Marty Goddard

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, 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.

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.