FIFE, Wash. — A Pierce County woman who was brutally attacked inside the Fife restaurant where she was working shared her story with KIRO 7.
She says she feared for her life as she was dragged through the store and forced to open a safe.
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It happened at the Subway sandwich shop on Pacific Highway East in Fife last month.
Mandy Chapman says a homeless man came in about 10 p.m. and asked what time the 24-hour restaurant closed.
A few hours later, he came back carrying what appeared to be a shock absorber off of a semi-truck, weighing about 12 pounds.
"He reached up behind me and grabbed me by my hair and forced me in the back,” said Chapman. “(He) basically raped me with my clothes on.”
He then robbed the store while holding a pair of scissors to her neck.
“(He) forced me to open the safe and the register. I gave him everything I had access to,” said Chapman.
The man then walked out the front door and wasn't seen again for nearly a month, despite police searches.
Officers said the man was so violent that Chapman shouldn't watch the surveillance footage of the attack.
"The cops were amazed I wasn't bruised all over my body, just by the way he was slinging me around the store,” said Chapman.
This week, police made an arrest and Chapman picked her attacker out of a photo lineup.
"My daughter says once my eyes laid on that picture, I turned white as a ram. My hands started shaking but then the detective told me he was in jail,” said Chapman.
Chapman is back at work. Even after the attack, she never missed a day.
"I'm still doing my job every day."
She said she doesn't scare easily, but she doesn't take any chances, either.
"I have my pocket knife in my pocket, mace on my side and I was checking into getting a Taser."
Chapman said now when she works late at night, her nephew, who is retired military, either sits right outside the front door or in the lobby.
Cox Media Group
