Woman attacked near home in south Fort Myers

A Southwest Florida woman has stitches and bruises after she was attacked by armed robbers Monday. The incident happened in the parking lot of her apartment complex in south Fort Myers.

“This girl was in major trouble,” Kathleen Roland River said. “I didn’t know if she was raped. I didn’t know what was going on. It was a frightening sound. She was screaming for her life.”

Two masked men approached the woman and demanded her purse. But, she continued to fight back her pursuers. The two attackers continued to fight the woman. She eventually gave them her purse, and they ran off. They are still on the streets tonight.

Rivera is questioning why there isn’t any proper lighting around the lake by the apartment complex and why no one came to the woman’s aid.

“I just can’t believe that nobody else heard the screams,” Rivera said. “We are taught to scream at the top of our lungs, and that’s exactly what she did.”

Chris Norbits is on the homeowner’s association board group for the complex. He said it has become a discussion item.

“We’d have to put in on as an agenda at the next monthly meeting to see what the community wants to do,” Norbits said.

The woman who was attacked is actively looking for apartment complexes closer to her family in Cape Coral worried about her two attackers retruning to where she lives now.

Rivera has become concerned and is mortified by her neighbor’s experience so close to home.

“I’m about to cry because it’s really important for her to gain the strength that she needs to get over this,” Rivera said.