Woman Assaulted By Edwin Alemany Speaks Out For First Time

BOSTON (CBS) --- A 23-year-old woman from South Boston is speaking for the first time about her encounter with Edwin Alemany hours before the murder of Amy Lord, who he allegedly abducted from her South Boston apartment and killed, leaving her body in a Hyde Park reservation.

She tells WBZ-TV she was walking to work early on the morning of July 23 along Old Colony Avenue when she says he came out of nowhere, punched her in the jaw, dragged her by her feet into a parking lot and choked her.

"He said he was going to kill me, I thought I was going to die," said the woman who prefers to remain anonymous. "I had drag marks on my arms. When he hit me I was laid out on the ground before I realized what was going on. My arms were dragging on the cement."

She says she pleaded with him but he told her it didn't matter, "that I just needed to know I was going to die that day."

She says she didn't know if he had a weapon, but he suddenly stopped when he claimed he had the wrong person.

"He apologized and said he didn't mean to, he didn't have the right person and walked away."

She knows she could have been his first victim that day.

"I was sad, I felt guilty I didn't call police right away because I was scared."

She was scared he knew where she worked and would come back. Instead, Alemany has been indicted for two other attacks and the murder of Lord. Investigators say he attacked another woman hours after Lord, repeatedly stabbing her as she walked into her South Boston apartment.

A year ago he allegedly attacked a woman as she walked on a street in Mission Hill, even able to grab his wallet and turn it into police.

Boston police have admitted they failed to follow up on the case.

"I don't like to go outside now if it's dark, and I don't like to walk that route by myself."

The encounter has left her so shaken she was unable to return to work for a week, and took a semester off from school hoping to resume next year.

"I couldn't talk I was in shock. It took me half an hour to 45 minutes to explain to anybody what had happened."

She says she doesn't know what saved her life that day, but her thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Amy Lord.

"It's sad, the details, the brutality. I feel very bad for their family."