Mariska Hargitay's crime-solving efforts have been left off-screen.
On NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” the actress plays Olivia Benson, a detective who investigates sex crimes in Manhattan. But in recent years, she has also played a pivotal role in helping to clear the national backlog of rape kits, according to a Thursday episode of the series. “Deadline: Weekly True Crimes” The podcast reveals it.
The podcast tells the story of Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy, who in 2009 discovered more than 11,000 untested rape kits gathering dust in a police evidence room. Each kit represented a sexual assault reported to the Detroit Police Department between 1984 and 2009, said podcast host Andrea Canning.
Worthy, who was horrified by the police's dismissal of what was “basically a crime scene,” made it her “mission” to have the kits tested. But with each test costing between $1,200 and $1,500, “we're talking about millions and millions of dollars,” Worthy said. She started a campaign to raise the money to test the kits, but it wasn't enough.
That's when Hargitay stepped in.
The Emmy Award-winning actress, who for years supported survivors of sexual assault through her nonprofit organization Happy Heart Foundationtestified with Worthy before Congress in 2017 on national rape kit reform.
“After we finished testifying, I grabbed her and asked her to come to Detroit to help us,” Worthy said on the podcast. “She said she would do it and she did.”
“We had a breakfast where we invited the legislators who weren’t returning my calls,” he continued. “She showed up and took pictures with all of them. And I assure you that the legislation that helped us solve this problem in Michigan passed without a hitch.”
It took 13 years of fundraising and advocacy, but by the fall of 2022, they had tested all 11,000 kits and solved more than 5,000 cases. They also uncovered 22 serial rapists, Canning told The Associated Press. Today in an interview on Tuesday.
“It’s having a ripple effect across the country,” Canning said. “It’s creating changes everywhere, in police departments and in prosecutors’ offices.”
Worthy and Hargitay’s efforts are also detailed in the 2018 HBO documentary “I Am Evidence,” which Hargitay produced and in which she appears.
“A lot of people just don’t know about this problem, and I was one of those people,” Hargitay says in the film. “And then you meet people like Kym Worthy and you see what she’s doing. You can’t help but say, ‘What am I doing?’”
Hargitay's collaborators on the project, Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir, praised the actor for giving advocates like Worthy a platform.
“She is an extraordinary voice in this case. She used all her power to shed light on the darkness surrounding sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse,” Adlesic said.
“She watched the film over and over again and made sure everything was done right. A lot of people in her position may not be as involved, but she was very involved and gave a lot of herself,” Gandbhir said.
