Looking at two different pictures, Ambra Janney Preston remembers two versions of herself. One -- the smiling, happy child who loved the outdoors. The other -- a blank-faced child holding a dark secret.
"You can tell how unhappy I was and see the difference... You can tell how miserable I must have been," she reflected.
Ambra (Janney) Preston was seven and a half years old when her then-step-father first sexually abused her.
"It was actually at night. I think my mom was asleep...and just one night he just came in the room. That's when it started."
Two to three times a week for more than two years, Randy Shepherd took advantage while his then-wife ran errands, threatening Ambra if she told.
A Child Rape Survivor Shares Her Story
"I was becoming afraid of him. I didn't want to be around him. I lingered to my mom more."
One day, Ambra's mom felt something was off.
"She asked me -- and I won't forget -- she asked me, 'Has Randy ever been touching you?' I immediately started crying. I felt like it was basically over. Because she knew."
Shepherd was convicted of first-degree rape, sentenced to more than 20 years behind bars -- justice served in Ambra's case, but she knows many sexual assault victims with stories like hers still wait.
"I believe strongly...when someone reports a rape or sexual assault, it needs to be investigated properly. With the rape kits, they need to be tested and not just put on the shelf for a year at a time and nothing be done with it."
She is referencing the North Carolina Department of Justice's sexual assault inventory, released late February 2018. It found more than 15,000 rape kits sitting on shelves at statewide police departments, either ineligible or awaiting testing by the Raleigh State Crime Lab.
WFMY News 2's Meghann Mollerus went to the state crime lab to see the testing process firsthand and get answers. She learned the lab has 22 scientists testing approximately 162 kits every day. Each kit takes seven to nine months to fully process and costs $700 for labor and equipment.
Right now, local law enforcement is not required to submit certain kits -- like in cases where the victim does not press charges, refuses to cooperate or cannot be located after filing the report.
Since seeing the results of the statewide test kit inventory, Attorney General Josh Stein said he wants to put a fix on the front burner.
"We need to develop a clear protocol, so every time local law enforcement has a kit that gets reported, they automatically send it to the crime lab," Stein said.
Stein has proposed legislation to test every kit, and the NC House and Senate Oversight Committee endorsed it. He would outsource the "old" kits and cut the test time for new kits from seven months to four. And, he would create a statewide tracking system, similar to Idaho's, that both law enforcement and victims can use.
"We can put bar codes on them. We can track a package, so we know when it gets delivered. We should be able to track a kit to know whe it gets tested," Stein said.
State Crime Lab director John Byrd, who took the position in 2014, has already made the lab significantly more efficient. He is rearranging equipment, retaining the best scientists, opening a second DNA lab outside Asheville (the Western Crime Lab) and staying victim-focused.
"My role as lab director is to insure that we seek out the truth through science, so justice is served. That's our motto at the crime lab," Byrd emphasized.
But cracking cases is only part of the healing journey. Crisis centers like Rockingham County's Help, Incorporated are crucial, and it took Ambra Preston six years to realize that.
"I remember coming here the first time after the court trial, and I wasn't ready to go through the process, but over the years, I was just tired of running," she reflected.
Now, at 26, she can sit in the same counseling room at peace. She has a job, school, a loving husband and baby boy on the way.
"With my past, it's not like I forget about it. It's always going to be with me, but I can always take the negative and turn it into something positive."
As part of her healing process, she wrote and published a book -- Help Within Abuse, Hope for the Unspoken. On page 75 -- a letter to her younger self.
Dear Ambra, I'm not sure if you even exist, but I'm willing to sit down and talk to you. That child who needs that unconditional love without the pain and hurt...
What happened to you was not your fault. Everything will be OK. I promise. With loving care, Ambra, the survivor.
Ambra's attacker is set to get out of prison in 2022, and she says she's frightened by that. Nonetheless, she wanted to share her story, in hopes it inspires someone watching to speak up or seek help.
The number for the National Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-(HOPE)4673.
There are several Triad-area sexual assault help resources:
Help, Incorporated (Rockingham County) - 336-342-3331, 336-342-3332 (crisis line)
Family Justice Center (Guilford County) - 336-641-7233
Family Service of the Piedmont (Guilford) 336-273-7273
Family Crisis Center of Randolph County (Randolph County) - 336-629-4159 (Asheboro), 336-434-5579 (Archdale), 910-571-9745 (Troy)
Find a full county-by-county list of crisis centers on NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NCCASA).
[On November 15, 2018, this story received a nomination for the Midsouth Emmy Awards in the Serious Feature News Story Category.]