a chain of custody if we want to do anything in the legal realm from suspects. So for us, for instance, to get this, law enforcement would give a court order search warrant to collect the sample appropriately, or sometimes the suspect will volunteer. And there's a lot of documentation that the police do to ensure that it's documented that the suspect volunteered the sample or, you know, a surreptitious sample is collected - that is, you know, maybe during the interview, the suspect is offered a bottle of water, they use the bottle of water and then that, that bottle is swabbed. But ultimately, no matter where we're at before the match is confirmed, the sample has to be collected from the suspect that has an appropriate chain of custody. This process kind of follows traditional accepted legal practices and anytime we are, we're working with the law enforcement agents, we're telling them, make sure you do this so that we don't have to backtrack and get a sample again and have an issue in court. So all three of these processes will be scrutinized in court and require a certain amount of documentation. So that's the problem here with the private laboratories. How would they get that particular sample for comparison? So that's the first issue. The second one is if there is no suspect, and the idea is to really put it into the CODIS database, the challenge with the private lab is they don't have direct access and can only provide data through a pre-approved agreement with a public crime laboratory. Now, CODIS was originally developed by all the public crime labs for certain uses and can't be used by a private laboratory. So the bottom line is if an individual uses a private lab, that information probably cannot be uploaded to CODIS. Now, there are some exceptions where maybe a public crime lab has an agreement with a private lab, but then that victim would have had to chosen that particular private lab to do that. And so I mean, there's some instances where there might be a workaround, but really, for the most part, I think it's problematic that you're probably not going to get that sample into CODIS working that route. You always have to go through the crime lab.

Tyler Raible [00:26:34] So from your experience, is there anything a crime lab can do or maybe should be doing to message to survivors or even the public about what their options are if they use an at-home kit?

Jay Henry [00:26:46] Well, I think these at-home kits could be a real challenge for crime labs. To me, it seems like, you know, might be a little too early in the development of the issue to have a good approach yet for testing them. I don't really know if a kit shows up at a crime lab, how you would process it. However, like in most situations, I always encourage open communication. So if the victim has used a kit and wants to know the options, they can contact their local crime lab. I found that most labs serve as sort of a hub of information and may be able to point them in the right direction. So the lab may not be able to solve it, but they may able to get you to the right person that might be able to have a solution. Typically, though, they're going to, most jurisdictions are going to point you to the law enforcement agency or the prosecutor of the crime's jurisdiction, and you've got a victim advocate there that also serves as a network that might be able to associate you with the correct person that might be able to describe an approach to testing the kit. Also, you don't want to neglect looking at state agencies for assistance. Some of them have SAKI or the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative personnel, and they might also be able to help.

Tyler Raible [00:27:57] From the lab perspective then, do you suggest that crime labs be proactive and have policies and practices that describe how these at-home kits should be addressed, or maybe what communications they need to conduct with other agencies and stakeholders?

Jay Henry [00:28:12] Well, I found that there seems to be so many issues for laboratories as really it might be hard to be proactive on this one. It may take some time to develop maybe some working groups on it. However, like in my own state, I always encouraged keeping law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies in my state up to date on the issues. For me, the best approach was to stay in touch with them by attending their regular law enforcement meetings and kind of giving them briefings. I would imagine they're probably not aware of the issue because they've got a lot on their plate as well, and they don't really probably appreciate the associated challenges too with it. So bringing this topic to their meetings and talking about it, it's a good reason to engage with them. It's also a reason to kind of revisit some of the CODIS eligibility issues, which any time you bring this up it's typically a hot topic item I found to discuss with our law enforcement partners. So I encourage that. And in fact, with regard to my former job as a crime lab director is I- this was actually one of my favorite duties, was be able to talk and engage with them and provide information to them to, you know, let them be aware of certain situations, so maybe make their job a little bit easier.

Tyler Raible [00:29:22] That makes perfect sense. I mean, if we look at, you know, knowledge is power, then that cross collaboration really kind of makes it easier for everybody to do better, which I think is the- the ultimate goal. We are nearing the end of our time together. So aside from enjoying retirement, what's next for you? Do you have anything coming up that that you're excited about?

Jay Henry [00:29:39] Well, I love the technology advancement in forensic science, and I'm always excited to hear about the cases solved with, say, forensic genealogy or any of the others. So I still enjoy that. But I also keep an eye out for legislation that might try to prohibit the use of new advancements in technology like, say, the forensic genealogy. I'm also thrilled to see the advancements that my colleagues have made in my old lab. I've only been gone a year, but it's just unbelievable what we've been able to do and to see the support and resources that have been put into that system. I'm excited to see the results of that investment.

Tyler Raible [00:30:13] The forensic genetic genealogy is fascinating and as a shameless plug for- for Just Science, we've had a few guests on the show specifically to talk about it. So is there anything you'd like to share with our listeners before we really wrap up today?

Jay Henry [00:30:25] Sure. Maybe just a couple of things. One, I think that I can have a little appreciation, a little bit of appreciation for how a victim might feel that an at-home sexual assault kit would be a choice for them, maybe, especially with how the system might have treated them years ago. But certainly, I wouldn't recommend it now in the present day. We have invested significant resources and time to correct those issues of the past, you know, as best we could. But probably more importantly, we have designed a fantastic victim-centered system that gives best care and options for evidence analysis. You know, for instance, in my state, we have a sexual assault kit tracking system that victims can have access to. And we have many more victim advocates and a lot of highly trained investigators that are specific to sexual assault. You know, finally, I heard that report the other day that a routine kit that is processed in Utah now takes only about 30 days, and that's just a routine average kit. Expedited kits even faster. You know, to have that type of DNA testing done that quickly and have results is amazing. Finally, I'd like to say if I or my family members needed a sexual assault kit collected, I without a doubt would use a SANE nurse examiner and let the kit go through the crime lab. Even though I'm probably still qualified to collect some samples, I wouldn't even consider that. Now, hopefully by me saying that, that lets you know how much confidence, you know, that I have in the system, and I encourage people to use their existing systems.

Tyler Raible [00:31:57] And that's an excellent note to end on. So first and foremost, Jay, thank you so much for sitting down to talk with us about these at-home kits and really providing an illuminating perspective on the crime lab at large. So thank you for sitting down with us and taking the time out of your day to be here.

Jay Henry [00:32:12] You bet. Thanks, Tyler.

Tyler Raible [00:32:14] And for those of you listening at home, on your drive, or wherever you enjoy your podcast content, if you liked today's episode, be sure to like and follow Just Science on your platform of choice. For more information on today's topic and resources in the forensic field, visit ForensicCOE.org. I'm Tyler Raible, and this has been another episode of Just Science.

Voiceover [00:32:34] Next week, Just Science sits down with Patti Powers for her legal expertise on at-home kits. Opinions or points of views expressed in this podcast represent a consensus of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of its funding.