Manhattan Road attacker concealed identity well

One of the most puzzling details of a recent home invasion and attack south of Limedale has been the victim's inability to provide a description of her assailant.

The recovering victim shed some light on this subject Tuesday afternoon, saying her attacker concealed his (or her) identity entirely by wearing an all-black bodysuit.

"He was -- I can't even say it was a he -- he was in solid black, like a spandex, like kids dressing up at the basketball games," she said. "All I could see was a nose and a facial feature, but I could not see hair. I couldn't tell you if it's a man or a woman, if he was black or white because he was totally in one of those spandex outfits -- his head, his arms, everything was solid jet black."

The Putnam County Sheriff's Department was dispatched to the home on Manhattan Road at 2:08 p.m Thursday. They found the victim badly beaten in the home and that the attacker had fled the scene.

Speaking to the Banner Graphic on condition of her anonymity, the victim described the portions of her attack she can remember.

"I came home from work a little bit before 2 o'clock," she said. "I came in the back door and when I walked through our living room, there was all kinds of mud on our hardwood floors. It stopped at the hallway. My first assumption one of the kids (had tracked mud in the house)."

Puzzled over the mud, she continued to the master bedroom, where she put down her bags after work. She then entered the adjoining bathroom, where she was attacked from her right side.

"He grabbed me and put his forearm underneath my throat. I had my hair up in a ponytail that day and he spun me around to the double glass (closet) doors, which is where I saw him. I didn't see him until he spun me around," the victim said.

"He kept his one arm under my chin and neck, and then took his other hand and smashed my head forward into the glass doors. That's the last thing I remember," she said.

Her next memory is of waking up amid the wreckage of her attack. Investigators told her an estimated 10 to 12 minutes passed between the attack and her call to 911.

"When I woke up, I was laying on top of the double glass doors and they were shattered everywhere," she said. "They were completely shattered, both the doors, off the hinges, laying down. And there was blood everywhere."

She estimated that only two or three minutes passed between her 911 call and the arrival of Putnam County Sheriff's Department personnel. Operation Life of Putnam County also responded to the scene. She was fitted with a neck brace, placed on a backboard and transported to Putnam County Hospital.

With a victim who was unconscious through most of her attack, investigators were left to piece together details based on damage to the home and the victim's injuries.

"The police said after investigating the mirror that it looked like he had slammed my head into the doors five times," she said.

A burn on her neck also revealed she was likely strangled during the attack.

"I've got some kind of a rope burn, a wire burn or something, that goes all the way from my right ear all the way around my throat, almost to the complete other side of my neck," she said.

She was released from Putnam County Hospital on Thursday evening, and continues to heal physically.

"From the glass, I've just got cuts up and down my hands and arms and on my forehead. (I have) a bruise on my leg. And my neck, it's raw all the way down to the second layer of skin," she said.

There is a lot more to the emotional recovery, though. The family has installed a security system in the house, but the unknown in the case remains frightening.

"He didn't steal anything so we don't even know why he was even in there," she said. "Nothing was stolen, he just beat the crap out of me."

She said the intruder easily could have taken electronics, her mobile phone or her wedding ring. Nothing is missing from the house, though.

"I would feel better knowing, 'OK, I surprised somebody during a robbery.' But nothing was stolen and that, more than anything, is what is hard for me (that) I don't know why," she said.

"I know he's still out there too."