The Saga of My Rape Kit - The New York Times

"Cambridge, England — MY rape kit was created on the evening of Sunday, Jan. 12, 1992, at Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh. Tiny pieces of evidence were swabbed, plucked and combed from me: bits of me and, they hoped, bits of him, to be used in court one day to prove who had done this to me. Like many evidence kits collected at that time, it was not analyzed for DNA, and became part of what is called the backlog: untested rape kits across the country, which number at minimum in the tens of thousands.



I had been raped by a stranger. This was not unusual; according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from 1990, in only “about half” of Pittsburgh’s rapes was the assailant known to the victim. My evidence was not analyzed for DNA even though the technology was available, not because my case was deemed unworthy of the time, money and effort, but because there was no one to whom to compare the results.



It was only in the late ’90s that the F.B.I. database of criminal DNA samples now known as the Combined DNA Index System (Codis) became fully operational. Until then, DNA evidence from rapes without suspects was not useful. Nevertheless, it was collected and stored, with hope for the future.



I badgered the Pittsburgh police sex assault unit about my case every few years for more than two decades. They finally tested my kit in 2013. It took months and cost the county $4,000, but it proved more than worthwhile — a match was made with an ex-convict who had recently been arrested in Brooklyn, and prosecution was mobilized."



The Saga of My Rape Kit - The New York Times