Police are still looking for the suspect who stole $10 from the woman last month in a store parking lot.
Erin, right, stands in the Heritage Park Plaza Shopping Center parking lot in East Longmeadow, where she was attacked by a knife-wielding man in late April. With her is her husband, Angel, left.EAST LONGMEADOW – Four-year-old Hayden saw the blood on his mother’s arm and, later, the stitches. He worried that she had been bitten by a “goblin.”
It wasn’t a goblin, of course, unless that word applies to a man in dirty jeans who sneaks up on victims from behind with a box cutter in his hand and demands money.
Police continue to probe the attack on the 34-year-old woman, 22 weeks pregnant, that occurred in a deserted corner of the Heritage Plaza parking lot on the afternoon of April 27.
As crimes go it could have been a lot worse. Erin lost $10 and gained the realization that the world is not quite as safe a place as she thought it was.
“It wasn’t like I was brutally attacked or anything, but it shakes up your sense of security because anything could have happened,” she said.
Such crimes are reported by the media all too often but the lingering, sometimes life-long, impacts on the victims – and their families – are typically unseen by the public eye.
Erin and her 39-year-old husband, Angel, agreed to talk to The Republican about the attack and the impact that it has had on their lives with the stipulation that only their first names be used and their address not be revealed. They are not especially fearful that Erin’s attacker will try to track them down, but they don’t want to take any chances either.
“He is still out there,” she said.
Erin said she had just picked Hayden up from school and decided on a whim to buy him a Wiffle Ball bat at the Dollar Tree store, which is located at the eastern end of the plaza.
After exiting the store, Erin placed her son in his safety seat inside her car. She said she was standing by her open trunk when she saw a scruffy-looking white man come from around the back corner of the store.
She gave it no mind.
“All of a sudden there is somebody right in back of me,” she said, adding that the man then placed an orange-colored box cutter against her upper left arm and demanded money.
Her wallet was in the glove compartment of the car, Erin said. She had $10 in a pocket, however, and gave him that.
“This is all I have,” she told the man. “Please, please, my son is in the car.”
The man grabbed the money and jogged back towards the rear of the store and the woods behind it. Erin, shaken, got into her car to drive home.
That’s when Hayden noticed the blood. “My son said to me ‘Mommy, what’s red?,’” Erin said, adding that she hadn’t realized until that moment that she had been cut.
Erin’s wound took five stitches to close, but the shock of the attack remains open and raw.
Hayden had nightmares about the blood and Angel had a tough time being away from his family the following day when he went to work
“I felt extreme anxiety because you feel very vulnerable,” he said. “I felt like I can’t be secure in the knowledge that my family is safe if I can’t be with them.”
Hayden, when he saw the stitches, asked if she had been bitten by a goblin because they resembled teeth marks, Erin said.
The couple said the perception of relative safety in East Longmeadow often brings them there to shop.
“You feel like you are in a better area,” Erin said. “You don’t have to look over your shoulder every second – well, there goes that.”
Angel, for his part, said he plans to apply for a license to carry a firearm and secure a firearms identification card for Erin so she can carry Mace.
Both said they realize that Angel carrying a gun would have done nothing to stop this particular attack. “It just reminds you that you have to have a little protection in your house,” Erin said.
“I am definitely pro-firearm,” said Angel, an ex-military man who served overseas during the first Persian Gulf War in the 1990s. “If other people are not, it’s their life.”
The couple said they wanted to tell their story so that others, especially women, may be able to benefit by it. “I am sure there are plenty of women out there who are as unaware as I am,” Erin said.
“I think a certain level of paranoia is healthy as long as you don’t let it rule your life,” said Angel. “It could have been much worse.”
The couple said they believe that the suspect may strike again and police agree that it’s a possibility.
“They usually do it until they get caught,” said Sgt. Patrick Manley.
Heritage Plaza, located on Route 83, also known as North Main Street, is about a mile away from Springfield’s Forest Park and East Forest Park neighborhoods. Police said the area is not known for a high level of crime.
“I am not aware of any significant increase in the crime in that area,” said Sgt. Richard Bates on Friday, adding that stores in the area occasionally draw shoplifters. “But, that’s a general problem everywhere,” the sergeant said.
Erin described the suspect as being between 5 feet, 8 inches and 5 feet, 10 inches tall, with a slim build. He wore a green sweatshirt and soiled jeans, according to her description, and had neck-length and oily salt-and-pepper colored hair. She also estimated he is in his mid-40s.
Those with information are urged to call police at (413) 525-5440.
Erin said she thinks of the attack as a kind of blessing in disguise and that she is thankful that her new-found awareness came at the relatively cheap price of $10 and five stitches.
She also remains thankful that the open trunk prohibited Hayden from seeing a stranger approach and harm his mother.
“The blood made him have nightmares for a few nights,” Erin said. “If he had seen (the attack), it would have been a lot worse.”