Thirteen previously closed Denver sexual assault cases have been reopened after the city’s crime lab retested DNA evidence once analyzed by former Colorado Bureau of Investigation forensic analyst Yvonne Woods.

A police spokesperson told The Denver Gazette the once-closed cases are now being actively reinvestigated although so far, no arrests have been made.

Woods, 66, who goes by the name Missy, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Sept. 8 for altering and deleting data in criminal cases in a scandal that is expected to impact the state’s judicial system for many years to come.

She admitted that if she thought a case would probably not result in prosecution, she would fraudulently report there was either no DNA detected or too little to warrant further analysis to save time.  

Scores of cases across the region were then closed, according to the indictment against her and testimony at her sentencing.

 In some instances, she added zeros after a decimal point to make it appear there was less DNA present. For instance, in her February 2018 report in connection to a Denver sexual assault case, she changed the quantity from .00025 to .000025 which significantly lessened the amount of DNA found and therefore she could say there was not enough for further analysis, according to her indictment.

In April 2025, the Denver police crime lab took the unusual move of asking CBI to return 422 rape kits once worked on by Woods to do its own review and possible retesting because it no longer trusted her results. The cases dated back to 2013.

Then, four months later, in August 2025, the Denver crime lab more than tripled its request, bringing the total of cases taken back from CBI to more than 1,300, police said at the time. The second request included not just cases handled by Woods, but all sexual assault cases analyzed during the previous 12 years by the CBI lab.

The full report on what the Denver crime lab found has still not been made public as officials told The Denver Gazette it was not finalized. The Gazette was able to obtain the number of reopened cases through an open records request.

According to the information The Gazette obtained, at the time of the first request for cases, CBI identified 27 sexual assault cases “impacted” by Woods, with three considered “high-risk” and could benefit from retesting.

Instead, the crime lab reviewed all of Woods’ cases and identified 13 for retesting so far and police have now reopened those cases and are attempting to contact victims, according to a Denver Police spokesperson.

Details about the cases and what specifically the retesting revealed were not disclosed.

The retesting also produced 11 suspect profiles that were then entered into the federal Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which is maintained by the FBI and is used by law enforcement to potentially link suspects to crimes or link one crime with others.

By doing so, Denver police said it was able to get six hits which “produced investigative leads, linking evidentiary profiles to potential suspects or other criminal investigations,” police said.

The reopening of once-closed cases points to the larger fallout from the CBI scandal.

“No one has closure,” said state Rep. Mike Carter, D-Aurora, who serves as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee and is a defense attorney who has pushed for more transparency and accountability in the wake of the CBI scandal.

He has previously said “every time someone turns over a rock this thing gets bigger.”

CBI officials, as well as both the prosecution and defense at Woods’ sentencing, acknowledged that because of Woods’ actions there may be suspects through the years who evaded arrest and prosecution.

They also conceded it could take many years to untangle.

“Countless survivors across the state have been left in limbo,” said Elizabeth Newman, director of public policy for Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

“Survivors have been the collateral damage in all of this,” she said, “whether they were told there was no DNA evidence when there was or now they are being brought back into a case they thought was closed and have potentially moved on from, this is a system that is retraumatizing them again and again.”  

Newman added that “while the sentencing of Missy Woods is one step forward, there is a longer journey to statewide accountability for her actions and CBI’s failure to stop her criminal misconduct.”

Rob Low, communications director for CBI, said in an emailed statement, “New possible leads in sexual assault cases are always welcome and we are committed to bringing justice to victims.”

He added that the original DNA testing requested by Denver occurred an average of 10 years ago.

“Retesting additional DNA sampling years later with advances in forensic science can generate new information from previously examined evidence as seen in cases across the country,” the CBI spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding that “the existence of a new profile does not, by itself, indicate misconduct, analytic failure or an incorrect conclusion in its original examination.”

Mitch Morrissey, the former district attorney for Denver, also cautioned that just reopening a case does not necessarily mean an arrest or prosecution will follow. But he did say in an interview that Denver’s crime lab “did what they had to do in light of what happened at CBI.”

CBI has acknowledged its extensive review of Woods’ past work revealed 1,045 cases with problems. At her sentencing, her defense lawyer said only 156 of those involved data being altered.

Still, of the total, roughly one-in-10 of the more than 10,780 cases she worked on during her 29-year career at the state crime lab involved some kind of misconduct.

And even nearly three years after the scandal became public, retesting of her work remains rare.

CBI said no other crime lab in the area has done the type of review Denver did.

And the state agency said it has only been asked to conduct 16 full retests and nine partial retests by district attorneys or law enforcement agencies in the state.

 CBI has said that its national accreditation only allows the release of information about affected cases to district attorneys and law enforcement, and it is up to them to request retesting.

The state agency has also consistently said that it has found no evidence that Woods manufactured profiles or planted DNA and that no one has been wrongly imprisoned because of her misconduct.