December 18, 2000

A 25-year-old South Kitsap woman was awakened early Sunday morning when an armed man came into her bedroom and turned on the lights.

In the moments that followed, the intruder threatened her with rape, death and robbery, then beat her severely.

The suspect escaped as a male neighbor shot three times over his head.

The woman called her neighbor a hero for his actions after her screams and the barking of his dogs alerted him to what was happening next door.

The two live in opposite ends of a duplex on a long driveway off Locker Road. A second duplex also is situated on the driveway.

The woman said when the lights came on about 2:20 a.m., a man came in wearing a hooded sweatshirt and something over the lower part of his face.

He told her to take off her shirt, but she stalled him by asking to go to the bathroom and then for a drink of water, according to a Kitsap County Sheriff's Office report.

He allowed the first request but not the second, and told her that if she did not cooperate with being raped, he would hurt her daughter.

When she tried to phone 911, he punched her in the face, then cocked the chrome semi-automatic pistol he carried and pointed it at her head.

He then hit her in the head with the pistol at least twice, she told sheriff's deputies, and kicked her in the head and stomach when she fell.

He asked where her money was. She said she didn't have any, she told deputies, but told him to take her TV and VCR. He then left and told her to stay in the bedroom for five minutes.

She had screamed loudly when the intruder began hitting her, she said, drawing the attention of Richard Sample, who lives next door.

Sample looked out his front door and noticed that hers was wide open but the residence was dark.

He went back inside and got his .22-caliber pistol. When he got back to his front door, he saw a man running from his neighbor's house. He shot three times, he said.

"Not knowing what the laws are regarding intruders, I fired over his head," Sample said.

The victim said she heard the shots, then a truck start up. She got up the nerve to leave her room and, the back of her head and nose bleeding, went to Sample's residence. There she called 911.

The intruder's vehicle apparently was parked at the other duplex on their driveway. After he disappeared through some brush that separated the two buildings, the vehicle started up and departed, its tires spinning.

Deputies found the woman's phone lines had been disconnected and evidence that the man had come in through a kitchen window, even though her front door was open, they said.

She went to Harrison Hospital in Bremerton. She was back home Sunday, her head partially shaved and stitched in three places. Scrapes were clearly visible on the side of her face.

County sheriff's detectives have taken over the case and are hoping to use evidence left at the scene to identify the attacker.

He is described as 6 feet tall with a heavy build, and was wearing camouflage pants and a hooded gray sweatshirt.

Reach reporter Travis Baker at (360) 792-9217 or at [email protected].

Published in The Sun: 12/18/2000

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