As the police continue to investigate yesterday's broad daylight rape of a 73-year-old birdwatcher in Central Park, near the popular tourist attraction of Strawberry Fields, the victim is speaking out. The Post interviewed the woman, who was also beaten in the face and robbed, and she wasn't holding back, telling the tabloid, "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."
The victim, an Upper West Side resident, is a regular in the park—a park maintenance operator told the NY Times, "She’s a nice, old lady, she don’t bother no one. She’s always in there, sitting down on the same bench, trying to make sure the park is as nice as it should be." Apparently she spotted the same man—described as a white man in his 40s or 50s, possibly with a Russian accent—a week and a half ago masturbating. She believes recounted to the Post:
Despite a broken eye socket, a badly blackened eye and other bruises and scrapes, the professional photographer spoke just hours after the brutal attack at the hands of the same sicko she saw “in the Ramble a week or 10 days ago . . . and he was masturbating.”
“He turned around and I took his picture. He followed me and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble,’ ” she recalled. “He said to me, ‘Why you take my picture?’ . . . He was either Russian or Slavic,” the woman said. She refused his demand to give her the “film,” noting, “It’s all digital.”
Yesterday morning in the park, the same “guy comes over to me and says, ‘You remember me?’ “And I said ‘no.’ But of course I did. “He pounced on me. He jumped on my back . . . I started screaming. And he said, ‘You don’t scream!’ And he grabbed my throat.
“I still screamed. ‘He said, ‘I’ll cut your jugular!’ I stopped screaming.” Then “he raped me — vaginally and rectally. Brutally,” she said. "Afterward, he repeated, 'I’ll cut your jugular. He mashed my head into the dirt.' He said, 'You stay there and count to 100.' I counted to 100.”
She also said she's not afraid of going to the park, "I’m not scared. I don’t want to lose that pleasure. I won’t let anything keep me from enjoying the park. 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." And she added, "I hope he goes to jail for a long time, and he gets raped, over and over again."
Her attacker stole her knapsack, which held her camera. She was found by another birdwatcher, NYU instructor Eric Ozawa, who called 911. Ozawa mentioned that she said that she had to count to 100, but she seemed "self-possessed and lucid."
Police released a video of a man wanted for questioning (below) and NBC New York reports that there is someone being questioned—though its unknown if it's the suspect—today.
Video of man wanted for questioning in Central Park rape from Gothamist on Vimeo.
While the victim did not report the masturbation incident to police, cops are looking to see if she downloaded images from the other week, in case they help with the investigation.
