EXCLUSIVE: Victim Of South Philadelphia Knife Attack Speaks Out
By Walt Hunter
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- She showed strength and courage when a knife-carrying attacker slashed her face robbing her outside her South Philadelphia home early Sunday morning.
And now just three days after the vicious assault, 23-year-old Ashley Hackett spoke exclusively to CBS 3 about the horrifying ambush that came close to taking her life.
Police say Hackett was just a few steps from her front door on South 9th St. near the Italian Market when the attacker, slipping up behind her into total silence, slashed her face from her ear to her chin.
A doctor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital told her father the knife came within one inch of causing a potentially deadly wound to her throat.
Ashley said as she screamed for help, after being slammed against a wall, the robber took off with her purse, which was later recovered in the 800 block of Kenilworth St.
Neighbors immediately ran from their homes to help Hackett who lay bleeding on the sidewalk.
The victim says she is speaking out because she wants to warn her neighbors that the vicious predator is still on the loose. With her mother and father at her side, she told CBS 3 she is "extremely, extremely lucky" to have suffered "only" facial injuries, bumps and bruises.
A manhunt is now underway for the attacker described only as wearing a "white hoodie".
Ashley and her family say they also hope by speaking out they will alert neighbors near 9th and Fitzwater who may have surveillance video of the predator in the area around 4 a.m. Sunday.
CBS 3 has learned the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is now offering a $5,000 reward for the arrest of the attacker.
Anyone with information should call the South Detective Division, Special Investigations Unit, at 215-686 3013. You can also provide information anonymously at 215 546 TIPS.
