MASTIC BEACH, N.Y. – Police in New York have arrested a teenager whom they say brutally attacked a woman in her Long Island home.
Police told WNBC that the 14-year-old and an accomplice broke into the victim’s Mastic Beach home on the afternoon of April 19. The mother had been inside a locked bedroom with her 4-year-old child at the time, and assumed the noise she heard was her husband returning home, the station reported.
Police said the suspects broke down the bedroom door, and while the accomplice looked through the house for items to steal, the 14-year-old sexually assaulted and choked the 23-year-old victim in front of her young child, WPIX reported.
Investigators said the attack continued in the hallway before moving to another bedroom, where the suspect pulled out a switchblade and proceeded to slash her across her head and stab her in the chest, WABC reported.
“This is a case that is both shocking and extremely disturbing,” Suffolk District Attorney Raymond Tierney said to CBS News.
Neighbors are credited with helping the young mother, who ran out of the house naked holding her child. “She walked over here holding daughter’s hand. I thought they were playing ‘til I realized the woman, one, what she had one, turned out she was bleeding from her head bad. Like, her whole body covered with blood,” Dennis Naughton, a neighbor, told CBS News.
“Aside from the extreme violence of the criminal activity, what makes this case so shocking is the age of the defendant who is accused of committing such callous and violent crimes,” Tierney told WABC.
Police said the teen and the accomplice eventually left with some stolen items, and police were called. The victim was treated at a hospital with staples and stitches and was released, WNBC reported.
