SOUTH BEND — It has all the potential for a dangerous situation, yet it happens every day in neighborhoods everywhere.

A female Realtor, alone and unarmed, agrees to meet a strange man in a vacant house.

On Saturday, the potential was realized at a home on South Ironwood Drive.

The Realtor, who is not being identified to protect her privacy as the victim in the crime, told The Tribune she has thought about the possibility of being attacked or robbed while doing her job, and Realtors are even trained to prevent it. But in this case, she thought she was safe.

The man had called her office the day before and left a name and call-back number. She had called that number and first spoke to a woman, who then handed the phone to the man, and they set up the appointment.

About 1:15 p.m. Friday, she arrived to find him waiting outside, and they proceeded inside, where she showed him around.

He had been asking routine questions, about the furnace, roof and appliances for example, and he was neatly dressed and spoke articulately.

But in the basement, about 15 minutes into the showing, he asked her to go to a rear section of the basement. She said she felt uneasy and made it clear with her body movements that she wasn’t going to go, she said.

He then said he wanted her money. She told him it was in her car. He ordered her to remove her clothes and said he was going to tie her up.

“He got hold of my wrist,” she said. “I got away. I tripped over a dehumidifier. He got hold of me again and then pulled out a knife.”

She said she grabbed the blade with her hand and bent it, and it left a “little mark” on her palm.

She freed her other wrist and started kicking at him wildly. He then got up off the floor, ran up the basement steps and out the door. She called 911 on her cell phone and stayed in the basement for a while, so she doesn’t know whether he walked or drove away, she said.

She described him as being black, in his 50s, standing 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-7 inches tall and of medium build. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with the words, “Niles Brandywine” on the front.

The Realtor said from now on, she will require prospective buyers to meet her at her office first. But that would not necessarily have prevented this attack, she noted.

“I’ll tell you, I had to really work to get away,” she said. “I was real lucky.”

South Bend police Lt. Don Miller said he worries that with the housing market in such poor shape, Realtors might not take enough precautions to ensure their safety.

“If there is a guard, maybe that guard is going to be down even a little bit more because they want that sale,” Miller said. “My advice for Realtors is if you could be accompanied by another agent for a while until this thing is solved, it would be a good idea.”

Miller said he knew of no other similar crimes recently. He asked anyone with information that might help police to call Crime Stoppers at 288-STOP.

Staff writer Jeff Parrott:
jparrott@sbtinfo.com
(574) 235-6320