This Impossibly Badass Prosecutor and ‘Rape Kit’ Advocate Is Our New Hero
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You’d think that everyone could agree that prosecuting serial rapists should be a priority, but Worthy’s had to fight hard over the past few years, not only to get funding to test the kits but to get the police department to care about them in the first place. She was instantly outraged when she heard that there were thousands of untouched kits languishing in a dusty police warehouse, but the police chief didn’t take action until someone in his department leaked the news to the press. “No one really paid attention to what I was saying and yelling about ‘til about four months in,” she told The Daily Beast’s Abigail Pesta. Finally, the public took notice, and Worthy’s team received a $1 million federal grant to start testing the kits.
Worthy’s colleagues “literally had to dust [the kits] off” and “physically go through and open them to get the name of the victim, the date that it happened,” she said. But, as expected, it was more than worth the hard work: the team identified twenty serial rapists — meaning they had been involved in at least one other rape case — from the first 153 kits tested this summer, and found DNA matches for another 38 suspects… . .
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