Rape Kit Sat News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Groups like these hold. we'll stay on top of this for you. we've been looking back at some of the stories we're most proud of one of them a national story that we report order in june. hundreds of thousands of rape kits left untest and sitting on shelves allowing perpetrators to go free and leaching rape survivors with nothing to back their stories. since we reported on this issue, there has been strong reformrape survivors with nothing to back their stories. since we reported on this issue, there has been strong reform and action. congress has budgeted $41 million to handle untested kits. ...

This evidence if i didn't think you were going to use it? >> something that might help megan's cause? $36 million in grants to help end the bag lock as part of the 2015 commerce justice and science bill. that is up for a vote later in the week. joining me now is sarah who -- and natasha, whose rape kit sat on a self-for nearly a decade. >> i heard this was a problem that just grew and grew and they didn't want to talk about for a long time. why the backlog? why for so long? >> it exists for two main reasons. one is resources. it takes a lot of money, time, and energy to test kits. but the prim...

Harmed. lavinia masters' case had gone cold, too. she had been raped at 13, back in 1985. >> i woke up with a knife to my throat and someone spreading my legs apart, ripping my underwear from me. >> reporter: her rape kit sat on a shelf for 21 years until lavinia called sergeant welsh. after 21 years, they first had to unearth your kit. how frustrating was that? >> i felt that i was on the shelf and i was forgotten about. >> reporter: a few months later, sergeant welsh got a hit. he showed lavinia a photo of the man who had raped her all those years ago. >> i was like oh, my god, that is him. ...

>> from the rach kits. >> reporter: and carole's case was one of them. just four months, four monthings after carole's kit was located and analyzed the man who raped her was identified. adding insult to injury, joseph houston couldn't be charged in carole's case because the statute of limitations had run out. it turns out after carole's rape, he kidnapped another woman and exposed himself to a child. carol believes if her rape kit had been analyzed years ago, her attacker might have been picked up and others wouldn't have been harmed. lovinia master's case had gone cold, too. she had been rape...

Had been analyzed years ago her attacker might have been picked up and others wouldn't have been harmed. livinia masters' case had been cold too. she had been raped at 13 back in 1985. >> i woke up with a knife to my throat and someone spreading my legs apart ripping my underwear from me. >> reporter: her rape kit sat on a shelf for 21 years until livinia called sergeant welch. after 21 years they first had to unearth your kit. how frustrating was that? >> i felt i was on the shelf and forgotten about. >> reporter: a few months later sergeant welch got a hit. he showed her a photo of the man w...