From: sysapj@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Arturo P. Jimenez)
Subject: Crime Victim Stress
Summary: Female was attacked by intruder in her house
Keywords: crime victim stress rape fear
Organization: Georgia State University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 19:37:40 GMT

I have a female friend who is a single parent with two small boys living
alone in a house.  She is 22 years old, attractive and friendly.  Two days
ago, a white male between 25 and 30 years old broke into her house while
she was at home.  The following is the description of what happened during
the break-in.

The intruder first cut her telephone lines with a razor blade.  He then
jumped a 6 foot wooden fence which she has around her back yard.  She has
a small dog, a shelty, which stays in the yard.  The dog is non-aggressive
and simply ran to the far side of the yard and began barking.  The dog
began barking about twenty minutes after she had turned off her lights,
and she made her last successful phone call about 2 minutes prior to 
turning her lights out.  Since her dog very rarely barks, she had gotten
up to look out the window in her upstairs bed room.  As she looked out,
the back dining room window shattered down stairs.  The intruder broke
the upper window just above the lower window lock.  He opened the lock on
the lower window and lifted it up.  He then proceeded to the telephone in
the living room and lifted it off the hook, listened, and placed it down
next to the phone on the telephone stand.  The victim picked up her phone
to call me, I live two doors down, and realized the phone was dead.  Next,
she ran out of her bedroom onto a balcony which overlooks the living  
room.  She began screaming "Get out of my house!"  He, at that point, ran
up the stairs and knocked her down.  She doesn't remember exactly how he
knocked her down, but she has several bruises on her back where she hit 
the door frame of her bedroom.  In the meantime, her smallest boy, 4 years 
old, had come out of his room and was sitting on the floor in front of her
room.  The mother fell over the child.  The intruder grabbed her and 
pulled her up.  She continued screaming.  He placed his hand firmly and
tightly over her mouth and nose.  He said "Please be quiet mam.  I'm not
gonna hurt you."  She then pretended to faint.  He loosen his grip on
her mouth and nose.  She began screaming again.  At that point, he began
dragging her down the stairs.  She partially resisted being pulled but
not strongly.  Once he got her into the living room, she began saying
that he could take what he wanted but not to hurt her or her kids.  He
seemed nervous and paced back to the dining room window which he had 
broken.  He looked both ways out the window.  He then turned back to her
and said "Were's your pocket book mam."  She replied in a dazed voice,
"I don't know."  He then jumped out the window and went back over the
fence.

The intruder was wearing blue jeans, work boots or tennis shoes, a bulky
mid-thigh length jacket, a ski mask, and either leather or vinyl gloves.
The gloves smelled of gasoline.  Through the mouth hole in the ski mask,
she noticed he had either large or bucked front teeth.  He also had a
sandy blond mustache or stubble on his upper lip.  He was approximately
6 ft tall and weighed 185 lbs.  He had a semi-heavy southern accent.  He
had mud on his shoes and appeared to have come from the direction of a 
swamp which is between her neighborhood and some government housing.
Her house is in the $80,000 range.  She has a single Ford Taurus which
is about 4 years old and was parked in front of the house.  The car was
plainly visible from the side of the house where the telephone lines
were cut.  The sides of the house and the back yard were not illuminated
at the time of the break-in.  The house was also completely dark on the
inside.  There were no full curtains on the back dining room windows
were the intruder entered.  There was also a sliding glass door next to
the window leading to the kitchen.  The sliding glass door does have
curtains.  The intruder seemed to have a significant amount of dirt/mud
on him.  He left mud stains on the wall where he cut the phone line, he
left mud tracks on the carpet where he walked/ran through the house.  He
also left dirt stains on a pillow which was at the door to her bedroom.
She is not sure if he kneeled or fell on it when he knocked her over.

The two next door neighbors heard the window break.  The neighbor on the
side with the phone line, heard movement prior to the break-in.  She
also heard movement later, apparently, when he came back over the fence.
Past her house are two more houses, then the swamp.  The latter neighbor
called the police, and turned on a light in her house.  This neighbor also
seems to think that there were two people.  However, she did not see a
second person.

The point to all this is, that my friend is very confused and frightened.
She can't figure out if he was there to rape her or to robe her.  The 
police said it could be either.  Some seemed to embrace rape theory
more.  The others seemed split between either rape or robbery.  Can anyone
come up with a profile on this intruder, and a reasonable guess as to
what his intentions were, and why he left without doing anything.

Also, any information which may help her deal with the trauma, and fear
which she is currently experiencing, would be greatly appreciated.  She 
is scared to be anywhere by herself, and is having trouble sleeping at 
night.
-- 
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Art Jimenez                                      sysapj@gsusgi2.gsu.edu        
Georgia State University Research Foundation     Phone: (404) 651-2648
Wells Computer Center, SPIN-X Development Group   
"NUTS!" -- General A. C. McAuliffe  Bastogne, Belgium  December 22, 1944
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Newsgroups: sci.psychology