THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020484
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940602 LENGTH: PORTSMOUTH
She never made it. In the parking lot of the apartment complex, shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, she was abducted by a man who held her at knifepoint as he drove through the normally peaceful Park View neighborhood.
{REST} At first, he bound her hands and threatened to rape her. Then he promised to let her go unharmed.
Finally, in a wooded area on a dead-end street in West Park View, he slit her throat.
``He grabbed my hair from behind, pulled back my head, and cut my throat,'' the woman said Wednesday at her Portsmouth home. She said doctors treating her at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital stopped counting at 150 stitches.
``After I fell to the ground, he started sawing at my neck like it was a piece of wood,'' she said. ``He was going nonstop. He wouldn't stop cutting me. He didn't show me any mercy.''
The woman, who on Wednesday was still visibly shaken by the assault and asked that she not be identified, was able to escape only by pretending to be dead.
``There is no doubt about it,'' she said. ``He wasn't going to let me out alive.''
A nearby resident, Orlen Stauffer of the 1700 block of Barron St., heard the woman's screams and headed toward the end of Barron Street.
``I was running toward the scream . . .,'' Stauffer said. ``It sounded like somebody was being murdered.''
The woman had managed to scramble to her feet after the man hacked at her neck and kicked her in the head. She ran to the nearest house, about 30 feet away.
The homeowner, Martin Smith-Rodden, also of the 1700 block of Barron St., heard screaming that he first thought was coming from the television. Smith-Rodden went to the back door and found a woman with her hands bound behind her back, bleeding on his deck.
``I said, `Open the door and lock it, because here he comes,' '' the woman said.
Smith-Rodden, a photographer for The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, let her in, found a way to free her hands, and helped her call her parents and 911.
The woman told police that the man had approached her as soon as she got out of her car in the apartment complex parking lot.
``He was walking down the street and said, `How you doin',' '' the woman said. ``Before I knew it, he was there with a knife, forcing me into the car.''
The man bound her hands before pushing her into the car. He then crowded in beside her and drove to Crawford Parkway and into Park View.
``I told him not to hurt me and that it was my birthday,'' the woman said, ``and he asked me how old I was. When I said 21, he said, `You're not much older than me.' ''
After threatening several times to rape her, the man drove to the end of Barron Street and forced her out of the car and into a wooded area. He made her lie on the ground, and forced rolled-up socks into her mouth to keep her from screaming.
Then, she said, he seemed to change his mind. He told her to stand up and said that he was going to let her go unharmed.
``That's when he grabbed my hair and pulled the knife across my neck,'' she said. The man then began cutting her neck. After kicking her head and attempting to stab her in the chest, the man inexplicably stopped. As the woman struggled to her feet and ran away, the man drove away in her 1989 Ford Escort.
Police said the car has Virginia plates ZWM3810. The man is described as black, 5 feet 5 inches tall, in his late 20s, with scars or unhealed scratch marks on both sides of his face. Anyone with information is asked to call the Portsmouth Crime Line at 488-7777.
If caught, the man will be charged with carjacking, a federal, no-parole offense, as well as abduction, attempting to kill and armed robbery.
{KEYWORDS} ASSAULT ROBBERY
by CNB