Published Sunday, December 06, 2009

Pinson Street rapist still at large

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Two months after a 90-year-old woman was raped, beaten and cut in her Pinson Street home, the perpetrator is still at large, and police are at a dead end.

"At this point, we have followed all the leads we have," said Deputy Chief Rodney Riggs of the Newnan Police Department.

"It is still an open case, but, at this point, we don't have any active leads."

On the morning of Sept. 28, a niece who checks on the woman daily found her bleeding and incoherent on her bedroom floor.

The crime could have occurred anytime during the 24-hour period between when the niece checked on the woman on Sunday, Sept. 27 and returned the following Monday.

The victim, who lived alone on Pinson Street near the three-way-stop with Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, had multiple cuts on her abdomen.

The cuts may have formed a pattern of some kind, either a phrase or some symbols, possibly a message.

"We couldn't make it out," said another niece of the victim, Connie Patrick. Patrick, who is not the niece who discovered the elderly woman, said other relatives thought it was a particular phrase, but "it didn't say that to me," Patrick said.

Patrick said it appeared to her the wounds could have been made with either the point of a knife or a razor blade. The wounds were fairly superficial but were deep enough doctors had to glue them back together.

Riggs would not release any details on the possibility of a message in the cuts.

"There is a lot of rumor and speculation," Riggs said. "I'm not going to confirm or deny that anything was written on her at all."

Patrick said her aunt was also beaten on the face. Her face and lip were swollen; her eye stayed bloody for over a week.

Hopes are that someone will come forward with information that will lead to the arrest of the woman's attackers. The victim's home is visible from MLK at the three-way-stop, and anyone who saw anything suspicious in the area on Sept. 27 or Sept. 28 is urged to contact the Newnan Police Department at 770-254-2343.

The police department questions people who live in the area anytime they get an opportunity, Riggs said.

Anyone who has any information that might help solve the case is urged to report it. Call the police department with "any information, however small it is," Riggs said.

The victim hasn't been able to provide much information about the identity of her assailant.

In fact, "she doesn't seem to recall it even happening," said her nephew, Martin Cook.

Soon after the incident, when detectives came to visit the victim, she told them that a white man had come to her home, offering to paint the inside of her house, Patrick said. The victim said the man sat on her couch and took his pants off. But when officers asked if the man touched her or hurt her, she said he did not.

In the hospital, Patrick said, her aunt had mentioned a woman's name, asking that woman to help her.

Other than those two bits of information, Patrick said, her aunt hasn't said anything else about the crime.

Patrick said she feels like more than one person was involved in the attack. "Somebody had to help ... I will never believe one person did it," Patrick said.

After the incident, the victim's family moved her to a nursing home.

Now, "she is doing wonderfully. She said she loves her new home" and is eating well, Patrick said. "That's one thing good about it. She is in good hands, she likes her new home. She's going around there seeing about other patients," Patrick said. "We're taking good care of her, and she looks good."

Cook is glad his aunt is much safer now than she was alone in the home where she had lived for many years.

"She is adjusting well to the home, and we are aware that she has 24-hour care," he said. He said he blames himself for not trying harder to talk her into moving into a home before now.

He is dedicated to finding her assailant.

"I have absolutely no intention" of letting the perpetrator get away with this crime, Cook said.

The victim was known for having a lot of friends, Patrick said, and could often be seen sitting on her front porch with several pet cats. Her aunt had never driven a car and walked everywhere she went. She would walk to the stores at Five Points, and often walked to downtown Newnan with two other ladies from the neighborhood.

"She was well known ... that's why everybody couldn't understand why people would do that," Patrick said. "She didn't bother anybody."

A "person of interest" in the crime was announced days after it occurred, but he was soon cleared of any involvement.

Cook wants to make sure people know the person or people actually responsible are still out there.

Patrick hopes that, as her aunt feels more comfortable and safe in her new environment, her memory will start to come back.

"Every time I go over there, I try to bring it up," Patrick said.