Woman fights off attacker, gets wallet

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A Grand Rapids woman who fought off an attacker in her home early Wednesday also got a key piece of evidence -- his wallet.

"I got his wallet off of him," Ellie Orlowski told 24 Hour News 8. "I beat the ---- out of him, gouged his eyes, went for his throat and I started screaming, 'Fire!' "

Grand Rapids police are investigating the break-in at a home near Leonard Street and College Avenue NE around 8 a.m. Officers have identified a suspect but haven't made an arrest.

Orlowski was treated at a hospital for minor injuries, including a possible broken jaw. She said she was sleeping in her bedroom when she awoke to the crime. The suspect jumped on top of her and tried to rape her, she said.

He pushed her face into the mattress so hard she could barely breathe, and told her not to move or yell. But she fought back.

"Eventually, we rolled onto my floor and I had him from this way and I took my fingers and I just gouged at his eyes," Orlowski said. "I kept gouging and gouging his eyes. I was able to get at his throat once, and he stopped for a minute. At that point, I turned around and I elbowed him. And then he came at me again, and I kept gouging his eyes, then I started to scream."

She doesn't know the man, Orlowski said, adding that she's a fighter and wouldn't let the attacker get the best of her.

"He tried to take my will and perseverance, but he didn't get it -- and so, my message to anybody is to fight," Orlowski said. "Don't ever lay down when somebody tells you to lay down. You fight.

"It was all adrenaline. I fought. I just started wailing on him. He just kept telling me to sit still -- be quiet. I told him I had AIDS, which is not true, but that didn't make a difference."

She later found his wallet, with his name and address. She also found one of her kitchen butcher knives in her bedroom, she said.

The man escaped through Orlowski's front door. She is unemployed and the suspect got away with her purse, she said, adding that her purse contained all the money she had to her name. She lives alone except for three cats.

It may take a while before she is comfortable in her home again.

"He hurt me in the sense that this is my home, and I have to be concerned about being in my home," Orlowski said. "But now I want him. I want him."