On Aug. 22 at around 1:30 a.m., a University of Memphis student drove up to his apartment near campus before being robbed by two armed assailants.
“I saw two guys and at first I thought they were going to sell me something,” the U of M student said.
The incident occurred in the Southern Woods Apartments in the 3600 block of Southern Avenue. The assailants then forced him back to his apartment and sexually assaulted his female roommate. The student still remembers what happened to him in the early hours of that morning.
“‘Give me your money,’ they said and they started going through my pockets. I had like $10. I had a rented van, and I thought they were going to take that, but they only took my money, my keys, credit cards and ID. They tossed those on the floor.
“Then they told me to go to the apartment. I don’t usually come home that late, but I was working at the computer lab, working extra hours.”
The student was still in his car when two suspects robbed him of his personal belongings at gunpoint. The two suspects forced him to lead the way from the unlit parking lot to his apartment where his female roommate was sleeping.
“Once I got to the apartment, one guy had me kneel down in the living room. The other guy went into the bedroom,” the student said.
After the suspects finished ransacking the bedroom, they took the student into the living room. Holding a gun to his head, the suspects asked were they kept their money.
The student explained that they did not keep money in the apartment, but as the suspects looked through the female’s room, they found money.
The assailants thought the student was lying and hit him over the head with the gun.
“The tall guy told the chubby guy to put me in the bathtub at first, but the chubby guy just put me in the bathroom and told me to kneel down. While I was in the bathroom the chubby guy went through my room, and the tall guy went into my roommate’s room,” the student said.
Once he did not hear the assailants, he went to the bedroom where he found his roommate in the closet. Then he closed the front door of his apartment and called the police.
The MPD arrived and woke up everyone in the complex and asked the tenants if they had seen anyone that fit the description. They had no leads, except they found the description fit a description previously filled at the Barclay House Apartments in the 3400 block of Southern Avenue.
“I still have trouble recalling it. I’m in a very emotional state,” said the female victim of sexual assault. “I’m very emotional and I don’t feel convertible with some details, it’s so recent.”
“I feel that she was targeted. Since most of my tenants are international students, I feel they were targeted,” said Wendy Wambo, Southern Woods’ landlord.
Wambo said that 95 percent of her residents are students, and she advises them to be on alert.
“After the first incident, the apartment owner, Arthur Wolff, and I thought the best thing to do was to take measures to make this place safer,” Wambo said.
The female victim’s best friend says she cannot deal with what happened. She says it is too recent for her to speak about the details of her assault. She believes her willingness to speak about the general details of the incident is to keep students safe and alert.
“The funny thing is, I felt so much safer when my roommate moved in,” said the female victim. “I had always been a very nervous person, I would hear noises, but when he moved in, nothing disturbed me.”
Last Thursday both roommates had started packing and they were both ready to leave Southern Wood Apartments.
The Memphis Police Department sent a report to The Department of Public Safety at The U of M Friday, and they sent out a mass e-mail and posted personal safety alerts.
“This incident hits too close to home,” said Derek Myers, associate director of The Department of Public Safety. “We definitely need to get this out to the campus community.”
As the two victims gave statements to the police Friday, their apartment was ransacked again.
“I assume the second time they tried to unscrew the locks to the door because when we returned to the apartment the screws were removed, but I guess they could not open it, so they must of gotten a screwdriver and pried the kitchen door open,” the male student said.
The police officers who inspected the apartment did not find any sign of forced entry.
The second time the apartment was robbed, the police did not check with the residents of the complex for a description of the suspects.
“We did not know that they were robbed a second time. We did not receive notice from MPD,” Myers said.
According to Myesr, the police usually sends out police reports after the incident occurs, but MPD has not notified The Department of Public Safety as of Wednesday afternoon.
“It would be really bad if this happened to someone else,” the male student said
He believes the same people who sexually assaulted his roommate robbed their apartment a second time.
The victims described the first suspect as a 5-foot-10-inch African-American male in his early 20s, dark skin, chubby build, black hair, wearing a white tank top and shorts. The second suspect is described as a 6-foot-4-inch African-American male in his early 20s, dark skin, thin build, black hair, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
If you witness a crime or have information about a crime, you can report the information annonymously by submitting a “Silent Witness” report on the Police Service Web page or by calling CrimeStoppers at 528-(CASH).
