Police in New Castle probe hammer attack

Staff report

new castle, pa.

Police say they are continuing to investigate a hammer attack on a woman at a Union Township gas station.

Union Township police officer Michael Mrozek said Friday that police have a suspect in mind, and he is likely the same man who tried three times to rob people inside the Arby’s on Ellwood Road in Shenango Township about 20 minutes before the woman was attacked.

The woman had gotten gas about 9:50 p.m. Wednesday at the Red Apple convenience store on U.S. Route 224, Mrozek said. As she was getting back in her car, a man came up behind her and grabbed her while he tried to get her purse.

During the struggle, the two moved around to the front of her car and she tripped over the gas-pump island, pulling her attacker down with her, Mrozek said.

The attacker tried to get her purse again, but a man putting air in his tires started toward the two while a clerk who was calling police came out into the parking lot, Mrozek said. The attacker fled in an older model burgundy or purple Dodge Caravan, he said.

During the attack, the woman was hit three times in the head with the claw end of a hammer. She was taken to Jameson Memorial Hospital, where she received about a dozen staples in her head. She was released from the hospital, Mrozek said.

Mrozek said the man’s description is the same as that of a man who entered Arby’s around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and tried to rob customers there. He first approached two 15-year-old girls, then two women in two other booths without success. The second woman’s 12-year-old son fought him off, and he left the restaurant.

Mrozek said the same man also could be responsible for snatching an 81-year-old woman’s purse in the parking lot behind the YMCA in New Castle last week. In all three cases, the man was wearing a dark-colored hooded sweat shirt.