The victim in a terrifying caught-on-video strangulation and rape on a Bronx street recounted hair-raising details of the May 1 ambush, and said the fiend who attacked her was a stranger.
“What happened that night, I was walking and he saw me and he grabbed me by the neck with a belt. He pulled me,” the woman told the Daily News Friday. “And he dragged me.”
Chilling images released by police this week show the masked rapist following the woman on E. 152nd St. near Courtlandt Ave. in Melrose at about 3:00 a.m., then throwing a looped belt around the victim’s throat and pulling her to the ground before hauling her between two parked cars.
The woman’s hands clutched at her neck, trying to free herself.
“He didn’t say anything. I didn’t see him coming up behind me. I didn’t notice him,” the woman said, sitting on a building ledge alongside a cart of her belongings, a cap partly hiding a purple bruise on her left eye.
She said she had been on her way to a friend’s house when she was attacked, and her mind went blank when she felt the belt go around her neck.
“I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t talk or say nothing. The shock.”
After the assault the woman took herself to Lincoln Hospital, where she was treated and released.
Police released additional photos of the suspect on Friday that showed his face after scouring the area for more surveillance footage. Cops recovered images of the man that show him without the white towel covering his face during the late-night attack.
The victim said she did not know the man who assaulted her.
“The cops showed me pictures. I didn’t recognize him.”
Other women in the area were aware of the attack, some having seen photos of it, and were shaken, they said Friday.
“It’s horrifying. It’s disgusting,” said one 57-year-old woman who did not share her name. “I saw it. I saw what he did. He lassoed her up like an animal. Like a horse, like on the rodeo,” she said, shaking her head.
Another said although she felt safe enough to walk in the area, she avoided doing so late at night.
“I thought it was disturbing. It was very disturbing. ‘Cause who would do something like that? He’s got a mother, too. He’s got grandmothers,” said Sharon Hendison, 60, who lives in a nearby women’s shelter.
A woman who gave her name as Carmen, 57, said the attacker was “unafraid.”
“We have to be careful, you don’t know who is behind you.”
