Woman Raped Near U Of M Seeking Justice For Attacker
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A young woman featured in a Star Tribune investigation says she is angry that the man who attacked her near the University of Minnesota campus in 2015 has never been arrested.
"My intent with sharing my story is really not to create any divides or distrust of law enforcement," Brooke Morath said. "It's more to highlight that there are undeniable issues and shortcomings."
Morath says she was brutally raped in a parking lot in March of 2015 near the U of M campus. Morath is one of many women featured in a Star Tribune article titled, "When Rape is Reported and Nothing Happens."
The article tracks more than 1,000 sexual assault cases. Of those cases, only seven percent resulted in a conviction.
The Star Tribune reported in their study of 1,000 Minnesota rapes, 75 percent were never forwarded to a prosecutor. Brooke Morath says she is one of those statistics.
"I was able to push away from him and I took off running," Morath said.
Now 24, Morath says her attack happened in a parking lot behind a Dinkytown home in late March of 2015, just after midnight.
"From the corner of my eye I noticed a man and he immediately lunged toward me and sprayed me in the eye with pepper spray, and then endured a pretty violent rape," Morath said.
Morath says Minneapolis police responded immediately, taking her to Hennepin County Medical Center for a rape examination. She was later stunned when investigators told her they were not able to come up with a complete DNA profile of her attacker that could be entered into a criminal database.
"So you are saying the sample from your attacker did not qualify to be entered into that data base?" WCCO's Esme Murphy asked Brooke.
"Right," Morath said.
Esme: "Either the state or the national?
Brooke: "Right."
Esme: "And did they explain why?"
Brooke: "They did not."
In the course of the investigation, Morath did see a mug shot that left her convinced she had found her attacker.
"I was instantly sent into a panic attack while at work actually," Morath said.
The suspect was convicted of other rapes in the Dinkytown area and is currently in prison, but investigators, based on the limited DNA evidence available, were able to exclude him as her attacker.
Morath is now studying for a Master degree in public health, and hopes someday her case can be resolved.
"I don't know if I am ever going to find out the truth, find out what happened with my case. But that is my intention now, to make sure it doesn't happen to other people," Morath said.
Minneapolis Police told WCCO, "The MPD is very deliberate in recognizing any comments made by the news media could jeopardize future convictions and potentially have the unintended consequences of re-victimizing a victim."
