Sex assault cases made up almost half of the more than 1,000 cases mishandled by a discredited Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist over her nearly three-decade career, the agency confirmed Thursday.
The count is the first time the CBI has publicly detailed the type of cases impacted by the misconduct of Yvonne “Missy” Woods, a longtime DNA scientist at the statewide law enforcement agency. Woods deleted, omitted or manipulated DNA data in at least 1,022 criminal cases during her 29-year career, the CBI found in an internal investigation.
Of those 1,022 cases, 472 were sex assault cases — about 46%. Another 211 cases were burglaries (21%) and 134 were homicides (13%). The flagged cases also include 58 assaults, 47 robberies, 19 kidnappings and 81 other crimes, including property, drug and weapon offenses, according to a count CBI spokesman Rob Low provided to The Denver Post on Thursday.
The number of sexual assault cases is in line with Woods’ overall caseload and with the breakdown of total cases handled by the CBI, Joel Malecka, director of government affairs for the Colorado Department of Public Safety, wrote in an April 25 email to state Sen. Julie Gonzales. The Post obtained a copy of the email Thursday through an open records request.
About 44% of the 10,786 cases Woods worked during her career at the CBI were sex assault cases — 4,722, he wrote.
Of those 10,786 cases, the CBI’s internal investigation found that Woods might have cut corners and violated policy in 1,022 cases, he wrote.
“To be clear, more than 40% of all DNA cases submitted to the CBI Forensics Lab are sex assault cases, so it’s no surprise the numbers associated with Woods reflect that, both in her overall caseload and the number of cases her alleged misconduct impacted,” he wrote.
Woods’ misconduct amplified a rising wait time for the CBI to process sexual assault forensic kits. Victims of sexual assault currently need to wait more than 550 days for the CBI to process evidence kits, according to testimony at a Senate Judiciary hearing last week.
On Thursday, the legislature passed House Bill 1275, which creates a duty to report suspected misconduct by crime lab employees and creates a process for people to seek post-conviction relief if their case was affected by misconduct. It passed the Colorado House and Senate unanimously.
“When misconduct happens, it’s devastating for victims and defendants,” said Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican sponsoring the bill. “It’s a huge concern for everybody who believes in fair process and accurate outcomes of criminal cases.”
Woods retired in lieu of termination after her misconduct came to light in late 2023 and is now facing criminal charges in Jefferson County.
Her shoddy work is expected to reverberate across Colorado’s legal system for years and cost millions of dollars to address. The CBI estimates Woods’ misconduct has already cost the agency more than $11 million, a figure that includes state funds allocated to pay for re-testing and reimbursement of district attorneys.
The agency has retested DNA in 48 of the affected cases so far, including in 12 sexual assault cases, according to the email.
“It’s important to understand that CBI has shared all of the affected cases with district attorneys across the state,” Malecka wrote. “DAs… then decide which cases should be retested, not the CBI. But CBI will help facilitate any re-testing requested by district attorneys. That said, we expect the number of requests to retest cases will climb over time. The legal system moves slow and it may take time.”
In Boulder, 49-year-old Michael Clark was freed from a life prison sentence on a murder conviction in April after new DNA testing in his case contradicted testing originally done by Woods. A judge erased his 2012 conviction in a 1994 killing, and he was freed on bail.
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Woods told internal affairs investigators that she believed the Denver crime lab sent the CBI the sex assault cases it did not expect to solve, so she took shortcuts in the DNA testing process — she deleted data about low quantities of male DNA so that she wouldn’t have to complete additional testing that was unlikely to produce conclusive results, according to the internal affairs report.
“Denver PD gave us all the cases that they knew they weren’t going to prosecute and they told us that,” Woods said in a November 2023 interview with investigators. She then cited the 2013 law change and said CBI was overwhelmed at the time.
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