[somber music playing]
I worked at a utility company.
It was, um, a night shift.
Um... um...
5:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. in the morning.
[foreboding music playing]
[subway tracks rattling]
The stop right before mine,
Lafayette Street,
um, a man steps into the train.
He sat across from me and he didn't say anything,
but he just began to just stare at me.
He had his hand in his pocket,
and then my first thought is, "Oh, my God,
does this guy have a gun or something?"
I got and I moved away,
and then just as I moved away,
my stop came.
I kind of bristly walked away from the subway
without trying to seem too frightened by him,
'cause I didn't want him to feel...
I didn't want be intimidated by him.
[foreboding music playing]
I'm riding home my normal route on the subway,
and the same man from the previous night
steps onto the train at the same stop.
And then my heart stopped, 'cause then I realize
this-- he's doing this on purpose.
And it-- it's beginning to escalate.
He leaned over and, you know, he sat with his legs open,
as if to say, "Yes, I'm sizing you up,"
without saying it.
[music intensifies]
[tracks rattling faintly]
[Denise]
And I... [sighs]
It's over. Whatever that issue was,
it's resolved.
It's gone, it's over.
I push the door,
and I'm standing in the vestibule.
I hear footsteps behind me,
and I turn around...
Fear just washed over me
when I realize it's him, it's the man from the subway
from the two nights prior,
and I realize he's followed me home.
[eerie music playing]
We're not even two feet apart,
maybe-- maybe inches apart,
and he's looking down at me,
'cause he's six-one and I'm five-two
and I'm wearing flat shoes,
so I literally have to look up at this man.
I backed into the corner,
I tried to back into the corner that was furthest from him,
but it's a very small vestibule.
I'm trying to decide, do I show fear?
Do I fight? Do I-- What do I do?
He reaches inside the coat
and he brandishes this knife.
It's the kind of knife you use
when you're carving a turkey at Thanksgiving.
It's a huge knife.
He pushes it up under my chin,
so his elbow is propped up under my chin,
then he takes the knife and he has it under there.
I'm looking around, trying to get near
the mailbox, 'cause underneath the mailbox,
there were buzzers for each apartment.
He tells me to stand away from the mailbox.
Still not yelling at me,
not raising his voice.
He's trying to be very quiet,
but he has that controlled, monotone-type voice
where it gave me the impression that this man
has done this many times before.
He lifted my head almost up,
and that gave him the room
to put the knife immediately under there.
And then he asked me for money.
And I'm like...
"This is all to mug me?"
I'm thinking...
"Okay, this is over.
All he wants is some money.
He's following me to see if I had money."
He's rifling through the purse and he pulls out my wallet.
I'm thinking, "Okay, this is life in New York.
You're gonna get mugged."
And... "I can-- I can get through this.
I can get through this if I just let him have
what he wants and he'll go away."
But that's not what happened.
He says to me, "Who's upstairs?"
And I'm like, "If this guy thinks he's getting in my house,
he's out of his mind."
So obviously I lied
and I said, "My family's waiting for me upstairs.
There's people upstairs."
So he was trying to figure out if I was lying
or if I was telling the truth.
I knew enough to know
that I should not allow him to get me
to a more secluded location.
We're still very close.
I mean, so close we could feel each other's breath
on each other because now he's pushed up against me
against this wall.
And then he tells me to get down on the floor
of the vestibule, and still,
it doesn't register in my mind
what-- "What else do you want?
I gave you my money,
you've intimidated me,
you've controlled the situation, you had everything you wanted."
And then he tells me to remove my skirt.
It was like a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde moment
where his-- whatever switch he had,
it was-- it was flipped.
And now, he's more evil.
He's yelling at me,
he's-- he's growling at me,
he's pulling me down by my clothing,
and he's ripping my blouse.
I'm whimpering, I'm crying,
I know exactly what he's-- what he's trying to do now.
I had on a light jacket
and I was wearing a skirt, and, you know,
you have on pantyhose and all these things
that you have to take off to get undressed.
So I'm trying to go as slowly as possible
with the hope that someone from the building
might come in,
or someone might walk by and see
that there's a man on the floor
and-- and investigate.
But that wasn't to be.
I would feel the blade more closely under my neck.
I was able to feel my skin separating,
and I could-- you could feel the open wound
starting to develop,
so I didn't want to agitate him any further.
And I realize at that moment
that I had to comply with this
or he would just slit my throat right there.
And...
the feeling of loss of control is-- is--
it's just indescribable.
That I had to consent to this stranger
violating me in the most brutal way.
All of my things are-- are scattered around me,
and I'm on this floor,
and this is when realize
that, for a surety, he's done this before.
Because when he exposes himself,
he's not wearing any underwear.
He's not-- he is ready to do this attack.
At this point, he's attacking me.
He's actually penetrated me,
and I'm thinking to myself,
I'm-- I'm crying, audibly loud,
and every now and then he's telling me to shut up,
and he's calling me a B,
and he's saying if I make any more noise
he's gonna effing kill me.
He's gonna take this knife and he's--
you know, he's explaining how gory
he's going to go through this motion of killing me.
And I'm laying there, and I'm like... [scoffs]
"What is the better route? Do you-- do you--
Do I wanna die on the floor
as a victim,
or do I want to live with the stigma
of actually being raped?"
In the middle of being raped,
I feel the door hitting me.
The outside door.
And a person is pushing against the door.
And I look up and I see my neighbor.
[suspenseful music plays]
He pushes his way-- keeps pushing the door
until he pushed his way out.
My neighbor had his ten-year-old daughter with him.
He pushes her behind him.
That's when he runs away.
He never really talks to the neighbor.
He just ran away.
[ominous music playing]
About four days into the week that I stayed home from work,
I get a call from the police.
And they wanted me to come and identify,
to see if can identify this person in a line-up,
so I went there and, lo and behold,
he was there.
And, um, I identified him,
and I asked them how did they catch him?
And they went into how the next night,
he attacked a 13-year-old
in another building.
[somber music plays]
I survived because God intervened
and He sent someone to upset the attack.
'Cause there was nothing else I could've done
to save myself.