Too Close for Comfort

[kittytech]

Hey everyone. Someone tipped me off to this story a few hours ago. Even though it's not me, this story discusses people who live in my apartment building, one of them only two doors down from me. I wasn't home when this happened and I can't even begin to express how relieved I am to say that. But, this is just really too close to home, and it's scarey. The article is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and appeared in today's paper. I'm pasting the actual story below.

Charges filed in blind woman's assault
By CROCKER STEPHENSON
cstephenson@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 5, 2008

A 41-year-old man was charged Thursday with pretending to be the son of a 75-year-old visually- and hearing-impaired woman and then raping her once she
let him into her apartment.

The attack occurred Saturday at the Hawley Ridge Apartments, 920 N. Hawley Rd., a 58-unit building managed by the Badger Association of the Blind and Visually
Impaired, Inc.

According to a complaint:

The woman told police she was waiting for a visit from her son when someone rang her doorbell. She admitted a man, claiming to be her son, into her apartment.
The man told her he sounded different because he had a cold. He then assaulted her.

At one point, the woman said, the man carried her into her bathroom and dumped her into her bathtub. He started to pour water on her, then continued to
attack her until her doorbell rang.

The woman described the man as weighing more than 200 lbs., with moles on his back and dry elbows, wearing a wristwatch on one wrist and a name tag on the
other.

According to police, a videotape shows a resident of the apartment building, Matthew Lilek, entering the woman's apartment and then leaving it a short time
later carrying a bra.

The bra, the complaint says, was recovered from Lilek's apartment, along with a pair of women's underpants. Lilek told police he took the underpants from
the apartment building's laundry room and wore them while he attacked the victim.

Pat Brown, the executive director of Badger Association, said that the majority of residents at Hawley Ridge are low-income people with vouchers from the
City of Milwaukee Housing Authority, which is responsible for conducting yearly background checks.

He called the attack "a freak occurrence."

"We have wonderful, reputable, good people living in our complex," he said.

Lilek, himself visually impaired, is charged with second-degree sexual assault; ag
to 58 ½ years in prison.

The actual article can be found here.

Comments

[pawpower4me.livejournal.com]

wow this is horrible. I am so very sorry. I am praying for your neighbor. *hugs*

[samari76.livejournal.com]

Wow! What a mess! That man should be shot.

[wyrdwriter.livejournal.com]

That is some kind of twisted on so many different levels. *shakes head*

[wyrdwriter.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have a question:

If she had a guide dog, would a guide dog attack somebody hurting their person?

[kittytech.livejournal.com]

Not ever actually having a dog myself I don't know exactly how this would work. However, I know that if the dog and owner are a good working team, there's an increduble bond and I suppose that, depending on the dog, if it seemed like the owner was being threatened I'm sure there might have been an attack. But, this is one HUGE guy, and I suspect that if he'd really been intent on completing his objective he probably would have just hurt the dog too. It's really hard to say.

thoughts

[3kitties.livejournal.com]

Dog guides are not trained to attack. What an individual dog would do is anyone's guess.

I know I will get some flames for this, but I have to wonder why she let him in if she didn't recognize his voice. This is a preventable type of crime. If she was waiting for a visit from him, she likely would have known whether he had a cold. She did not use her head at all. I'm not saying that this was her fault, but it was preventable. And if it had been her son at the door and she had called the police, hopefully he would have appreciated her discretion.

Re: thoughts

[kittytech.livejournal.com]

Actually, I can tell you exactly why she let him in. She really doesn't have enough hearing, even with her hearing aids in, to really understand individual voices. Her hearing aids are tuned so high that they're constantly screetching, so to me it seems like her hearing is just incredibly bad. She was expecting her son, so I can totally see why she would have thought it was him. She probably just didn't hear his voice, and then by the time she did it was too late.

Re: thoughts

[3kitties.livejournal.com]

That is truly sad. Mostly it's sad that someone would be that cruel. Perhaps they can develop some kind of system so that he can signal her when he is nearly there, or let a neighbor know to assist her or something. Most people call me when they are nearing my house. For the rest, I crack the door until I'm sure that I really want it open to the person.

[johnmill79.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's just disgusting. Jeez!