In a world where DNA technology has become a crucial tool for law enforcement and the pursuit of justice, Ashley Spence’s story is a haunting yet inspiring testament to its potential.
Spence is the founder of the DNA Justice Project and author of Silent Witness: How DNA Uncovered the Truth and Empowered My Healing. The book details her harrowing experience as a sexual assault survivor and the complexities of seeking justice.
Spence openly shared the details of the night that completely changed the trajectory of her life.
“I went to bed one night thinking that I was safe in my apartment,” she says. But that night an intruder broke in and “smothered my face in a pillow and violently raped and beat me for hours.”
Spence, who was born in Austin, Texas, was just 19 years old at the time and entering her sophomore year of college at Arizona State University.
Right after the crime, “there were no leads,” says Spence. The fear she says was “truly paralyzing.” The inability to identify the perpetrator continued for years.
The experience of waiting for justice took a toll on Spence, leading her to drop out of college and move in search of some solace.
“I was constantly looking over my shoulder,” she says. “I knew he was out there, and I kept hearing the muffled sounds of screams of his next victim.”
While the police looked for suspects, Spence moved on to California, although the experience and fear came with her. For over a decade, law enforcement could not find the perpetrator leaving Spence in a paralysis state of fear.
“I lived in silence for 13 years,” says Spence. “It was too painful.”
Then one day, a DNA match was identified in California’s database in another crime and the perpetrator was found. Shockingly, the perpetrator was arrested just down the street from where Spence now lived in California. He was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to 138 years in prison for his crimes.
Law enforcement learned through the investigation that he had been “in and out of jail for voyeurism, burglary, but they never swabbed his cheek,” she says.
Had they collected his DNA and compared it to the national DNA database, Spence believes the authorities could have connected him to the crime in Arizona, brought him to justice earlier, and potentially saved other victims.
Knowing that DNA technology has the power to prevent crimes and save victims, Spence has taken her experience and turned it into action, fighting for other victims. In 2022, Spence founded the DNA Justice Project which now works across state legislatures to expand the national DNA database, better utilize forensic DNA technology, and allocate funding for these programs nationwide.
“All 50 states collect DNA for felony convictions,” says Spence. “Of that, 31 collect for certain felony arrests and only 19 collect DNA for every single felony arrest.”
In 2023, Spence helped pass House Bill 3956 in Texas which made it the 19th state in the country to collect DNA for all felony arrests. And the results were immediate.
“Texas DPS came out with the numbers and in the first year of this program, they solved 1,005 cases,” says Spence.
The numbers speak for itself, says Spence – each solved case represents a potential victim spared from an unresolved crime and prevents others from needlessly becoming victims themselves. According to RAINN, there are, on average, 463,634 victims of rape and sexual assault every year in the United States.
“We have to start getting them early, because we don’t know what crimes we can save people from using DNA technology,” said Spence. “Every minute, every second of preventing victims of tomorrow counts.”
In addition to being able to help law enforcement find and put violent criminals behind bars, the technology is also good for innocent people being wrongly pursued by law enforcement. “DNA technology can exonerate some people immediately,” says Spence.
Data compiled by the Innocence Project after passage of a bill in Texas to expand the use of post-conviction DNA testing found that 52 Texans were exonerated for crimes they did not commit and the real perpetrators were identified in 21 of those cases.
While Spence’s work brings her to legislature’s across the country to advocate for the expanded role and use of DNA technology, her journey has brought her back to Texas for the ongoing legislative session.
The current backlog of untested DNA samples looms large over many states, with estimates suggesting there could be as many as 40,000 samples lacking proper analysis.
In order to address Texas’ backlog and create efficiencies in the DNA testing process, Spence is advocating for Senate Bill 1723 (SB1723) by Senator Brandon Creighton which would establish a rapid DNA analysis pilot program. The goal of the program is to optimize the process of reporting DNA records and to decrease the number of arrests that a DNA sample is not collected and analyzed by law enforcement.
Traditional DNA testing, the kind that is done in Texas now, can take up to 72 hours. Under the rapid DNA pilot program, law enforcement can get results in 90 to 120 minutes.
SB1723 was passed unanimously by the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice and now moves to the Senate floor for a vote. If passed by the Texas Senate, the bill still needs to be voted out of committee in the House and then voted favorably by a majority of the House of Representatives.
“It’s groundbreaking, creates efficiencies, and we can reduce backlogs,” says Spence. “When I’m looking at my daughter now, knowing we can’t stop everything from happening, but when we’re talking about preventing our children from going through what I did or worse, every second matters.”
“All victims deserve justice, or they at least deserve a chance.”