Ripped-Open Rape Kit Bag Delivered to Mother of Patrick Kane Accuser

Thomas Eoannou, the attorney representing the woman who alleges Patrick Kane raped her, announced in a press conference earlier this afternoon that a rape kit evidence bag that is clearly labelled with his client's name and date of birth was delivered to the home of his client's mother. This is outrageously outside the protocol for evidence bags, which are never supposed to leave the possession of police or prosecutors so as to ensure a proper chain of custody. Not only was it removed but it was ripped open, thus destroying the entire purpose of the sealed bag: to prevent tampering.

It was earlier reported by the Buffalo News—a publication that also allowed a bar owner to publicly smear the victim while freely admitting he might have been referring to the wrong person—that "DNA tests taken from a rape kit conducted on the woman showed no trace of Kane's DNA was found in the woman's genital area or on her undergarments." Four anonymous sources provided this information to the News. The News also quoted a former DA who said the absence of his DNA could "very well exonerate him of rape." Which is a preposterous and irresponsible thing for a district attorney to say.

This entire case has been so poorly managed almost from jump street, when word leaked that Kane was being investigated for something that police officers were forbidden from discussing. Ever since it has been a shitshow of leaks that make the he said/she said nature of rape investigations impossible to sort through. It doesn't help matters when Kane seems to have a good enough relationship with the police department that an off-duty cop was driving him around on the night in question.

The rape kit was the final, absurd straw in the matter for Eoannou, who said in his 30 years of prosecution and defense work he has "never seen an evidence bag outside a police lab, a prosecutor's office, or a court room, let alone find one in the doorway of a rape victim's mother's home." As a result, Eoannou is calling for an independent law enforcement investigation by a separate agency (read: not the Buffalo PD) to figure out how this happened.

Update: The Erie County Central Police Services says all evidence in the Patrick Kane case has been accounted for, including the rape kit and the evidence bag.

Today, @ErieCountyNY Commissioner of Central Police Services John Glascott issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/8tv8Z2bIJ3
— Mark Poloncarz (@markpoloncarz) September 23, 2015

So, something fishy is going on here.

Here is a timeline of this bizarre and poorly handled case:

August 6: The Buffalo News first reports that Kane is the subject of a rape investigation, but no official would go on the record about it. The original news report includes a lot of "we can neither confirm nor deny" quotes.

August 7: Police search Kane's house, according to the Chicago Tribune. Meanwhile, the Buffalo News and Chicago Sun-Times provide conflicting reports of which bar the victim and Kane met, lending additional confusion to the case.

August 9: The Buffalo News, which had previously been out front of this story, publishes a new article that includes both additional facts about the story and obvious victim-blaming. We learn for the first time the alleged assault took place on August 2, that Kane met the victim at SkyBar, and she went back to his lake house in Hamburg, NY. Then, there's a really long description by the SkyBar owner of some girl "hanging all over" Kane at SkyBar, although the paper eventually gets around to the fact that the owner has no idea if this was the alleged victim or not. The paper then allows the bar owner to editorialize about the American judicial process and that people should stop rushing to convict Kane based on their limited knowledge. The owner's account ends with: "If you're going to ask what happened between them after they left that night, how would I know?"

August 12: The Buffalo News publishes another article on the events of August 2, this time contradicting the bar owner's account it published just three days prior. This article states the victim only went to Kane's house to accompany a friend, which doesn't really matter in terms of a rape investigation but was published nonetheless. Police and prosecutors remain silent. In the same article, the Buffalo News spoke to four people who have worked with the alleged victim to assess her character and if she seems like the type of lady who would make up a rape, a completely irresponsible question for any journalist to ask.

September 8: According to, yep, you guessed it, the Buffalo News, a grand jury investigation was "abruptly postponed" due to ongoing settlement talks. Kane's attorney later denied these ever took place.

September 17: Blackhawks training camp begins, and Patrick Kane is there, participating as if none of the above is happening. Kane issues a statement (and reads it incorrectly) and then responds to every single question with "I appreciate the question" before refusing to answer it.

September 21: Both the Buffalo News and Chicago Sun-Times publish leaked information about the DNA test results from the investigation. But, given the press conference held two days later, it's hard to make heads or tails of these leaks, how relevant they are, or how trustworthy the Buffalo News source really is.