Morton Grove Leader Outraged Rapists Not Being Pursued More Extensively

"Test400K" sounds like something high tech. But it's not.

It refers to the fact Human Rights Watch estimated 400,000 rape kits (DNA samples of rapists taken from rape victims) sit languishing, mostly in police storage rooms across the country, never tested, and consequently never bringing those rapists to justice or locking them up to prevent future rapes.

So say Julie Smolyansky, CEO of a national, Morton Grove-based company, Lifeway Foods, and her life partner Jason Burdeen, who co-founded Test400K, on their website.

Smolyansky, who was a rape crisis counselor before joining her father's company, according to the Test400K website, wrote, "It means that victims are denied due process and their attackers are free to cause harm again. Even worse, the UN estimates that one out of three women worldwide will be raped, beaten or murdered in their lifetime. Test400k aims to be a force for change.”

Through Test400K, Smolyansky and Burdeen hope to reduce the backlog, devise a means of testing every rape kid and try to use newer DNA technology in the testing, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

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