CHICAGO (WLS) — A sexual assault victim says nearly two years later, her attacker is still walking the streets.

Her case has been delayed and she attributes that to delays in lab testing and the way some evidence was handled.

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Today, she is coming forward because she is frustrated with the system.

Kelly Yancy still struggles with memories of her sexual assault. Her attacker, she said, demanded a ride in his car after meeting him at a party.

“I tried to scrape, get as much DNA as possible,” Yancy said. “I was held in my vehicle for five and a half hours, in the freezing cold outside. Immediately after being sexually assaulted, I went to the 71st and Cottage Grove Police Department.”

Now, nearly two years later, Yancy said, his case is far from resolved.

“I’m hurt. I felt like, I felt like,” Yancy said emotionally. “It’s hard. I feel like I’ve been forgotten.”

Yancy points the finger at the Illinois State Police crime lab and Chicago police. She says CPD misplaced DNA evidence left behind by her attacker, such as fingerprints, a bottle of alcohol and vomit.

She says about nine months after the attack, the detective told her the evidence had not been submitted to the state crime lab.

“She told me verbally that the case had been closed, misclassified into another case,” Yancy said.

But months later, in an email, the detective said, “The request to test your vehicle’s evidence was submitted on April 1, 2024.”

It was almost a year and a half after the attack.

Yancy said she is now waiting for those results to be processed by the state lab.

CPD responded to the ABC7 I-Team by stating, “The Chicago Police Department is committed to thoroughly investigating cases of criminal sexual assault, as well as supporting victims who are living with the trauma and the consequences of these attacks. Detectives are in contact with the victim in this specific case, which remains an active and ongoing investigation.

“I felt like I was being overlooked,” Yancy said.

Yancy believes evidence from the car should have been submitted to state labs immediately, along with evidence from her sexual assault kit from the hospital.

“Things on my body to the point of choking, to scratches, to bruises,” Yancy said.

However, his tested sexual assault kit, without the evidence from the car, is inconclusive. Adding to the frustration, Yancy said testing of the sexual assault kit was delayed by nine months at the state lab.

The ISP said it could not speak to specific cases, but that as of May 2022, the processing of sexual assault kits meets state law requirements in less than six months or 180 days.

When asked what he said to critics who say 180 days is not enough, ISP Forensics Deputy Director Robin J. Woolery said, “I agree. I certainly agree, it’s just the minimum. It’s the bare minimum. And we must give up. to an execution time that will be more acceptable to our victims.”

The ISP says that so far in 2024, 15% of sex crime kits have been processed in less than 30 days, 27% in less than 90 days, and all have been processed in less than 180 days.

The ISP said it was up to date on the latest technologies, like rapid DNA, that they showed to the I-Team in 2020. But the biggest challenge, according to them, is staffing.

“A lot of it is finding qualified candidates and then getting them through. And then, to work in the crime lab, there are a lot of different steps and requirements and background checks,” Woolery said.

Carolina Sanchez, of the survivor advocacy group Resilience, said some states now process results in 30, 60 or 90 days, and said Illinois needs to do better than 180 days.

“So many of these cases don’t go anywhere, they’re kind of waiting for the results of the evidence collection kit,” Sanchez said. “Especially when you have survivors who continue to live in fear: ‘Is the abuser going to come after me again?'”

When asked where she was, Yancy replied, “Desperate.”