News: Prayer foils rape... - Home Worship101

Originally published in a South Florida newspaper:
THE PALM BEACH POST - Local News Section
Friday, July 13, 2001
By Joe Brogan, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer.

WOMEN CREDITS PRAYER
WITH FOILING RAPE TRY.

"Her prayer turned an assailant threatening to kill her
into a shaking man who released her, she says..."

JUPITER FL - Last November, as her abductor pinned her to the back seat of a car and raised a whiskey bottle to smash her head, the victim began to pray. Out loud.

"Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..."

The would-be rapist had yanked her around by the hair, tried to choke her. But now he paused.

She kept praying, desperately repeating the Lord's prayer in rapid-fire fashion. She repeated three times. The third time around, the shaken assailant broke off the attack and eventually freed her.

The assailant was identified by fingerprints left at the scene of the crime, and was arrested on July 12.

"I was prepared to die," but 3rd prayer halted the man.

The victim, who is not being identified because of the nature of the crime, said she four herniated disks in her neck after struggling with the man for about 25 minutes on the night of Nov.21.

In a telephone interview, she said, she had gotten into her car after grocery shopping, when a man jumped into the back seat. Grabbed her by the neck and hair and said drive south or he'd shoot her.

He ordered her to pull into another shopping center and began to strangle her from the back seat, but she kept pulling his hands off her neck.

The man pulled her into the back seat and got on top of her and attempted to sexually assault her. She fought until she was exhausted.

"He took a Jack Daniels bottle out his pocket and raised it over his head and said he was going to kill me," she said. "A peace came over me and I was prepared to die.

"I started saying the Our Father and the third time I repeated it, he got off of me and his hands were covering his face and he was shaking. The our Father says, 'deliver us from evil''.' and that is exactly what he did."

She persuaded the man to let her drive back to the first shopping center and said she escaped by getting him to agree to walk east across the highway with her so he could get away.

After that she ran and called police she said.

"He was out there and he knew I held the key to his freedom," she said. "It's changed my life. I take nothing for granted and take each day as a blessing."