(WXYZ) — Deborah Wright was walking to work one day when she was abducted and raped. It's a case she thought would go cold, as she waited nearly three decades before her attacker was ever held accountable.
Wright tells me it's due to the relentless work from Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has worked to clear a backlog of untested rape kits.
"He was behind me and he was screaming at me, calling me all kinds of 'B' words, telling me to shut up, shut up, and I just kept saying that same prayer because if he was gonna blow my brains out, I was about to go meet my father in Heaven," Wright said.
WATCH BELOW: Hear more from Deborah Wright in the video below
In 1992, she was snatched off the street by a man who sexually assaulted her inside of an abandoned house on the city's west side.
She submitted rape kit hoping for justice, but instead, she was left waiting in agony for decades. She suffered as that kit – like thousands of others – sat in a Detroit police warehouse.
"You suck it up, and that's what I did. I sucked it up and I went on with my life, until Wayne County SAFE called me one day at work," she said.
The call came 26 years later. Prosecutors found her rape kit and it was going in for testing. It was a hope for justice long overdue, however, it also triggered trauma from the attack.
"It opens up Pandora's box and it takes you through an emotional rollercoaster that is never ending," she said.
Kalimah Johnson, the founder and executive director of The SASHA Center, said what Wright feels trauma from the sexual assault.
"They experience anger. They experience a need to push back. They experience a need to hide and be silent, and that silencing can do a whole lot to anybody," Johnson said.
This year marks 15 years since the 11,341 rape kits were found. Prosecutors have completed testing on all of them.
As of this week, 257 defendants have received justice for the abuse they endured, and the prosecutor's office said they are still committed to getting justice for other victims.
"They found my rape kit in an abandoned house and they tested it. They found him, and he was in a jail already in Kentucky for assaulting women. He's still in prison in Kentucky and then he'll come here and do 22 years in Wayne County," she said.
