In 1972, Martha "Marty" Goddard volunteered at a crisis hotline, counseling girls who had been molested. By the end of the decade, she had launched a campaign pushing hospitals and police departments to collect evidence of sexual assault and treat survivors with dignity. She designed a new kind of forensics tool--the rape kit--and new practices of evidence collection that spread across the country. Yet even as Marty fought for women's rights, she allowed a man to take credit for her work and then vanished into obscurity. The Secret History of the Rape Kit chronicles one journalist's mission to understand a crucial innovation and the problematic history of forensics in America. As Pagan Kennedy hunts for answers to the mystery of Marty Goddard, she reflects on her own experiences with sexual assault and her desire for justice.
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