“If I hadn’t reacted like that, I probably wouldn’t be here now.” With a trembling voice from fatigue, 42-year-old Anita tells how she was attacked by a young man at home in Breda last week. “He held a knife to my throat. It could have been a lot worse if I hadn’t hit him with my Stanley cup.”
She is exhausted. Anita has barely slept the past few nights. “A maximum of two hours a night, because he hasn’t been caught yet,” she sighs. “Normally I don’t sound like that, I’m very cheerful and enthusiastic. But I’m so, so exhausted.”
On Thursday morning, January 16, Anita walks out through the back door of her apartment complex on Parkstraat in Breda. Out of nowhere a young man appears. “He was probably waiting around the corner because suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me back into the hall.”
“He grabbed me by the head and said, ‘Upstairs, now!’” Anita’s eighteen-year-old son was still sleeping upstairs, so her answer was, “No!” Once again she is grabbed by the head. “He then hit my head straight against the brick wall. That was a really hard blow.” Anita felt that she was almost fainting and her vision became increasingly worse.
“His eyes seemed dead, unfeeling.”
“He pulled something out of his sleeve.” Later it turned out to be an unfolded knife. “He put that knife to my throat. I suddenly felt something cold, but I didn’t realize I was being cut. When he held me, I kept looking straight into his face, into his eyes. His eyes seemed dead, numb. Like the eyes of a white shark.”
Anita wanted to keep the man away from her son at all costs. “I thought I don’t want him to go upstairs to my son.” For her birthday, the woman from Breda received a Stanley Cup (a large thermos cup) as a gift from her son. “I had it with me and it was completely filled with coffee. That thing was really heavy,” she laughs.
“I hit him so hard in the head that he had to take two steps back, outside. Then I could close the door again.” Anita saw the man’s expression change. “He suddenly looked very surprised. I don’t think he expected me to defend myself.”
“Deprive me of my enjoyment of living? I don’t want that for him.”
The man didn’t take anything with him, which is why Anita thinks he had other intentions. “I’m thinking of rape. Because he said ‘upstairs, now’. What else do you want to do with me upstairs? He didn’t rip off my rings and earrings, nor my designer bag and I still have my debit card. I Missing a gold chain, but it probably got stuck on his knife.”
The police are still looking for witnesses, a spokesperson said. “If there are people who saw something on Thursday morning, January 16, around half past seven, for example a suspicious person near Parkstraat, please contact us. If there is anyone with camera images, please pass it on because that will bring us investigate further.”
Anita’s neck is healing well. “What bothers me most are my head, neck and back. The neck brace I wear and the painkillers do help a bit.” Anger dominates. “How do you get it into your head?! He has scared me for a while, but I will get over this. But I will not let him deprive me of my enjoyment of living here in Breda, in Ginneken. I really don’t wish that on him.”