Man Assaults, Robs Elderly Woman In Her Ft. Lauderdale Home
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) -- Fort Lauderdale police are asking for help from the public in finding a man who forced his way into an elderly woman's home and robbed her.
According to Fort Lauderdale police detectives, 80-year-old Helen Goss was watching television in her home in the 1500 block of Northeast 6th Street on December 30th, 2011, when suddenly the cable went out.
When she walked out the back door of her home to check on the connection, a man assaulted her and forced her back inside the house, police said.
"I went out with a flashlight and I turned to go back in the house and he got a choke hold on me," explained Goss to CBS4's Tiffani Helberg.
She said she's grateful to be alive. For half an hour, she said, the man pummeled her all over her frail body.
"He kept hitting me in my head," she said. "I hit the back of my head and then he put a knife to my throat. He said, 'you feel what this is? It's a knife and I'm gonna kill you, you know'."
When she tried to scream, she explained her attacker became more violent.
"So he grabbed me and he squeezed real hard and I said 'I'm gonna faint', I couldn't breathe," said Goss.
She said the man told her to shut up.
"Every time he hit me, I yelled," she remembered. "So he said, shut up. I said OK, I'm gonna shut up."
The vicious attack continued after he dragged her into her home to make his demands.
"He said where is the money?" She pointed and said it was on the table.
Forty dollars in cash is what he got away with but before he left, Goss said he forced her to take off her shirt and tied a bra around her eyes.
"He really tied that tight and so then he said 'just lay your head down', and there was blood all over me."
She remembered he pushed her in a closet while he rummaged through her home. She was too afraid to come out until she heard silence. That's when she ran to get help from a neighbor.
"I'm glad I'm alive," said Goss.
She was taken to Broward General Medical Center to be treated for her injuries and has since been released.
Goss knows what it is to survive an attack. She said 30 years ago she was also attacked while she was working at an antique store. At the time she said a man came up from behind her and punched her I the jaw. The injury was so severe she had to have her jaw surgically repaired.
Detectives believe this was an isolated incident and that the robber targeted the woman because of her age and living situation.
Anyone with information is asked to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477).
