Investigators have released surveillance videos of a man they believe viciously attacked and possibly sexually assaulted a woman in a Midtown bar after she refused to dance with him. Cops are trying to track down the suspect, who allegedly followed a 30-year-old nurse into a bathroom early on Thursday, barged into the stall, and left her bloodied and unconscious with a fractured skull, a broken nose and a broken eye socket.
In a video on the Post's website that was captured by an NYPD camera atop a lightpost, the suspect appears to be attempting to shake off an injury to his hand after leaving the Eighth Avenue bar Social. In a second video taped in a convenience store, the suspect—who is thought to be in his 30s and was wearing a short-sleeved shirt over a darker long-sleeved shirt at the time of the incident—is filmed as he makes a purchase.
The attack occurred at around 2:30 a.m., minutes after the victim—a Connecticut native and Upper West Side resident—turned down the man's advances. Investigators believe the perp might have smashed the woman's head against the toilet or sink. "She was seriously beaten. Her eye socket was broken," said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who noted that police were not initially called to the scene because the friend who found her unconscious in the bathroom thought the victim had hurt herself in a fall. "She apparently becomes conscious about 5:30 in the morning, tells [her friends] what happens and that's when the police respond," said Kelly.
Investigators believe the victim—whose name has not been released—fought off an attempted sexual assault, because when a friend found her inside the bathroom stall one of her legs was in her pants and the other was not. Tests to determine if the woman was raped came back negative, according to the Times. The owner of Social, which was closed early yesterday as detectives searched the facility but open in the afternoon, declined to comment to the paper. "We're not going to say anything right now," the owner, Tom Murphy, said. "The cops asked us not to say anything to the press, so I don't want to jeopardize anything."
