Utah State football player arrested after DNA processed from 10-month-old rape kit
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Police on Monday arrested a Utah State University football player in connection to an undercover drug distribution investigation in April a rape investigation that began in September 2022.
Law enforcement spanning multiple counties filed arrest reports for Kingsley Krey Holliday, 23, of Draper, who was taken into custody July 10.
An arresting officer reported in the probable cause statement that Holliday sold "multiple Adderall pills for an agreed upon amount" to a confidential informant during an investigation in April. The deal reportedly happened with 100 feet of the university's campus, which would enhance the potential charges.
In September 2022, Holliday was accused of taking a woman on a date and then forcing her to a third location, where he allegedly raped her.
She later went to the hospital for injuries she sustained during the attack, and the emergency room contacted police, according to the probable cause statement. A rape kit was utilized to detect DNA, which was recently connected to Kingsley.
The victim told the arresting officer she didn't know her attacker, and that he kidnapped her before the assault.
A previous version of this article erroneously stated the two knew each other before the attack
"In speaking with the victim, it was alleged that while at an event venue on or around the aforementioned date, and while attending an event, a male, unknown to her, took the female against her will to a separate location, off of the property," according to the officer's report. "The female described repetitively telling the male that she did not want to go, and wanted to go back to her friends. The female described the male grabbing her wrist and dragging her out of the building, across a parking lot, road, and a ditch. She described being taken onto private property."
The affidavit states witnesses confirmed Kingsley was at the venue the night of the incident and that he was in "close proximity to the victim."
The arrest report does not give a timeframe for how long it took to process the rape kit, only that the DNA evidence "has since been matched to Kingsley Holliday."
He reportedly denied any involvement in the attack, "but was concerned that the victim might be pregnant," the officer stated.
It wasn't immediately clear what led to the delay in Kingsley's case. While assault kits have been a problem in the past, there are instances where processing can take longer than half a year.
Utah in 2020 was the eighth state to completely clear its rape kit backlog following a 2017 law that mandated a time frame for all kits to be tested, setting aside $1.6 million that yera to get the job done - an amount that forensic scientists said wasn't enough to keep up with the new kits, according to a 2022 report from the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services.
Between the time the Utah law was passed and the time Utah cleared its backlog, a once-2-year process became a 3-month one. And in the time since then, labs are getting some kits handled less time than that.
And, as of 2022, labs are processing kits at a median rate of about 33 days, according to the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services, though forensic technicians were given a Priority No. 1 case that they were able to get finished in less than 2 weeks.
However, that's not the time frame for all cases. According to the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services, the state received 1,174 sexual assault kits between July 2021 and June 2022. The number likely representing less than 12% of the actual number of attacks in Utah, according to research from Weber State University.
The median timeframe for those to be processed was 33 days, according to the report. However, the sexual assault kit reports grouped in 30-day increments, except for ones that hit the 60-day mark.
The state reported 526 of its kits were complete in fewer than 30 days, and 403 kits were finished between 31-60 days. A total of 214 assault kits were processed in a timeframe of 61 days to 180 days. And 38 kits had taken the labs more than a half a year to complete.
According to the report, 187 kits had not been submitted to the lab because they were "restricted sexual assault kits being held by law enforcement."
USU provided the following statement following Holliday's arrest:
"Over the last several years, we’ve made many changes to improve our culture at USU around sexual respect, encourage reporting, and encourage support for victims. "USU is a start by believing campus, and we know that our efforts to combat sexual and relationship violence are part of a larger effort in our state and communities. To encourage collaborative leadership on this issue, USU began hosting and co-organizing an annual conference with CAPSA called the Northern Utah Conference to End Violence."