Pic of Shirley at the store with knife in neck
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
May 23, 2000 Edition: CEdition: WEST
Section: NEIGHBORS
Page: B01
Topics:
Index Terms:
ASSAULT UNUSUAL INTERVIEW AGE BIOGRAPHY PA WEAPON
WOMAN WALKS TO, FROM STORE, UNAWARE OF KNIFE IN HER NECK Author: Deborah Bolling, INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
Dateline: COLWYN
Article Text:
For 62 years, Shirley Petrich lived a quiet and normal life - at least until March 3. On that day, as she later learned, she became known around the world as the "woman with the knife in her neck."
For the next few days, television stations from here to Greece broadcast dramatic pictures showing the sturdy woman diligently pushing her shopping cart up and down the aisles of an Acme Market, a knife plainly jutting from her neck.
Even now, she is not sure what happened. About 6 that morning, Petrich, a self-proclaimed walker who does not own a car, said she had set out to run a few errands. Her first stop was a recycling plant about three miles away, where she drops off old papers.
But on her way, at the corner of Cedar and Coventry Streets in Darby Borough, someone approached her from behind, plunged a 5-inch knife into the base of her neck, and ran.
Initially, Petrich thought that she had been hit by a wayward stone.
"I thought that it may have bounced off the tire of the truck that was passing by," she said yesterday, standing where the assault occurred.
Then, as she saw someone running away, she figured she had been punched.
"He ran that way - and he was real fast," she said, pointing to a sign that reads "No Outlet." "I don't know where he went or how he got out of there," she said of the tree-lined cul-de-sac.
Petrich said her right arm began hurting immediately, but when she massaged the area, she felt no knife - only a wide, dull ache.
So Petrich continued on her six-mile, 90-minute trek, through four adjoining towns, to the Acme and back, never aware that she had been stabbed. And not a single person she passed along the way said a word.
Doctors said that Petrich miraculously eluded permanent paralysis, and perhaps even death, because the knife missed her spinal cord by an inch. Since March, she has been undergoing physical therapy to facilitate full movement in her arm twice a week at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
For more than a month after the attack, Petrich's 35-year-old daughter, with whom she lives, prohibited any reporters from speaking with her. But in mid-April, Petrich sold her story to Inside Edition, a television show, for $10,000.
"It was my daughter's idea to not speak with anyone," Petrich said, in her soft, measured voice. "It worked out well for me, because I'm taking that money and moving out of Colwyn."
The unusual case, which Darby Police Chief Robert F. Smythe described as "one of the most bizarre ones I've ever come across," is still unsolved.
Petrich could tell police only that her assailant was about 6 feet tall and wore dark-colored clothes.
Sitting in the station house yesterday, Smythe held a knife identical to the one used in the assault. He said the actual knife provided no fingerprints or other clues. In fact, he said, the knife didn't help with the investigation very much at all.
"We got a lead about knives like this being sold at Dollarland," he said, using the flexible blade to clean his fingernails. "When I went there to check it out, I found this knife selling four for a dollar. There must've been about 60 bags hanging on the wall. Not much help to us."
Petrich, originally from Seattle, said she plans to put the house she has lived in since 1990 up for sale and move back west, she hopes by the end of the summer.
She said her life has returned pretty much to normal. Her arm does not hurt anymore, and the scar, the size of a dime, is healing nicely. But there is one thing she said she'll never do again.
"I still take my walks as often as possible," Petrich said with a sly grin. "But I never take my [grocery] cart out anymore. My daughter thinks maybe that man will recognize me. Who knows? I've just been so blessed - why push it?"
Deborah Bolling's e-mail address is dbolling@phillynews.com
Caption:
PHOTO
Shirley Petrich, 62, at the spot where she
was stabbed, Cedar and Coventry Streets in Darby Borough. She escaped
permanent injury. (JONATHAN WILSON / Inquirer Staff Photographer)
PHOTO
Copyright (c) 2000 The Philadelphia Inquirer
No comments:
Post a Comment