Cops: Woman raped, robbed in Far Northeast home

A 39-year-old Asian businesswoman, who police say was sexually assaulted and beaten inside her Far Northeast home Tuesday afternoon, shuffled and rolled her way outside after the attack with her hands and legs bound in plastic cuffs until she made it to the sidewalk, crying for help.

Next-door neighbors said yesterday that they heard the woman and then saw her, duct tape covering her mouth and wrapped around her head, sticking to her hair.

The petite woman managed to partly open her garage door so she could roll herself underneath and down her driveway, and apparently loosened the duct tape so she could holler.

"She kept moving herself on the ground," said a 76-year-old female neighbor, who rushed to the victim's aid with her husband, 78. "She was just crying. She was just really screaming."

Another neighbor got scissors, and the elderly couple cut the cuffs off so the partially clothed woman could walk. They took her into their house and were there when police arrived.

The couple, who asked that their names not be published, said the victim and her husband, both Vietnamese, work side-by-side at a nail or beauty salon in a different neighborhood and have two daughters. They said the couple are friendly but "very private."

Investigators said one theory they are working on is that the woman was targeted because she is an Asian business owner.

In similar cases, authorities have found that criminals admitted targeting Asian business owners for home-invasion robberies because they believe the immigrants carry lots of cash and may not report the crimes.

The attack occurred about 2:30 p.m. on Lester Road near Medford, in a generally safe, tidy residential neighborhood in the city's Parkwood Manor section.

The neighbors said they heard that the attacker forced his way into the victim's home from the back deck after he saw her out there. The husband had left the home a little while earlier to get their daughters from school.

Cops yesterday released a sketch of the attacker, believed to be a black man in his 30s, about 6 feet 1, weighing 200 to 230 pounds, with a light-to-medium complexion and a thin mustache. He was dressed in black, with black glasses and a black-and-gray knit cap, and carried a black JanSport backpack.

They said he had a black semiautomatic handgun with brown grips. He fled with about $8,000 in cash, and laptops and cameras.

Yesterday afternoon, no one answered the door at the victim's house. A white Lexus SUV was parked in the driveway, and the blinds were drawn down.

Anyone with information on the attacker should call the Special Victims Unit at 215-685-3251.