The victim of a rape in broad daylight in Central Park’s Strawberry Fields gave a fiery interview to the New York Post yesterday after her shockingly brutal ordeal. Her account is terrifying, but she refuses to be terrified:
The 73-year-old was birdwatching in the park around 74th Street and Central Park west just before noon on Wednesday when she was approached by a man. She had taken a photo of the man masturbating in the Rambles section of the park a few days earlier and then refused to delete the photo when he confronted her.
Update: A rape suspect is in custody, says the Daily News, and the victim will attempt to pick him out of a lineup.
“You remember me?” he asked. She lied and said no, but he jumped on her.
He clearly wanted revenge, and he beat her and raped her, she said. Afterwards, he told her to count to 100 as he fled. She was eventually found by another birdwatcher. Tourists were all around, the birdwatcher said, but no one apparently saw or heard anything.
Just hours after the attack, the woman vowed to go back to the park, and not to be afraid.
“I’m not scared. I don’t want to lose that pleasure. I won’t let anything keep me from enjoying the park,” she said. “I’m not going back looking like this, but of course I’ll go back. It’s my park.
“I look like hell, but it will heal. I can see I’m alive,” she said.
As for her attacker, she wants him to die in the most horrible way possible.
“Kill him. Cut off his penis. That’s fine. Cut off his feet, then hit him over the head. Then give him life in prison…I hope he goes to jail for a long time, and he gets raped, over and over again.”
Police told the New York Times that they were speaking to a “person of interest” on Wednesday night.
A Central Park maintenance man told the Times he thinks he knows the victim: “She’s a nice, old lady, she don’t bother no one,” he said. “She’s always in there, sitting down on the same bench, trying to make sure the park is as nice as it should be.”
A nice, old lady. Tough as nails.
