Can Detroit, UPS partnership combat rape kit backlog?

Hundreds of thousands of sexual assault victims around the country have gone through the humiliation of medical exams to obtain the DNA of their alleged attackers, only to have the evidence sit unused and not analyzed in a warehouse or on a shelf for years, sometimes decades.

But now, metro Detroit may have found a way to combat the problem that has plagued cities from Cleveland to New York to Jacksonville, Fla. The Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor's Office has teamed up with United Parcel Service to create a system that will prevent valuable DNA evidence from being abandoned once it's collected. The system, known as UPS Trackpad, uses the same technology as UPS package tracking and allows officials and government staffers to know where assault evidence sits at any point in the collection process and what has been done to it at any given point.

RELATED: Where's the outrage over Detroit's abandoned rape kits?

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy was set to announce the partnership on Monday.

"Justice can't be served if key forensic evidence is locked away and forgotten," Worthy said in a statement.

Worthy's office and UPS are hoping their success might create an opportunity for other communities around the country to successfully attack their problem with backlogged evidence from sexual assaults.

In recent years, the issue has come to light as communities have revealed that evidence sits languishing due to tight funding for lab work, disorganization or lack of ways to keep track of the material. Last week, the U.S. House approved including $45 million in the proposed fiscal year 2016 spending bill to go toward ending the backlog of sexual assault kits. There are 400,000 untested sexual assault kits sitting dormant across the country, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In Detroit, the issue came to light in 2009, when a government employee discovered more than 11,000 sexual assault kits -- 11,341 to be exact -- sitting in a Detroit warehouse leased by local government. Some of the kits had been there 30 years

The Wayne County program with UPS, launched in January, has yielded some success. To date, 10,000 of the kits found in that warehouse have been tested. As of May 29th, 326 suspected serial sex offenders have been identified in 32 states based on those tested kits. Eighteen convictions have come about as a result of the new evidence as of May 31st, Worthy's office says.

Bad things happen when samples provided by rape victims go untested, officials say. Sometimes, suspects who could have been identified by DNA go on to commit more sexual crimes. The following story is one example.

In the early morning hours of Sept. 8, 2003, a woman walked to a Detroit bus stop alone after having a fight with her boyfriend. Makalani Daniels drove up in a car, pointed a gun out the window at the woman and ordered her to get in the car, according to the prosecutor's office. The woman complied, afraid for her life.

Daniels took the woman to an isolated area and sexually assaulted her, later pushing her out of the car. The woman contacted police from the home of a nearby relative and went to the hospital, where samples were taken from her body. From that day in 2003 until 2012, the samples the woman gave sat on a shelf and went untested.

As the evidence sat, Daniels went on to commit two more sexual assaults in 2009 and the sexual assault kit from that first victim was not tested until 2012. Daniels has since been identified in five more sexual assaults taking place between 1995 and 2014, according to the prosecutor's office.

He was convicted and sentenced in December with criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping in regards to the first victim. He is awaiting trial for similar charges involving victim number four.

Said Worthy of the new program, "As law enforcers in this county, we knew we had to improve the system."