ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — Detectives in Buchanan County are asking for the public’s help in identifying a man who got inside a woman’s house in a rural area, violated her and committed other crimes.
“My bedroom door opened, so I looked over there and there was someone standing there,” the victim, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
The 20-year-old woman said during the early morning hours on December 18th she was sound asleep when the intruder first entered her downstairs bedroom.
“I asked, ‘Who is it?’ They didn’t answer and I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ Still didn’t answer,” she said.
She said the man then covered her head.
“He came over and put a pillow over my head and I started to scream, so he took the pillow off,” she said.
The scared Missouri Western University nursing student said the man then got in her bed and repeatedly touched her inappropriately.
“He rolled me over and got behind me in the bed and stuck his hands on my legs and up my shirt and just very inappropriate,” she said. “I just was afraid that something would happen and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.”
What’s more, she said the assault happened while her mother slept upstairs in the family’s living room.
“She was asleep on the couch and he didn’t even see her, he didn’t do anything to her. We really don’t know, but he has to walk right past her to get to me,” she said.
The victim believes the brazen intruder got inside their house through an unlocked garage door.
“I told him if he didn’t get out I will scream and he said, ‘If you scream, I’ll shoot you. I have a gun,'” she said. “He yelled at me once when I turned around. He said, ‘Don’t look at me,’ and then he closed the door and walked out the basement door,” she said.
But not before stealing her father’s debit card and some cash. Police say surveillance cameras caught the wanted suspect on tape using the stolen debit card at a gas station in Percival, Iowa.
The victim says the man told her his name was “Darrell.” He’s African-American with a small-to-medium build and police believe he may be in his late ‘30s or early ‘40s. Police believe the suspect took off in a light-colored car in Iowa with another man.
“He could be anywhere from Kansas City to some place in Iowa, some place in Nebraska, so we need to get this spread out to as many communities as we can,” Captain Mark Brock with the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office said.
The victim says that her dad is offering a $500 reward for the capture of the suspect.
