By: Associated Press 

ATLANTA (AP) – The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says its crime lab is making progress in a years-long effort to test thousands of backlogged sexual assault evidence packages.

The agency’s goal is to clear out the old rape kits by the first of next year, freeing it to then concentrate on new criminal cases coming in for analysis.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the push to test a backlog of almost 10,000 sexual assault kits began after 1,351 untested rape kits were discovered in 2015 in storage at Grady Memorial Hospital.

The 2016 Legislature responded by passing a law requiring all Georgia law enforcement agencies to send stored rape kits to the GBI  headquarters in Decatur for testing.

(WCTV)