A Woman to Know: Marty Goddard
I was just beside myself when I found the extent of the problem. — Marty Goddard
I was just beside myself when I found the extent of the problem. — Marty Goddard
(image via Wikimedia Commons)
In 1972, Marty Goddard began volunteering at a Chicago crisis hotline. At the time, nearly 16,000 people were sexually assaulted in the area every year. Only 10% of those people ever reported the attacks to the police, and of that number, a mere fraction went to trial. As a survivor of sexual violence herself, Marty vowed to do something about “the rape epidemic.”
She interviewed advocates, politicians, investigators and forensic scientists. She found that in the majority of cases, the system treated women with derision. Police (like they continue to do today) asked victims what they had been wearing or why they had been out. An excerpt from one Chicago police training manual from 1973 still reads familiar to many:
Many rape complaints are not legitimate. It is unfortunate that many women will claim they have been raped in order to get revenge against an unfaithful lover or boyfriend with a roving eye.
Marty was disgusted by the attitudes surrounding her, but she was determined to make a change. She interviewed Chicago police, crime scene investigators, employees in the mayor’s office, nurses and people who worked in treating survivors. She realized standardized system of collecting evidence and storing it could help
She took her idea to Sergeant Louis Virtullo, a seasoned Chicago crime scientist. He rejected her idea — by some reports, even yelled at her — but Marty remained dedicated. She founded the Citizens Committee for Victim Assistance to fund her project, and her friend Christy Hefner even asked her famous father to contribute (the Playboy Foundation ultimately donated $10,000, around $50,000 in today’s dollars).
In 1978, Marty produced the first set of standardized rape kits and delivered them to 25 Chicago hospitals. Seeing the success of the invention, Sergant Virtullo produced similar kits and the state attorney praised these “Virtullo kits.” Friends said Marty noticed she’d been erased from the story, but she was willing to do whatever it took to get the kits used nationwide.
As Pagan Kennedy wrote in 2020, tracing Marty’s story and the origins of her invention:
Ms. Goddard had invented not just the kit, but a new way of thinking about prosecuting rape. Now, when a victim testified, she no longer did so alone. Doctors, nurses and forensic scientists backed up her version of the events — and the kit itself became a character in the trials. It, too, became a witness.
Add to your reading list:
A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America (T. Christian Miller, Ken Armstrong)
Unbelievable: Two Detectives Search for the Truth (T. Christian Miller, Ken Armstrong)
Read more:
The Secret History of the Rape Kit (The New York Times)
Decades’ worth of rape kits are finally being tested. No one can agree on what to do next. (The Washington Post)
The Woman Who Pioneered the Rape Kit (The New York Times)
A Nationwide Epidemic of Untested Rape Kits (The Atlantic)
Hear more:
An Oral History of the Crime Victim Assistance Field (University of Akron)
Anatomy of Doubt (This American Life)
Watch more:
The Hunting Ground (CNN)
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