Wayne County Prosecutor reflects on 15 years of testing rape kits

(CBS DETROIT) - Fifteen years after more than 11,000 rape kits were found inside an abandoned warehouse in Detroit, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office remains committed to investigating the crimes.

"I am never going to stop as long as I am the Wayne County prosecutor, with getting justice for all of these women, all these victims, all of these survivors. They deserve nothing less," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said. "When you have over 11,000 women that were sexually assaulted, and again, they're not all women, 11,000 people that were sexually assaulted, people should be throwing money at you to fix this issue to make the street safer."

Back in 2009, more than 11,000 untested rape kits were discovered in an abandoned warehouse in Detroit during a time the city was facing what could have been the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Worthy said getting all the rape kits tested was no easy task because the city had no money.

"Lack of resources is no excuse," she said. "You have got to be able to go out and beat the bushes, which literally is what we did, and it didn't happen overnight. I went to every foundation, every place that I can think of that would help us raise the money to get these kids tested. You would think it wouldn't be hard, but it was."

Testing the 11,000 rape kits resulted in 257 convictions so far. It also identified 853 serial rapists that committed sexual assault in 39 different states.

This issue is personal for Worthy for many reasons, but one in particular stood out.

"The other issue was 86.3% of these kids belong to women of color. That was another thing," Worthy said. "In the criminal justice system, it seems, and I've been doing this for a long time, if you are a person of color, your life seems to have less value. So I was particularly passionate about that as well.

Ultimately, Worthy said race and ethnicity are not the focus, but rather building back trust in victims who have long been afraid to report their sexual assault because of unfortunate situations like this.

"We hope that now that because we've done this work and we let people know we're doing this work and that we care about doing this work, we want to not only bring justice to as many people as we can, not just in that group, but always, that they will have a much better trust and belief in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office and the legal systems we have here," she said.