Louis Vitullo
Louis Vitullo investigates a knife supposedly used by Richard Speck in the murder of eight nurses.
Born	1924
Died	January 3, 2006 Barrington, Illinois
Occupation	police sergeant, microanalist

Louis R. Vitullo (1924?- January 3, 2006 ^[1]) was a Chicago police sergeant and later became chief microanalyst at the city's crime lab.^[2] He is best known as the first person to standardize evidence collection in cases of sexual assault, which until then was not done in a systematic fashion. The resulting evidence kits were initially called Vitullo kits ^[1] and continued to be known as such even after his name was officially removed from them.^[2] Nowadays, they're more commonly known as sexual assault evidence kits (SAEK) or rape kits for short.

[edit] Death

Vitullo died at Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington^[3] on January 3, 2006 after he collapsed at his home in Cary. He was survived by his wife Betty and his children Robert and Joanne.^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Obituary for Louis R. Vitullo at lastlinkontheleft.com (accessed October 19, 2006).
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Crime lab expert developed rape kits: Standard system to collect" by Chris Fusco, Chicago Sun-Times (published January 12, 2006; accessed October 19, 2006).
3. ^ "Man who invented rape kit dies" by Karen Long, Northwest Herald (accessed October 19, 2006). (Google cache version)

This U.S. biographical article related to crime is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e