SLED did not grant FOX Carolina’s repeated requests for an interview about the delayed tracking system or tour of the state crime lab. A letter sent to lawmakers in July said SLED hoped to have ...

SLED was criticized after the agency missed a key deadline to implement the system in June 2022. But since then, the agency has begun rolling out the new program.

According to SLED’s semiannual report, it hoped to launch the new system in the Lowcountry and Piedmont regions by Feb. 20, making the pilot program live across the entire state.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed H3309 into law on May 14, 2020. The deadline to implement the tracking system was June 1, 2022. Sept. 3, 2020: The first sexual assault kit task force meeting.

Now SLED representatives say the system, called Track-Kit, was “fully implemented” on Feb. 20, 2024. We reached out to local law enforcement agencies in the Upstate one month later.

The LAC says sled did not meet its June 1, 2022 deadline for implementing a sexual assault kit tracking system as mandated by law. The agency implemented the tracking system almost 21 months after ...