Seniors Alarmed by Recent Attacks

Philadelphia - June 6, 2006 (WPVI) -- A 90-year-old great-grandmother says the recent violence against senior citizens is unacceptable.

Rosy asked Action News not to use her last name while her attacker is still out there. She lost relatives to the Holocaust, while she survived the Great Depression. Rosy says as much as she has been through, nothing prepared her for Monday night's attack.

She was carrying groceries into her St. Regis Community Apartment when a man attacked her.

"Somebody got their hands over my mouth," said Rosy. "I'm trying and I'm trying to scream and I'm dragged into my bedroom. The only thing that went through my mind was that I wouldn't be raped. That just scared the hell out of me."

The victim says her attacker then tied a housecoat around her mouth and proceeded to pull off all of her jewelry. Fortunately, she was not seriously hurt.

The attack on Rosy was one of several in recent days. Last Friday in Roxborough, well-dressed thieves followed an 84-year-old woman and her mentally challenged son from a bank and beat them in the 700 block of Hill Road.

In Vineland, New Jersey, 91-year-old Anna Thompson was stabbed to death, allegedly by a 13-year-old neighbor during a robbery.

Two young thugs also tried to rob a 77-year-old man in Roxborough on Monday night. It turned out Ivan Muryn also had a gun, and the victim and his attackers engaged in a shootout. Muryn and one of the suspects suffered gunshot wounds to the hand.

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