Mariska Hargitay hasn’t reserved her impressive detective skills for the TV screen — she also solves some cases in real life too.
Recently, Dateline NBC’s Andrea Canning joined the Today show to discuss the newest episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly and revealed that Hargitay, 60, helped one Michigan prosecutor with thousands of sexual assault cases.
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star funded prosecutor Kym Worthy on her path to solving thousands of cases. Worthy first discovered that over 11,000 untested rape kits were sitting on a shelf in an evidence room. She took matters into her own hands and worked to get all of them tested.
However, money was needed to get all of these kits tested, and as Canning said, “So, who stepped in? None other than Law and Order’s Mariska Hargitay.”
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
Canning, 51, explained that the actress “helped them raise the money to get this done.” As a result, thousands of cases were solved and they discovered 22 serial rapists.
The Dateline broadcaster also noted that Worthy and Hargitay’s work is “having a ripple effect across the country [and] is making changes everywhere — for police departments for prosecutors’ offices.”
AP Photo/Paul Sancya
This isn’t Hargitay’s first time assisting real law enforcement. Earlier this year, in April, while filming one of the final episodes of season 25 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she was approached by a little girl who believed her to be a real police officer based on the badge she wore as part of her character’s outfit.
At the time, a witness told PEOPLE that the little girl had been separated from her mother in the Anne Loftus Playground in Fort Tryon Park and asked the actress for help. Hargitay obliged and then halted production for 20 minutes to help the child locate her mother and to console them both.
The witness noted that the young girl was both oblivious to the film crew and Hargitay’s scene partner, Ice-T.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC
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The Dateline True Crime Weekly episode will drop Thursday, Aug. 15 on NBC. Law & Order: SVU season 26 premieres Thursday, Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
