MAY 15 | 6:30pm at McNally Jackson Seaport
The History and Future of the Rape Kit
Pagan Kennedy & Ilse Knecht
moderated by Sarah Weinman
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In the 1970s, an activist named Marty Goddard pioneered a new crime-solving tool — a kit that could help rape survivors fight for justice. Now, five decades after its invention, the rape kit is used in almost every corner of the world. The data inside these kits has revealed the existence of serial predators and helped to free innocent men from prison. Panelists will discuss the enormous potential of this forensic system — along with the chilling threats to its very existence.
Pagan Kennedy is the author of eleven books. Her journalism has appeared in dozens of publications, and she has worked as a columnist for the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Globe Magazine, and The Village Voice. She has co-produced and authored a serial podcast for Radiotopia network that won a Webby Award. She has also been awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, an NEA Fellowship, a Smithsonian Fellowship, and two Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowships.
Ilse Knecht is the Director of Policy & Advocacy at the Joyful Heart Foundation. She has invested 20 years in victim advocacy and is a nationally-recognized expert on the rape kit backlog. She leads Joyful Heart’s End The Backlog campaign, which is at the forefront of identifying untested rape kits across the country, appealing for laws and policies to improve criminal justice responses to sexual violence; and working with jurisdictions to assist them to develop and implement survivor-centered reforms. Previously, Ilse spent 16 years at the National Center for Victims of Crime, where she created the DNA Resource Center and led the center’s efforts to reform policies and practices related to testing rape kits. She credits her mother with instilling a duty in her to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Sarah Weinman is the author of three books: Without Consent (forthcoming from Ecco in November 2025), Scoundrel, and The Real Lolita. She has also edited several anthologies, most recently Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning. Weinman writes the Crime & Mystery column for the New York Times Book Review and lives in Manhattan.