Darin Bolar is seen in an October 2009 Department of Corrections photo. 
 
 SEATTLE - Eleven years after the attack, a 52-year-old man is arrested for the kidnapping and repeated rape of a 14-year-old girl he allegedly abducted in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of South Seattle. 
 
 
 
 The victim's rape kit, stored among more than 1,000 in a well-known backlog of untested sets of evidence, was finally examined and yielded a DNA match for Darin Bolar in December 2017. 
 
 Police arrested Bolar Sept. 26 and prosecutors charged him Monday with first-degree kidnapping and two counts of second-degree rape for the October 2007 attack. 
 
 Then-Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole announced an initiative in 2015 to test each of the backlogged kits. At the time, of the 1,641 rape kits administered in the previous 10 years, only 365 had been tested by the State Patrol crime lab. 
 
 Cases had to meet certain criteria to be sent to the state crime lab for testing, but O'Toole's announcement prompted Seattle police to send each kit along for examination. 
 
 Bolar was already a Level III sex offender and had been convicted in 1993 of third-degree child rape for assaulting a 14-year-old girl at the Wild Waves amusement park. 
 
 The 14-year-old girl in the Seattle case was walking on a street in Beacon Hill Oct. 24, 2007, looking for a pay phone to call her boyfriend when she noticed a man walking behind her, according to a police report. 
 
 The man grabbed her, pulled her into a yard with tall bushes and raped her. He allegedly used a garden hose attached to the house and forced it in the girl's vagina to clean the evidence of the assault. 
 
 The attacker then took her to a nearby vehicle and threatened to kill her if she tried to find help. They reportedly drove to a McDonald's and headed back to the man's residence somewhere off Martin Luther King, Jr. Way South. The man told the teen that she was not allowed to leave and he would find and kill her if she did, according to court documents. 
 
 He raped and beat the girl and forced her to clean his house throughout the next two days, police said. The girl would later claim that the man raped her at least seven or eight times. Every time she tried to leave, he beat or raped her again. 
 
 The teen escaped while the attacker was at work and another man inside the house was asleep on the couch. She ran out the front door and contacted a friend who called police. 
 
 Staff at Harborview Medical Center collected forensic evidence from the girl for her rape kit. The kit was not tested until Dec. 28, 2017, when the crime lab found a DNA profile that matched Bolar's in their database. 
 
 Bolar was 42 at the time of the girl's assaults. 
 
 ----- 
 
 Seattlepi.com is a media partner of KOMO News. Read the original seattlepi.com story ... ||||| After 10-year rape kit delay, man charged with raping, kidnapping teen in Seattle The girl was detained in the defendant's home for two days and repeatedly raped and beaten, police say 
 
 Darin Bolar, pictured here in an October 2009 Department of Corrections photo, is accused of a raping a 14-year-old girl in 2007. The victim's rape kit languished untested for 10 years. Darin Bolar, pictured here in an October 2009 Department of Corrections photo, is accused of a raping a 14-year-old girl in 2007. The victim's rape kit languished untested for 10 years. Photo: Department Of Corrections Photo: Department Of Corrections Image 1 of / 34 Caption Close After 10-year rape kit delay, man charged with raping, kidnapping teen in Seattle 1 / 34 Back to Gallery 
 
 Eleven years after the attack, a 52-year-old man was arrested for the kidnapping and repeated rape of a 14-year-old girl he allegedly abducted in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of South Seattle. 
 
 The victim's rape kit, stored among more than 1,000 in a well-known backlog of untested sets of evidence, was finally examined and yielded a DNA match for Darin Bolar in December 2017. 
 
 Police arrested Bolar Sept. 26 and prosecutors charged him Monday with first-degree kidnapping and two counts of second-degree rape for the October 2007 attack. 
 
 RELATED: Seattle PD to test all rape kits in storage 
 
 Then-Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole announced an initiative in 2015 to test each of the backlogged kits. At the time, of the 1,641 rape kits administered in the previous 10 years, only 365 had been tested by the State Patrol crime lab. 
 
 Cases had to meet certain criteria to be sent to the state crime lab for testing, but O'Toole's announcement prompted Seattle police to send each kit along for examination. 
 
 Bolar was already a Level III sex offender and had been convicted in 1993 of third-degree child rape for assaulting a 14-year-old girl at the Wild Waves amusement park. 
 
 The 14-year-old girl in the Seattle case was walking on a street in Beacon Hill Oct. 24, 2007 looking for a pay phone to call her boyfriend when she noticed a man walking behind her, according to a police report. 
 
 RELATED: Rape kit backlog testing yields charge for 2007 Seattle rape, kidnapping 
 
 The man grabbed her, pulled her into a yard with tall bushes and raped her. He allegedly used a garden hose attached to the house and forced it in the girl's vagina to clean the evidence of the assault. 
 
 The attacker then took her to a nearby vehicle and threatened to kill her if she tried to find help. They reportedly drove to a McDonald's and headed back to the man's residence somewhere off Martin Luther King, Jr. Way South. The man told the teen that she was not allowed to leave and he would find and kill her if she did, according to court documents. 
 
 He raped and beat the girl and forced her to clean his house throughout the next two days, police said. The girl would later claim that the man raped her at least seven or eight times. Every time she tried to leave, he beat or raped her again. 
 
 RELATED: Charges: Man rapes, holds woman captive for 2 days in Kent 
 
 The teen escaped while the attacker was at work and another man inside the house was asleep on the couch. She ran out the front door and contacted a friend who called police. 
 
 Staff at Harborview Medical Center collected forensic evidence from the girl for her rape kit. The kit was not tested until Dec. 28, 2017, when the crime lab found a DNA profile that matched Bolar's in their database. 
 
 Bolar was 42 at the time of the girl's assaults. 
 
 The state Attorney General's office won a $3 million U.S. Department of Justice grant last year to test and investigate the 6,460 rape kits stored and untested at law enforcement agencies throughout Washington. The oldest dates back to 1982, the office said. 
 
 The Attorney General's office has only received 25 percent of the award to perform an inventory of the state's backlog, but announced Wednesday it would request the remainder of the money to so the kits can be tested and investigated. 
 
 SeattlePI reporter Lynsi Burton can be reached at 206-448-8381 or lynsiburton@seattlepi.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LynsiBurton_PI. Find more from Lynsi here. ||||| Donations From Drivers Might Help End Rape Kit Backlog In Texas 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Pat Sullivan/AP Pat Sullivan/AP 
 
 Across the country, there's a backlog of kits containing potential evidence of sexual assaults. Victim advocates say the situation threatens public safety. Lawmakers in dozens of states are pushing for funding, and in Texas, one state representative has offered an innovative solution. 
 
 Thousands of rape kits sit sealed and untested in forensics labs and law enforcement offices in Texas. What's missing is state and local funding to pay to analyze the evidence in many of those kits. 
 
 If state Rep. Victoria Neave has her way, residents could help chip in. When Texans go to the Department of Public Safety office to apply for a driver's license, they'd be asked if they'd like to help the state pay to test DNA evidence from sexual assault cases — in the same way they're asked if they want to donate to support veterans or organ donation. 
 
 The bill, introduced by Neave, a Democrat from Dallas, has passed the House, and the state's Senate is expected to vote on it soon. 
 
 "Our bill is expected to generate $1 million per year and would help address and end the backlog of untested rape kits," Neave says. 
 
 When rape victims go to the hospital, they can get forensic evidence taken to help identify and prosecute their assailant. Each kit can cost between $500 and $2,000 to test, so many don't get tested. 
 
 The scale of the backlog in Texas is unclear. Neave says there are about 4,000 in Dallas County, another 3,000 or so in and around Austin, and 3,600 more in a lab in Houston. 
 
 "That's just in a few counties," she says. "We anticipate there are thousands more that are across the whole state that are untested." 
 
 Utah Lawmaker To Introduce Bill To Test All Rape Kits Utah Lawmaker To Introduce Bill To Test All Rape Kits 1:47 
 
 A growing problem 
 
 The Lone Star State is not alone in amassing a backlog of untested rape kits. Lawmakers in 27 states filed legislation this year to help deal with the situation. 
 
 And Texas has tried to deal with this before. Lawmakers allocated $11 million to clear a backlog of nearly 20,000 rape kits discovered in 2011. The state is still working through kits dating far back to the mid-'90s, but that money was restricted, so it only pays to test old kits. Lawmakers are planning to budget more money for testing this year, but advocates say that still won't stop kits collected in the future from being backlogged because, again, it would only address old kits. 
 
 Victims' advocates say each kit represents a person who says she or he was raped. 
 
 "Sexual assault is unique because the victim's body is the crime scene," says Alisha Byerly from the Women's Center of Tarrant County in Fort Worth, who supervises a team of advocates who help victims when they go to the hospital. 
 
 Collecting a rape kit often takes hours, and Byerly says it's a difficult process. The victim has to re-tell all the details of the rape, and then a nurse examines, swabs and photographs her most private places, gathering samples of hair, semen, fabric fibers and skin cells. It's evidence of a crime that's just happened. In most cases, DNA evidence needs to be collected within 72 hours of the assault. 
 
 "In the process of already being very mentally traumatizing, and having all that control taken away from their body, and them trying to regain this control, they're extremely uncomfortable and it's extremely invasive," Byerly says. 
 
 After all of that, Byerly says, to put that evidence on a shelf and ignore it is deeply discouraging for victims. 
 
 Ilse Knecht says it's a symptom of a larger social and political problem. "The rape kit backlog is actually a systemic failure of the criminal justice system to take sexual assault cases seriously," she says. 
 
 Knecht leads a national campaign called End the Backlog, which is funded by the Joyful Heart Foundation, and aims to help end the backlog of rape kits across the country. 
 
 It's impossible to know just how big the backlog is nationwide because a lot of states, like Texas, don't keep track. But Knecht says it's been a problem in states and cities across the country. And that, she says, threatens public safety. 
 
 "Rapists are very often serial offenders," she says. "They commit all kinds of crime. They commit crimes against people they know and people they don't know and they just don't stop." 
 
 When Detroit started testing 10,000 untested kits that it had warehoused for years, it identified more than 780 suspected serial rapists. It led to dozens of convictions, and connected crimes in 40 states. In Cleveland, evidence from old rape kits connected a man to 15 sexual assaults. 
 
 No nationwide standard 
 
 Around the Nation Untested Rape Kit Backlog Represents A 'Public Safety Issue' In U.S. Untested Rape Kit Backlog Represents A 'Public Safety Issue' In U.S. Listen · 4:30 4:30 
 
 Even if there were adequate funding, not all kits should be tested, Knecht says, because victims have the right to have a rape kit collected without reporting the crime to the police. In Texas, the Department of Public Safety holds onto the kits for two years, giving survivors time to decide to file charges later. Other states save kits for different amounts of time. Still, Knecht stresses that the backlog is primarily made up of kits that should be tested, because they are evidence of a crime that has been reported to law enforcement. 
 
 Knecht says states vary widely when it comes to standards for testing and tracking rape kits. Eventually, she hopes that every state develops laws to mandate testing of all rape kits connected to reported assaults quickly, and set up a system for survivors to track their own kit anonymously. 
 
 In Texas, bills have also been introduced to require law enforcement to track rape kits after they're collected. 
 
 "We are seeing legislators across the country finding the dollars in their budgets because they prioritized it, and saying this is something we need to invest in, it's a public safety issue," Knecht says. 
 
 Neave says she still thinks it's better for state and local governments to budget the money to pay for testing. At least through public donations, she says, there will be some money to help end the backlog. 
 
 "It shouldn't get to the point of us having to ask individuals to contribute," says Neave, "but I believe in the hearts and compassion of our fellow Texans that a dollar here, a dollar there, and all of us working together can generate funds to help these women and victims of sexual assault get justice." 
 
 Christopher Connelly is a reporter for NPR member station KERA and covers Fort Worth, Texas. You can follow him on Twitter @hithisischris.
– In October 2007, a 14-year-old girl was kidnapped while looking for a pay phone in the Beacon Hill section of Seattle and repeatedly raped by her abductor over the next couple of days before escaping. Now, 11 years later, police may have their man—but they may have had him much sooner if there hadn't been a massive backlog in testing a pile of rape kits. KOMO News reports that, among the more than 1,000 kits stockpiled by the Seattle Police Department, was the one that made a DNA match to Darin Bolar at the end of last year, leading to the 52-year-old's arrest on Sept. 26. Bolar, a Level III sex offender, already had a rape conviction under his belt from 25 years ago after assaulting another 14-year-old at a theme park. In the Beacon Hill case, the suspect had first grabbed the girl and raped her in some nearby bushes, then forced a garden hose into her vagina to try to clear out any evidence of the assault, per police reports. He then allegedly took the girl back to his home, where she was beaten, raped, and made to clean his house for the next two days. She finally said to have escaped while the suspect was at work and another man slept on the couch. She was tested immediately for forensic evidence, but that kit wasn't tested until December 2017. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that a $3M DOJ grant was given to the state's AG office in 2017 to help start testing the more than 6,400 untested rape kits across Washington. Bolar has been charged with first-degree kidnapping and second-degree rape.