Martha "Marty" Goddard (c. 1941 – 2015) was an American crime victims' advocate who was instrumental in developing the rape test kit, used to methodically collect forensic evidence from victims of rape.

Life

In the early 1970s, Goddard worked as a victims' advocate in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, where an estimated 16,000 women were raped each year and police often would not believe victims. Only a tenth of this number were reported, and they rarely resulted in imprisonment of the attacker. She learned from the police that the evidence collected in hospitals from rape victims was often incomplete or poorly gathered. To improve the chances of offenders being identified and sentenced, she developed the concept and organization of a rape kit, a standardized way of collecting and preserving forensic evidence from victims of rape. She brought this idea to

Louis R. Vitullo Louis R. Vitullo (July 2, 1924 – January 3, 2006) was a Chicago police sergeant and chief microanalyst at the city's crime lab.

, who worked in the Chicago police crime lab. At first, he yelled at her and rejected her idea, according to Goddard's colleague Cynthia Gehrie, but then he proceeded to develop a kit similar to Goddard's design, taking personal credit for the invention. In the mid-1970s, Goddard founded the Citizens Committee for Victim Assistance, which advocated and sought funding for the distribution of rape kits; much of the initial funding came from the

Playboy Foundation The Playboy Foundation is a corporate-giving organization that provides grants to non-profit groups involved in fighting censorship and researching human sexuality. It gives grants and in-kind contributions, such as advertising space in the ''Playb ...

. Goddard continued to advocate for the rights of sexual assault victims through the 1980s, but developed a problem with alcohol and lived her later years in obscurity in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. She died in 2015.

Legacy

In the years after its development, the Vitullo Kit was introduced as a tool to collect evidence at over a hundred hospitals in Illinois by the Citizens Committee for Victim Assistance. One of these early Vitullo Kits was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution.Antonia Mufarech
Invented by a Woman Activist, an Early 1970s Rape Kit Arrives at the Smithsonian
''Smithsonian Magazine'', 9 May 2022Vitullo Evidence Collection Kit for Sexual Assault Examination
at

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...

web site

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goddard, Marty 1940s births 2015 deaths Sexual abuse victim advocates