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Nearly all states allow charges to be brought for certain rape cases decades after the crime. But the deadline in Massachusetts is only 15 years, even when police make a DNA match. Member station WBUR's Willoughby Mariano investigates what happens when no one can be held accountable for a rape. A warning that the story describes sexual violence.
WILLOUGHBY MARIANO, BYLINE: It was after 2 in the morning and raining in October of 2005 when a man offered Louise a ride in downtown Boston.
LOUISE: I was going to get a cab, but I didn't see one. I saw him first.
MARIANO: He said he knew Louise from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she had taken classes, and would drive her to a friend's house. She says she wanted to rest or get high. Instead, she told police, he parked on a dark street in nearby Everett and raped her.
LOUISE: And at first, I thought it was a bumblebee, and then I realized I had a knife in my neck. And then I started combating him. And that's when he started stabbing me here. I can show you. So one, two, three, four...
MARIANO: She counts a dozen scars all over her body. Louise still fears her attacker, so we are using her middle name. NPR does not identify victims of sexual assault unless they request it. How her case would unfold over the next two decades shows how it's nearly impossible to pursue charges after Massachusetts' 15-year deadline, even when police think they can prove who did it. In the hours after Louise's 2005 attack, police collected DNA evidence and questioned her.
LOUISE: I gave the description of the car, of him. He told me his name.
MARIANO: A court record shows that Louise, who was 25, didn't tell Everett police she was coerced into sex work earlier that night to pay off a debt for illegal drugs. But she said she told them everything else. The man called himself Ivan. A police report states he was Asian or white and drove a Lexus.
Six months later, a man picked up a different woman in Boston's North End neighborhood and raped and stabbed her. Court records state that DNA from the attacks on her and Louise matched the same unknown assailant. What investigators did next is unclear. Everett and Boston police, which investigated these cases did not agree to interviews. Louise lost both of her jobs and cycled in and out of drug treatment in the following years before getting sober. She says she feared that her rapist would return.
LOUISE: Sometimes I just would say, what if that is him? I would just immediately walk in the other direction.
MARIANO: Seventeen years later, new investigators in Boston made an arrest. WBUR obtained a nearly two-hour recording of an interview with a suspect, a 42-year-old financial services executive.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED DETECTIVE: Today is Monday, September 12, 2022. The time is currently 5:32 p.m. Sir, could you say and spell your name for me please?
IVAN CHEUNG: It's Ivan Cheung.
MARIANO: A detective tells Ivan Cheung his DNA matches evidence in two rapes and shows him Louise's photo. He asked Cheung if he raped her.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHEUNG: I'm telling you, no [expletive] way. I don't even know her name. I don't even know her face.
MARIANO: WBUR requested interviews with Cheung and his attorney, but neither agreed. He maintained his innocence in court. Even with the alleged DNA match, the state's 15-year deadline stood in the way of prosecution. State law stops the clock on the deadline when a suspect lives out of state, so the DA's office charged him, hoping to use Cheung's travel records to prove he moved away. They failed, and they dropped charges in both rapes a year after the arrest.
No one knows how many cases like Louise's there are in Massachusetts. WBUR and ProPublica found that as many as 47 other states give prosecutors more time to file charges in adult rapes. Bills to change Massachusetts' law have failed for more than a decade. Defense lawyers worry that a longer deadline would make it harder to find evidence that would clear a suspect.
Also, Massachusetts' legislature is often slow to act and rarely passes legislation. A current effort has yet to make it to the floor of either house. Rebecca Campbell is a Michigan State University professor who has studied for three decades how law enforcement investigates rapes. She says Massachusetts should join with nearly all other states that give more time to file charges.
REBECCA CAMPBELL: The evidence is the evidence is the evidence. Let it play out in court.
MARIANO: Now that Louise has lost her chance at getting justice, she works to keep her fear under control. She spends hours at support groups and therapy.
LOUISE: I have to work hard, but if I don't, it's so easy to fall.
MARIANO: Justice is out of reach. Peace of mind will have to do.
For NPR News, I'm Willoughby Mariano in Boston. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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