SANDY, Utah -- Sandy Police are looking for a man they said sexually assaulted a woman while she was sunbathing at her apartment complex.
The incident happened the afternoon of September 25. Investigators said the woman was tanning by the pool as a man stood watching her from a distance, plotting an assault.
“I was just out reading a book; I had my head down, kind of unaware of my surroundings,” said the woman, who spoke to FOX 13 News on the condition of anonymity.
According to Sandy Police Department officials, 10 minutes later, the woman was sexually assaulted, attacked just yards away from her home at the East Village Town Apartment Complex.
“I love just having my independence, and I feel like that was, within a moment of four seconds, taken from me,” the woman said.
Surveillance video from inside the complex’s clubhouse shows a man walking back and forth, examining the woman from a window. Police believe he was trying to see if anyone else was in the area before attacking.
“He'd been grabbing props to put over my face, so I wouldn't scream or what not,” she said. “He initially grabbed a pillow from the clubhouse, went and put the pillow back, and then grabbed a wad of toilet paper.”
When he finally walked out to the pool, the woman said she was lying face down on a lounge chair, listening to music.
“I suddenly felt pressure on the back of my body,” she said. “He was holding my head down, and then with the other hand, he was trying to remove my swimsuit bottoms."
But before he could do anything else, she was able to break free from his grasp. While it happened quickly, the woman remembers screaming and kicking for a few seconds, prompting the man to run away.
“There was a short little scuffle,” she said. “And luckily he did step off and leave the clubhouse."
Two weeks after the incident, police are still trying to figure out who the man is and how he got inside the clubhouse--since it can only be accessed by a resident’s electronic key.
Sgt. Dean Carriger of the Sandy Police Department spoke about the attack.
“We’re very concerned because of the forethought that went into the attack, which we saw on video,” he said. “We are worried he may escalate his actions, as he gains more comfort in what he’s doing.”
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Sandy Police at 801-568-4636.
