KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police have released the description of the man who raped a Kansas City teenager on Friday, Dec. 5, right after she got off her school bus.
The attack happened in broad daylight in an empty lot near Cleveland and 42nd Street.
“He just kept saying the same thing over and over. ‘If you scream, I’ll kill you,'” the victim remembered.
When you play the video above, you’ll see that FOX 4 hid the identity of the victim as she spoke to Robert Townsend in an exclusive interview.
The young lady is an 18-year-old high school senior. She says that at about 2:30 Friday afternoon, she stepped off her school bus to walk to her dad’s house.
She recalls seeing a man walk past the bus before she got off at her stop. She has provided police with a description, which they released on Friday. The suspect is likely between 24 and 27 years old. She said he stood about 5’9″, had a dark complexion, a short forehead, and a low hair line. She remembers straight, clean teeth and full lips. The teenager said he smelled of cigarette smoke and had very short fingernails. He was wearing a black Carhartt coat, dark blue jeans and had a hood over his head.
“I heard his footsteps sort of speed up,” she remembered. “I crossed the street and he crossed with me.”
Within moments the man grabbed her.
“He sort of grabbed me around my face, my mouth mostly and the lower half of my throat,” she said.
She said he pulled her across the empty lot, near some trees. On Wednesday, a piece of the crime scene tape still remained on a fence near the area.
The young lady said the man threatened her and hurt her, knocking the breath out of her when he forced her to the ground. She says her main focus was not suffocating.
“His hands still around my throat, telling me if I screamed that he’d kill me. He just kept watching his surroundings, making sure no one was walking up and down the street.”
She says, oddly, the rapist tried to make small talk with her at times.
“What makes it really strange in my mind is that he tried to make small talk. ‘Oh, are you going to tell on me? Do you live around here?'”
She said after he raped her, the man hopped the fence and ran. Ever since then, although she’s afraid to go outside alone, she drives around the neighborhood with her family, looking for the attacker. She doesn’t want him to hurt anyone else.
The teen’s mother, along with other family members, are frustrated.
“My goal is to not let this diminish my daughter,” the victim’s mother said. “I just want to get him in custody so that he can be handled and that he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
The victim and her family plan to get her into counseling and hope police can catch the man.
“He was just over me with his hands around my throat. At that moment, I thought that would be the last time that I got to see my mom, my dad, everybody,” she said.
Anyone with any information about the attack, please call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.