The Wayne County NOW Board of Directors named Detroit Prosecutor Kym Worthy one of the 2012 Feminists of the Year, and the board bestowed upon her the Susan B. Anthony Award.

Worthy received the award for good reason.

In August 2009, then-Assistant Prosecutor Rob Spada called his boss, Ms. Worthy, after he discovered thousands of untested rape kits in a downtown Detroit warehouse used as an overflow storage facility by the police. As part of an effort to organize the massive paperwork and evidence backlog, Spada was walking through the warehouse when he stumbled upon rows of cardboard boxes. The representatives who were with Spada told him that the boxes contained rape kits. When he asked if the kits were tested or untested, the reps said that they didn’t know. Thousands of untested rape kits were languishing in the warm, musty warehouse–some of the boxes were opened and had been exposed to the elements. Some of the kits were 20 years old.

Worthy, Spada, and the rest of the team that was assembled to sort through the boxes would eventually count 11, 303 untested rape kits.

As of yet, only about 600 kits have been tested, but the results of that small number of tests have been horrifying and sobering: Prosecutors have discovered evidence of 21 serial rapists. “One kit from 2002 revealed DNA belonging to a man who was in prison for the murder of three women. The murders had been committed during the seven years the rape kit sat on a warehouse shelf.” One woman was raped in front of her two children: an infant daughter and a 6-year-old boy; her rape kit sat untested for 14 years.

Two men currently run the Sex Crime Unit of the Detroit Police. When Inspector Marlon Wilson–one of the leaders of the SCU–was asked if it was a “failure” that thousands of untested rape kits sat on a shelf untested, his response was “that I can’t say.” Neither man wanted to blame anyone for the fact that extremely environmentally sensitive evidence sat in a warehouse that was dank during the winter and musty during the summer.

Detroit isn’t the only city with a backlog of untested kits. Cash-strapped city governments are storing thousands of untested rape kits because the cities do not have the $1200 to $1500 that it costs for each kit to be tested. And because Detroit did not have the funds to test the backlog from the warehouse, Worthy was able to apply for and be given a national grant which she is using to attempt to set a protocol for how other cities tackle their own backlog.

The Detroit Crime Commission is supporting an initiative spearheaded by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy to test thousands of rape kits that were never submitted for testing… An estimated $15 million is needed to complete the project. On average, each kit costs $1,200 to $1,500. The challenge is finding the funds to finish testing all the kits in Detroit and she says, “It’s a massive undertaking.”

If you would like to donate funds to the Detroit Crime Commission that will be used to test rape kits, you can FIND MORE INFORMATION AND DONATE HERE.

Sources:
“Prosecutor leads effort to test long-abandoned rape kits, brings justice to victims” [NBC News]
“Detroit Prosecutor Kym Worthy Discusses 11,000 Untested Rape Kits With Brian Williams” [Jezebel]
___________________________
Jamila Akil is a Senior Editor at Beyond Black and White. Follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil