Thomas MacMillan Photo
Anam Anasarr said she was taking an order over the phone at around 2 p.m. Tuesday, when she looked up and saw a woman walking in with two deep knife wounds on her neck.
“Oh my god. I’d never seen anything like that. It was killing me!” said Anasarr (pictured), a manager at Papa John’s Pizza on Whalley Avenue. That’s where a 23-year-old woman ended up, moments after she was stabbed by her boyfriend on Tuesday, Anasarr said.
Anasarr clutched her hands together and shuddered as she recalled what she’d just experienced — the aftermath of a vicious assault.
Her quick thinking helped stem the bleeding until an ambulance arrived.
Here’s what she said happened:
At around 2 p.m., Anasarr was on the phone taking a pizza order when three women walked in. One of them was crying and bleeding heavily from her neck.
She had cuts below her chin, one on each side, Anasarr said. “Deep, deep cuts,” Anasarr said.
“It was a hell of a cut, man,” said a pizza delivery man, who declined to give his name. He said he ran outside and flagged down a police car.
Anassar grabbed some napkins to stop the bleeding but those quickly got saturated with blood. She grabbed a rag, then gauze from a first aid kit. Meanwhile, someone called an ambulance.
The victim told Anassar she was 23 years old. She said she’d just been slashed by her boyfriend. “William did that,” she said, according to Anasarr.
The ambulance came and took the woman to the hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Police taped off the crime scene while they conducted an investigation. The tape came down at 3:08 p.m. A police officer said the cops have a suspect in the case.
Anassar was left as the last employee in Papa John’s, where the floor was still spattered with blood. Blood-soaked napkins sat on a table by the window. Police officers counseled Anassar to find someone to talk to and to at least take the rest of the day off.
“I think I’m going to go home, because I cannot breathe,” Anassar said unsteadily.
3 Minutes
In other crime news: When Express Laundry and Dry Cleaners owner Bruce Matthias arrived at work Tuesday morning, he discovered a break-in at his place of business on James and Lombard. It happened 6:30 a.m.
Allan Appel Photo
The cops arrived at 6:33 a.m.
They determined that the premises had been broken into some time during the night.
“It’s no big deal,” said Matthias. A vending machine was broken into. It was the very first time his business had been burglarized, and he was pleased with the rapidity of the police response.
After the shift change several more cruisers with officers arrived. Why so many officers for a “no big deal” break-in?
According to Sgt. Martin Dadio, who was on the scene, the officers were looking at the tape from the security camera to see if any of them could identify the burglar.
By 10:30 a.m., one officer remained still checking for fingerprints.
Dadio would give no further details except to say the investigation is ongoing.
In other crime news, according to Lt. Lisa Dadio:
Police are investigating a multi-vehicle crash that occurred at Church and Chapel Tuesday afternoon. Four people sustained non-life threatening injuries as “one of the vehicles drove into two vehicles stopped in front of it.”
A woman reported being attacked by two men as she got out of her car on Blake Street around 9 p.m. Saturday. They threw her against a building and demanded her keys. They “struggled”; the men fled. The woman wasn’t injured.
Around an hour later police found a 57-year-old man in front of a Poplar Street house who’d been stabbed (minor wounds) and hit with a shovel and crowbar. Police arrested two woman who live on the house’s second floor on assault and breach of peace charges. The man was also charged with assault and breach of peace.
Allan Appel contributed reporting.
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For block-by-block year-to-date crime information, plus daily crime maps, check out the Independent’s Crime Log.