Walk home turns into near-rape terror for student

It was nine o'clock Saturday night, September 26. Kim had just bought a quart of milk at WaWa and prepared to walk the half-block to her apartment building at 4029 Walnut Street. She had made the trip so many times before, she never thought this time would be any different. She never imagined a man would force her into her own home, back her into a common hallway and try to rape her. But that's exactly what happened. The College junior was just a few feet away from her door when a stranger approached her. The man told her she was "looking good." Kim, which is not her real name, said she began to feel nervous. She reached the steps of her building and thought if she could just get inside, she would be safe. As the key turned in the lock, she stepped inside – but when she tried to close the door behind her, he forced it open. "By this time, I was looking straight at him," she said. "He was a black man about five-eight. He looked dirty and his eyes were glazed over and really watery. He reeked of body odor and alcohol." The man told her to open the door to the basement. He threatened "to hurt" her if she didn't comply. "At this point I ran," Kim said. "I ran down the stairs and tried to open the door to my apartment, but before I got to the door, he grabbed me from behind. He covered my mouth because I was screaming." The man then dragged her over to an enclave where two washers and dryers sat out of view from the main doorway. When she asked what he wanted, the man said "take your pants off." "I said, 'No, no. What do you want from me,'" Kim said. "Then he remembered that maybe he should take some cash. He took whatever I had. I didn't have very much. I told him to please leave now." But she said the man kept telling her to take off her pants, that they were going "to make love." "I said, 'No, please don't do this,' and started talking to stall for time," Kim said. "I told him that I had been hurt before – in a similar way to what he was going to do to me. This was true. A couple of months ago a friend hurt me in this way." Kim said the man stopped and asked what had happened. "I said, 'You don't need to know that, but you see it's wrong for someone to have done that, right?'" Kim said. "'And it's wrong for you to do to me, right?'" The man backed away from her and apologized, saying he didn't mean to scare her. They talked for several minutes. Kim asked him why he was doing this and he said he was "sad and lonely." "I was getting relieved, thinking that he might leave," Kim said. "But he got that look again. He looked me up and down." He asked her to "come closer" and when she refused, he grabbed her wrists. She told him to stop, but he only became angrier and more aggressive. "He pushed me up against the wall and tried to unbuckle my belt," Kim said. "I started kicking and screaming, but he had a really good grip on me." She said she heard people come in and out of the building, but no one seemed to hear and no one came to her aid. Kim struggled and hit him twice in the eye, but he did not loosen his grip. Then she tried to kick him in the groin, but missed. "He said he was going to cut my throat if I did that one more time," she said. "He started calling me a 'fucking bitch' and kept saying 'I'm going to fuck you now.' "This was when I was really scared. I had already tried to hurt him twice and it hadn't worked. I went for his eye one last time. I remember going forward as hard as I could." The man was stunned just long enough for her to free herself and head for the street. She stopped the first person she saw, who happened to be a student at a local community college, and together they called the police. The next three hours, she said, were filled with a nightmare of Philadelphia police interrogations. She was left in a poorly-lit room at the Philadelphia Sex Crimes Unit for nearly two hours. No one told her what was going on or how long she would have to wait. When a Philadelphia police officer finally sat down to interview her, the female officer was abrupt and unsympathetic, Kim said. Kim did not know the University provides immediate help for victims of sex crimes, since the Philadelphia police did not contact University Police – who would have dispatched a Victim Support counselor to the scene. It was only several days later, when she wandered into Victim Support on her own, that she got the services she needed the night of the attack. "[Victim Support Assistant Director] Rose Hooks was wonderful," Kim said. "She referred me to counseling services and helped me find somewhere on campus to live." The next day, a Philadelphia police officer called Kim and told her they had arrested a man who matched her description. Jesse Stroud of North 37th Street has been charged in connection with the attack. "I was happy, but I was also scared," she said. "The officer told me I would have to testify at a preliminary hearing and that the process could take anywhere from three months to two years." In retrospect, Kim said she thinks she is lucky, considering what could have happened. "Isn't that funny to say I'm thankful I was almost raped?" she said. "It still scares me when I think about it. I'm always looking over my shoulder, thinking I'll see him there."

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