THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE RAPE KIT

The story behind a critical forensic innovation.

Award-winning journalist Kennedy, molested twice as a child, grew up in the 1970s and ’80s and was taught to be fearful of predators, who seemed to be everywhere. She learned, too, that victims had little recourse for justice; too often authorities accused them of lying—until the invention of the rape kit. Coming into widespread use in the late 1970s, it allowed for the collection of useful evidence and altered police and hospital protocol. Its very existence seemed unlikely: “How,” she wondered, “does a tool that empowers women ever get built in a man’s world?” That question led Kennedy to discover Martha “Marty” Goddard, a worker at a crisis center for teenagers in Chicago who found that many of the runaways had escaped sexual violence in their homes. Yet their traumas went ignored: Goddard was shocked that sexual assault evidence was sloppily collected at hospitals and handed off to police departments eager to dismiss the cases. With dogged determination, Goddard lobbied politicians for change, becoming a citizen adviser on the city’s Rape Task Force and sharing her idea for a rape kit with Chicago police. To get their attention, though, she had to let a man take credit: the kits came to be attributed to police sergeant Louis Vitullo. In the mid-1970s, Goddard founded the Citizens Committee for Victims Assistance, got funding to put together standardized kits, and delivered them to 25 Chicago hospitals. In addition, she ran training sessions for medical personnel and police, changing the culture around the treatment of victims. In 1984, the Justice Department hired her to travel around the country to promote the use of rape kits. But suddenly, in 1988, Goddard disappeared. Kennedy’s tenacious sleuthing reveals a surprising portrait of a defiant, troubled, and mysterious woman.

Absorbing detective work.