By Mario Garcia, Kristen Powers and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor Kym Worthy has seen her share of grisly crime, but even she was shocked by a discovery in 2009 at a former police storage warehouse. There, stacks of dusty boxes were found on the shelves of the warehouse. The boxes contained thousands of untested rape kits, some decades old.
“What we were potentially looking at, at that time, was over 10,000 rape kits, representing over 10,000 cases where women had reported, whose lives and what had happened to them was sitting on a shelf and nobody cared. I was shocked, and I think I was kind of stunned -- and not too much stuns me,” Worthy told Kate Snow in an interview that aired Friday on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Worthy and her team would ultimately discover 11,303 untested kits. Rape kits are what hospitals use to collect DNA evidence from a victim in hopes that police can test it and identify a rapist. Victims have to undergo a thorough exam that can take hours. The DNA evidence is often the most important evidence used to convict in a rape case.
“To know that we had all of these potential victims sitting out there, all of them, mostly women, and nothing had been done, was just truly appalling,” Worthy said.
She is spearheading the fight to correct the injustice. Worthy said that what’s happening in her city is happening across the country. From Chicago to Los Angeles to Houston, cities are grappling with thousands of untested rape kits. Through a national grant, Worthy is attempting to set a protocol for how other states tackle backlogged rape kits.
To Learn More About the Detroit Rape Kit Initiative, Click Here to Visit the Detroit Crime Commission
The daughter of a West Point graduate, Worthy says she has always felt a sense of justice and morality. As a lawyer, she’s fearlessly sought justice, taking on high-profile cases including the corruption case against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. But perhaps her own traumatic experience has contributed to her drive. Worthy says that she was sexually assaulted while in law school but did not report her case.
Courtesy of Kym Worthy
Kym Worthy at her law school graduation.
“This may sound strange, but I think what happened to me in law school happened for a reason and kind of led me into what I’m doing now. I always felt that way. And I always felt that that was a part of what made me a very good prosecutor, and certainly that is part of everything that I do. But it wasn’t the driving force,” she said.
Worthy said her experience allows her to better identify with the women whose cases were left untouched for years, but ultimately her time as a prosecutor during Detroit’s tumultuous last decade sparked her determination. Over the past decade, Detroit has dealt with a high crime rate, budget woes and corruption in both the police force and former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's office.
“The fact that I was the first female assistant of [an] elected prosecutor here, the fact that I had been prosecuting rapes for 11 years, off and on for 11 years, and presided over many criminal sexual assault trials as well, as a judge, and then to see this happen in Wayne County, a county where we already have a crime problem that’s out of control, and then to have, to add this on top of the issues we had with the Detroit crime lab, it was just a little much. And that makes you even madder,” Worthy said.
WATCH: Detroit prosecutor vows justice after neglected rape kits found
Worthy’s journey to reverse Detroit’s backlog began in August 2009, when she got a call from then-Assistant Prosecutor Rob Spada. Spada had just taken a tour of a downtown Detroit warehouse used as an overflow storage facility by the police. At the time, the system for processing evidence was in disarray and Spada had been called in to help police figure out how to catalog and sort what they had. As Spada walked through the warehouse covered with graffiti and surrounded by barbed wire, he stumbled upon rows of boxes.
“I saw numerous racks with cardboard boxes, and they told me at that point those were rape kits. I immediately asked the representatives were they tested rape kits or untested rape kits. And at that point, they said, ‘We don’t know,’” Spada said.
Some of the boxes were opened and exposed to the elements of the musty, warm warehouse. He immediately called his boss, Prosecutor Worthy.
“You would think that with that discovery, everybody would be outraged, but it seemed that this office was the only one,” Worthy said.
Worthy took action because she says she got little support from the police chief at the time. Worthy says the police chief at the time promised an internal review, but she didn’t think that was enough.
She found volunteers on her staff to start sifting through the rape kits trying to match each one with a victim using old, handwritten police logbooks.
“We were literally blowing off dust and dirt off of those books so we can open them up and see if we can find any information in these books that would match the rape kit,” Worthy said. “My prosecutors that are overworked, underpaid and have too much to do volunteered on their own time because we were all concerned about this issue.”
So far, 600 kits have been tested, and investigators say that they have discovered evidence of 21 serial rapists. Grant money funded the testing of those kits. Worthy said it costs on average between $1,200 and $1,500 to get each kit tested. People have wanted to donate money to help get kits tested, but the prosecutor’s office cannot solicit or collect funds. But now a non-profit organization, the Detroit Crime Commission, has set up a fund and will manage it for the purpose of accepting donations and using those funds to help pay to get kits tested.
Some of the kits tested have revealed sobering results. 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.
Inspector Marlon Wilson and Sgt. Marvin Jones are currently in charge of the Detroit Police Department’s sex crimes unit. Since neither police officer was in charge when the rape kits ended up in the warehouse, they were reticent to say whether the police department failed by letting the kits go untested.
“Unfortunately at that time when those rape kits were untested, I was not part of the sex crimes unit, so I really can’t say,” Wilson said.
The Detroit Police department says that they completed an internal review in 2009. NBC News filed an official request for records of any internal investigation, and two months later we received an eight page document. In it, the police say once they became aware of the situation in the warehouse, they randomly pulled 36 of the stored rape kits and found there were “justifiable reasons” for not testing them. Those reasons, police say, include victims who refused to prosecute or were uncooperative and assailants who pleaded guilty to lesser charges. When NBC News showed the report to Worthy, she questioned its validity.
“Their reasons were just made-up reasons as to why there should be no investigation,” Worthy said.
Worthy says the newest Detroit Police Chief along with Inspector Wilson and Sgt. Jones have been very cooperative in the effort to now test every rape kit.
“I’m going to make sure that every sexual assault kit that comes through sex crimes is tested,” Sgt. Jones pledged.
“We don’t treat them as 11,000 rape kits. We’re looking at each one individually,” Wilson said.
NBC News
Audrey Polk's rape kit sat untested for over a decade.
One of the more than 11,000 kits discovered in the warehouse belonged to Audrey Polk.
“I feel like someone’s paid attention now, and it makes me feel a little better. And to those who shut the doors, kept putting boxes, kits on [shelves], shame on them all, shame on them,” said rape survivor Polk.
A mom of two, she was raped in February 1997 in an attack that began while she lay in bed sleeping with her infant daughter and 6-year-old son.
“What woke me up was his weight on top of me. I was horrified,” Polk said. “He had a gun. I know that. He did cover my eyes eventually. I didn’t see him, you know. It was dark.”
After the attack, she immediately called the police, and went to the hospital where evidence was collected from her.
“I had no choice. That was the only way I could ever have a way of, you know, getting this person off the street,” said Polk of the invasive exam.
Polk initially made several calls to the police about her case. She said she got little information and eventually stopped calling. The rape continued to haunt her and her children. Her son had trouble with his anger and had problems at school.
“It makes me tear up now because I know what he’s gone through and his anger, how his life was interrupted and he was cheated out of a normal childhood, you know. That’s not fair,” said an emotional Polk.
Polk, herself, had trouble spending the night alone. Fourteen years after the attack that altered her and her family’s life forever, she received a knock on the door from a Wayne County assistant prosecutor.
“I opened the door, and I said, ‘Ma’am, I’ve never done anything wrong in my life,’ and she goes, ‘No, we know who raped you 14 years ago.’ And I’m looking at her, like, are you really serious?” Polk said. “And the first thing she said, ‘Well, do you still want to prosecute?’ And I said, ‘Certainly, absolutely, yes, I do.’”
Polk’s assailant was found guilty and sentenced to up to 60 years in prison.
“I hope, more than anything, it gives hope to those women who were ignored that we are working each and every day to try to fix things, and not every case is going to be prosecutable, but we’re going to make sure that we have, we can prosecute as many as we can,” Worthy said.
Editor’s note: Kate Snow’s full report airs Friday, Feb. 15 at 10 p.m. ET/9 CT on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.
To donate to the Detroit Crime Commission, click here. To specify that your funds go to the testing of rape kits, be sure to click the "add special instructions" section and specify that the funds go to the "Wayne County Rape Kit Initiative."
Leave a Comment:
Every state needs to come clean on this issue.Detroit is not the only city that has abandoned rape kits.It is unacceptable to know that's how law enforcement value crimes that are mostly committed against women.It's chilling to think of how many rapists have repeated their crime because they haven't been caught due to sloppy evidence procedures.How many victims could have been saved from being raped had these kits been tested?
As a man, this type of crime, more than any other, offends me to the core. I don't care what anyone ever has to say about it, there is absolutely no possible justification for this at all.
None.
Rape is one of the crimes that exposes people for what they are behind their public mask. In my opinion, it deserves chemical castration as a minimum penalty. For serial rapists, public execution.
Detroit. Just like I pictured it. Eminem and every thang
You're not very bright are you? You don't realize Eminem is white unlike your racist opinion.
his comment has nothing to do with racism. stop.
I know I am a terrible person, but what I am reading here is... Obama didn't bring home the bacon, the corrupt local governments wasted all the revenue for their own gain, they taxed business out of the crumbling area, so they didn't allocate money to check out the 10k dna kits. Or, heck, they put justice on the sidelines for their own nonsense. So, now, this woman finds out she can get a gigantic federal grant to drag the old rape kits out of the dusty forgotten warehouse.... I think I am getting this...
WTF does Obama have to do with this? He had nothing to do with a rape kit sitting on a shelf for 10 years. Oh my God, really?
if you really want to get political with this discussion Gofigure, ill gladly bring up GOP/Tea party hero Joe arpaio...and his ignoring 430+ sex crimes so he could round up illegals and go after political rivals instead...(and yes, thats fact)..
Don't know how you people shifted from the issue or the problem. Go check her chances for re-election, and when she is up for election. Go check the budget.. mostly the investigation allocations.... go check how she found out about this grant money and follow the trail where the money came from.... then stay in denial of the truth. Oh, and if you really want to shift subjects... there are currently two democrat senators sitting up there on the hill being protected by the party who have ties to sex crimes... and child molestation. Not one article about them on NBC.... and I can go on about others if you want....
Shane is right...Obama? what????? I"m not an Obama supp;orter/voter by any means...but that has nothing to do with it! How about the real issue is....lazy ass government workers!!!!!!!!
The obama quip was about one of the Detroit City Council memebers stating that Detroit helped elect him in 2012 so obama needs to help Detroit. The bacon verbage was hers, not posters on here.
That's all...
Gofigure <><><> I am offended by your suggestion that she is doing this solely for the lucrative $$$ in the grant she is asking for. For all I know and for all you know, that COULD be her main, or even sole motive+++++ but isn't she, like everyone else, entitled to the benefit of the doubt? Besides, sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reason. It's still the right thing.
She is the DA, she is in hot water for not doing her job. Obama... oh sorry.... his administration and the Dems are under heat for not giving more money to Detroit and other corrupt cities falling apart. Ok, so DNA testing is expensive. And it is not the police who make the call to run testing. The DA usually gives approval if it is needed for a case, and a side reason besides the expense is because of all the legal aspects of testing DNA... so it goes through the DA. Now, does anyone know how many of these "kits" this woman refused to test herself because she was not appoved to be spending the money or because there was no money left to spend? So, if you follow the trail backwards to Washington.... here comes a handful of money to detroit, and as a bonus a lot of people get some vote getting warm and fuzzy response. Then this goofy DA mysteriously happens to wander into this warehouse in the middle of nowhere and "discover" these thousands of kits, and go way out into the public forum talking about how terrible it was and that she was going to change things... even though she was a culprit in the entire affair. Maybe she was just in the mood to clean warehouses one day though... so I could be wrong. If facts don't get you.... use the common sense approach.... over 10000 kits sitting collecting dust for years... and not one single person ever came forward publicly and yelled out "Hey, how come my rape kit got stuck in a warehouse and was never tested!". I know, you will all come up with a reason/excuse why that single person out of over 10000 never did that....
The problem begins with those responsible not doing their jobs. Public service is just that, service - without the right to go home when the overtime funding ends. Without a measure of performance, this is exactly what can happen in any organization public or private. Most of those responsible have long since retired or moved on. It is important to note that these sample kits may not have been preserved properly, or not properly recorded in a chain of custody, rendering them useless in court. Also note that given these lapses and the posibility of improper storage it also opens the door to other errors which may lead to wrongful convictions. This does not even consider the statutes of limitiations which may apply.
Why do we allow people who volunteer to serve the latitude of short hours, automatic promotion, and generous retirements without holding them responsible for their actions during their terms of employment? Attendance is not a measure of productivity or responsibility.
Shed tears, there is no justice to be found here.
And nothing will be done about it. No one will be held responsible. Seemingly, in the police dept, crime lab, and prosecutor's office, no one cares about anything but their lunch hour and pension.
Think of the political environment that has existed in Detroit for years. Simply years of corruption and graft for the politicians.
The voters got what they chose to elect.
Now the whole nation is headed in the same direction, electing folks who 'promise em anything' to stay in office.
A sad state of affairs in this once great country. An issue like this is not right or left, black or white: these are our mothers, sisters, wives, friends being abused by a rapist and then abused again by the "system". There are racists both black & white and rapists, black & white. Stop blaming each other and get the problem solved.
Good post, Bill Horn. I just have to wonder how many of these people blaming the victims and stating that they are women who only want special treatment would speak differently if it was their wife or mother or daughter or sister who was raped and the evidence was left ignored on a shelf in the basement of some police station or office building.
Whoever had their hands on the kits should have all benefits stripped from them if their retired or if they are still on the force terminate and NO benefits whatever rank. Not just police but it should go to prosecutor's also if found to be negligible.
i agree....starting with joe arpaio, who also ignored 430+ sex crimes, mostly against kids.
Saint David
What is your source? What time frame does it cover?
The president cannot enforce the rape kits being processed, that is for the elected officials to enforce and for the citizens of Detroit to make sure they do it.
On a side note, Liberals want the USA to be more like Sweden. Rape in Sweden is 63.5% according to 2010 statistics, India is only 1.8. The USA is 27.3 the UK is slightly higher. Possibly one might wish to reconsider copying liberal paradise. 63.5% being raped is not the world I want for my grand daughters.
https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics
read my comment below, then talk about liberals...432 sex crimes ignored by GOP hero arpaio...wheres the outrage??
David Saint,
So there was 432 sex crimes ignored, we are at 27% world wide with one hell of a greater population then Sweden which is at 63%. this means over double the sex crimes there then here and you are trying to tell me to copy that so we can get rid of the GOP?
By the way, this attack on the tea party is getting real old. It is no longer workable on finding middle ground. Your making a further divide, we need brought together in the USA.
funny, GOP hero sheriff arpaio never made national news for the HUNDREDS of sex crimes he ignored..and just recently made public a 5 year self investigation into it which, surprise surprise, blamed the system and not negligence on their part.. some of the evidence boxes were found in deputies personal garages collecting dust! This is what happens when a one trick pony is put in charge of the 6th largest county in the US. Wheres your outrage GOP/tea party?? Is it different because hes your anti immigration hero??? I thought sex crimes against kids were illegal too!?!?
David,
I had not a clue who sherriff arpaio was, some sherriff in arizona is who he is, could care less.. However, I looked real quick at Arizona's crime rate compared to michigan, as you requested. Arizona is lower including on rapes crimes. Look at it yourself if you wish.
www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html
More money to be spent that the city and state don't have. The next step is the victims sueing the city and state and the taxpayer will once again pay the taxconsumer.
What in the hell is the city and state FOR if they don't "prosecute and follow up" on these things in the 1st place? Who cares about the money...these are people's lives and well being that we are talking about. Yeah - the victims OUGHT to sue the city...hate to say that...but wtf !!!!! that's "government workers" for you....they don't care and have no idea how hard it is to work in the private sector...they sit back in their "cushy and benefit driven" gov't jobs...giving nothing but lip service...
I'm with ginter.
If you accept a salary as a public servant, just showing up for work isn't enough; you have to actually perform a service, preferably the one you're paid to do. Should you fail to do so, you and your organization should be held accountable, financially or otherwise. You for being a drain on public resources, and your organization for not removing you from the taxpayer teat.
Stop the B--S---! First of all the fact that thousands of untested rape kits has been known to the police and the prosecutor's office for many years. This is not a new found issue. In 2004 a large City law firm worked with the Detroit Police Department in drafting the development and construction contracts for a new Detroit Police Department Forensics laboratory which would have provided the facilities to perform the testing of these rape kits. The private owners of the facility were ready to sell the building(one of two actually) which could have housed the lab but the were unable to close the deal. The architects, Smith Group, were ready to commence design plans to retrofit the existing buildings into a new lab and forensics offices, The Construction Management company had already been selected, the Police were ready to move. The senior attorney for the law firm representing the City wanting to make a name for himself demanded that the owners of the building reduce their price by over a million dollars so that he would look like a hero to his client. The Developers had already had been forced to being dragged along for over a year in closing the deal and reduced their price several times and refused this final offer. They had no choice but to sell the buildings to others and to move on. The City failed to seek other alternative sites for the new labs and the process for providing a new Detroit Police Forensics Lab stopped. This latest issue of someone "discovering" thousands of untested rape kits is a farce. The prosecutor is only trying to misguide the public into believing that this was some new found revelation and to make herself out to be some new saviour in the fight against crime. GARBAGE!!! Just another example of phoney Detroit Pollitical maneuvering. The conditions of the Detroit Police original lab were appalling at that time with floors buckling and overhead lights being held up by bailing wire and insulation raining down on all employees and lab equipment making any physical testing of lab results completely contaminated and inadmissible in any court proceeding. The lab was eventually closed and testing of any crime evidence transferred to the Michigan State Police Labs for testing. THIS WAS OVER 8 YEARS AGO. If you want to make real progress for the City of Detroit- take away the administration and city politics and move them to Lansing. eliminate the present legal representatives and get another law firm to handle the contracts with the City, fire all City Department leaders and get new ones from outside the City. Otherwise it's business as usual and nothing will improve. As a past City mayor once told me- "every time I attend a meeting wth a City department I am overwhelmed by the past political machine of Coleman Young and his political appointees and friends in City offices. I can do nothing to help this City".
Just goes to show what kind of excuses people with use to rationalize not doing the jobs they were hired to do. Props indeed to this public servant who is actually trying to serve the public rather than just get promoted and make it to retirement with a pension.,
so she waits 4 years to blow the whistle? a real humanitarian, gotta wonder what her motive really is.
How about - WHO CARES - what her motive is! At least she is doing something about it - where as the rest of the Detroit police/prosecutors are "kicking back beers and not doing anything".
The shame is that it happened in the 1st place - give her some KUDOS for getting this thing back on track....
I'm retired leo. Proud to say, went on call , met a black female, in her 20's, college student,she had been raped repeatedly, at different locations. at about 10pm. She had stopped at gas station, to get gas. Idiot threatened her with a box cutter, saying he had a gun in his pocket. Car jacked her. Made her drive to different locations where he raped her three more times. had his ass in cuffs by 6 am. Oh, he was black male. Threatened me that " he would see me again". Still wait'ng.............Head of that division is the one to prosecute, for mal-fessence.And the officers involed in the cases. Never heard of such negligence, maybe expected in Detroit, Chicago, New York, Jersey, and all the other most corrupt cities . oh, don't forget Illienois.......................
alot of black on black crime
America is in decline. Of course, part of being in decline is denial. As we watch our infrastructures crumble, our social values deteriorate, and our natural resources shrivel away (rape is an abomination, and besides our women and children, uncouth and irresponsible humans are raping our planet, too, and stealing from future generations) our political institutions are so corrupt they only make matters worse. Only a sad observation, I have no answers, and don't wish to blame anyone. But the light at the end of the tunnel is a locomotive, a comet, an asteroid, a warhead, or something like that.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy - KUDOS to you !!!! Way to get stay on this case ! I am certain Detroit is NOT alone in the "backlog" and "misplaced" evidence - I am proud and pleased to hear of your convictions - you sound exactly what the City of Detroit needs !!!!!! It is a shame it happened in the 1st place - no doubt about it, but way to keep after it! and by the way, while you are at it, make sure the "ones that allowed this to occur" - NEVER allow it to occur again - get those "bad apples" out the door !
...gee, won't it be thrilling when the same people who oversaw this disaster get to administer your future healthcare benefits.......
"Your call will be ignored in the order it was recieved."
Must be easier and more fun to destroy the lives of pot smokers than to do any real policing.
Are you from the Detroit area? Do you personally know any Detroit police officers? How do you know that the DPD is only destroying the lives of pot smokers? By the way, a bill was passed in Detroit to make it legal to have up to a certain amount of pot. I don't know all the details because I do not partake in pot smoking.
Also, you might want to subscribe to the Wayne State University Police Department monthly news letter. That will tell you a little about the crimes in Detroit, but only in a very small area.
Worthy is looking for something other than justice. This is her chance to shine, maybe in the eyes our our fealess, leader, his imperial highness, gun grabbing Obama. ONLY GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS STOP BAD GUYS WITH GUNS." hOW LOW CAN YOU GO, TO USE ANOTHERS' TRAGEDY, TO FURTHER YOUR CAUSE.........
Out in Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has ignored literally hundreds of sex assault and child molestation cases over the last few years but he still got re-elected. Detroit's not the only hopeless place.
What's your proof?
I just made a donation via PayPal to help in this effort. What a terrible thing! I wonder how widespread this is, it could be happening everywhere. Who knows?
I forget who the politician was who said this: "Don't tell me what your values are. Show me your budget and I'll see for myself".
A non-profit had to be set up to process these? Guess that tells me all I need to know.