Capitol Hill business owner says man carrying bag of knives tried to rape her

SEATTLE — Seattle police are looking for a man accused of attacking a Capitol Hill business owner yesterday just after 5 p.m. The owner, Amber Myers, tells KIRO 7 the suspect was carrying a bag of knives at the time of the attack. Myers said it was a day like any other on East Madison Street when a man whom she didn’t recognize walked into her shop.

“He walked in the door and he was holding a package,” Myers said. “I said you can just leave it there in the doorway and then he kept moving forward and he said ‘no, no.’” That was when he pulled out a large knife.

“He had like a button-up shirt that was unbuttoned with a T-shirt under it and he had this giant knife, like a turkey carver knife,” she said. “He was like, so you’re going to lock the door now and you’re not going to say anything.”

Myers said she couldn’t reach the panic button to call for help.

“I always think I’m going to have all these things I’m going to do if I’m in this situation and all of the things I couldn’t get to,” she said. The man then forced her into the back room.

“When we got back there, he attempted to rape me,” she said. “I tried to fight him and at one point I grabbed the knife out of his hand and he grabbed it back and then I kicked it out of his hand.” Thankfully, she said a co-worker heard what was happening.

“The guy grabbed his knife and he jumped up and I thought he was going to lunge at my co-worker,” she said. “And I said, ‘get out of the way, he’s got a knife!’”

Myers said the man ran off and left behind a backpack full of knives.

“That was obviously terrifying,” she said. Myers called the police and officers were there within minutes. The man’s escape was all caught on camera by the shop next door.

“Something in his eyes, like an anger, like he was there to cause trouble,” Megan Sczesney, the owner of Madeline’s Beauty Bar described. Sczesney said he tried to go to her store first but stopped and kept walking.

“I just felt like he was coming to, on a mission, to cause trouble and that terrified me because I was all alone here,” she said. Now, Myers is warning people to be on the lookout for the man. She described him as tall and wearing a yellow face mask.

“I’m terrified for the neighborhood that he’s still out there,” she said. “He’s not in his right mind and if he were to come across somebody else it wouldn’t be good.”

If you have any information, call Seattle police.

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