A rape survivor shared a shocking photo of her injuries to warn others after she was attacked by a homeless man.
Marissa Young, 44, from Torrance, California, south of Los Angeles, was raped when she was walking her dogs on 31 July.
She was attacked by Darrel Dean Waters, 46, per CBS News. He had recently been freed on illegal possession of a dagger.
Ms Young was walking close to a field when she was “tackled from behind,” according to KTLA. As many as eight of her teeth were knocked out during the attack. She told the outlet that she “heard nothing” prior to being hit.
“I didn’t have headphones in, I wasn’t looking at my phone, I was just walking straight forward to my destination,” she said.
The attack reportedly lasted “nearly 30 minutes” and also left Ms Young with a “broken nose, eye socket and jaw,” according to CBS.
She was pushed to the ground and punched “in the face, closed-fisted, 15 to 20 times at least”.
“My nose is broken in four different places and this bone was shattered here,” she told KTLA as she indicated the area of her upper cheek. “You can still see a lot of swelling in my face.”
Waters was arrested “nearly 24 hours” after Ms Young filed a police report, per CBS.
“Probably three-quarters of the attack I fought back, cause I was fighting for my life,” she told the network. “It was a crime of opportunity, because I’m of small stature and my back was to him.”
Ms Young told KTLA that she was “angry” to discover that Waters had been released from police custody just 12 hours before she was attacked: “It’s horrifying to think that they were holding this guy with a huge knife that was taken off him that’s illegal and he was let go the next day even though he has a record.”
The Torrance City Attorney’s Office told the outlet in a statement that they released Waters “in accordance with the penal code”.
Waters is now being held without bail on felony charges, including rape, oral copulation, and sexual penetration with force.
It’s been three months since the attack and Ms Young has undergone five surgeries in that time.
On 6 October, Debbie Keyser, a friend of Ms Young, wrote on the page for a GoFundMe fundraiser for the victim that “she is still struggling with some facial swelling but is continuing to improve” and that she’s “continuing in therapy to address the emotional trauma and the symptoms of PTSD that she is experiencing”.
“Additionally, she continues to push forward with her plans to attend nursing school and is looking forward to relocating and pursuing her continued education,” the post concludes.
