An 88-year-old woman says she was able to talk her way out of being raped after she lied to her would-be attacker and said she was HIV-positive.
Helen Reynolds was in her apartment in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania Feb. 17 when a man dressed as an apartment complex worker forced his way inside her home and bound her mouth and hands with duct tape, the Daily Mail reported.
“He wrapped it all around my face and my nose and my eye glasses. He had a piece in my mouth,” Reynolds told WPVI.
She said he took $40 from her purse and was about to rape her when she struck up a conversation with the man.
Despite having duct tape in her mouth, she was able to talk the man out of raping her.
“I said to him, ‘Well it’s like this,'” Reynolds recalled. “‘You might as well know the truth.’ I said, ‘I have HIV and my husband died from it,’ which is a lie.”
She said as soon as she told him that he walked out of the bedroom.
“That’s the comment that saved my life,” she said.
No suspects have been found yet in connection with the attack on Reynolds.
Authorities say there have been a string of home invasions in Chester County, including a one that left a 72-year-old woman assaulted, tied up, and locked in a closet for four days.
Police arrested a 17-year-old who had escaped from a nearby behavioral facility in that case.
When WPVI asked Reynolds if she had anything to say to her attacker who’s still on the loose, she said she had “nothing good to say about him.”
“I have nothing good to say about him. Nothing at all. Put him in jail, and leave the sucker there,” Reynolds said.
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