For her own safety she just goes by the name of Marie. The former New Orleans stockbroker, who is now 60, was attacked and raped 18 years ago and the New Orleans police just never seemed to get a handle on it. No one ever really worked on the case.

Ten days after Marie was raped outside a friend’s home in New Orleans by a knife-wielding rapist, she called the detective working her case. She asked him if there were any leads or any suspects. The detective suggested that she just get on with her life, according to The Houston Chronicle. Marie asked him about any DNA evidence and whether her rape kit got tested. The detective told her that they had no money to process the rape kit.

Last year, USA Today did an independent investigation of 1,000 police departments across the nation. They found that there were over 70,000 rape kits sitting on shelves waiting to be tested. Most are simply neglected, as testing the kits is not a top priority for police. With over 18,000 police departments in the country, the number of untested kits is likely in the hundreds of thousands. This is on top of a painful and invasive exam the women must go through to produce some DNA evidence. The exam can last anywhere from four to six hours.

In the next three months following Marie’s rape her alleged rapist attacked and raped another six women including a 16-year-old girl. Marie’s began to feel that the New Orleans police were incompetent and uncaring. Marie says that the New Orleans cops  wanted her to stop calling and just fade away. She had become a problem for them. A 2010 investigation of the NOPD sexual crimes unit by the Justice Department found a “systemic breakdown” in handling sexual assault cases. They also discovered over 800 rape kits that had never been tested.

After Marie had been raped in some bushes, she was put through the DNA gathering exam, and that, essentially, was all that was done. Only through Marie’s efforts of 18 years was her rapist finally found and identified. After 10 years of hearing that nothing was new, a sympathetic cold case detective had Marie examined again and actually tested the kit. The test came back identifying Jimmie Spratt. Spratt was in prison in Tennessee and was on the verge of being released. That subsequently didn’t happen. Spratt was brought to Louisiana and prosecuted. He was convicted of three rapes and is now doing a life sentence in Louisiana’s Angola State Prison.

Over the course of her 18-year-ordeal, faces changed and new ones took their place in the New Orleans hierarchy. And then there was Hurricane Katrina, which put everything on hold again. Marie never quit. She refused to let her rapist get away with it. Today, Marie works as a rape activist and helps other women to bring their rapists to justice.