In keeping with my efforts to show you all the evidence collected in my case, I give you the witness statement from the man whose balcony I landed on in the dead of night, desperate to get off the rooftops and onto the street. As I mentioned previously, I was recently reunited with him and his wife for the Travel Channel show shoot. And it was awesome to hear everything from his perspective with much more detail. In reading his official statement for the first time in November of 2009, I was so shocked to read some of the initial thoughts he had about me. That was tough to swallow. To think someone could possibly view me that way. But I understand it completely.
POLICE OF ROME – 13th of November 2008, at 9:45 a.m.
OBJECT:
minute of sketchy information made by:
– [name redacted], born in the USA on the 27th of December 19XX, resident in Coral Gables, Florida, actually living in [address redacted], in Rome, teacher, married,
My names is [name redacted], I’m an American citizen, I live in Italy with my wife, since nearly 2 months. I got the architecture’s degree and I’m attending a master with other students at XX University’s site of Rome.
I live in Via [address redacted].
During the night between the 11th and the 12th November, it was around 2:00 a.m., I was sleeping with my wife when suddenly we heard some sounds coming from our balcony, It was something like someone knocking our window.
We woke up frightened, because we live at the 3rd floor and there isn’t any way to get on the balcony, so we couldn’t understand what was happening.
Suddenly I went to the door-window and I asked who was outside. I said: “Alò” A woman’s voice answered to me that she was an american woman and she was running away from a man that wanted to hurt her. Her nose was bleeding and she was coming from the 3rd floor. She asked me a way to get back to the hotel. I suddenly tried to calm her because I was afraid that the man was still behind her and I even thought that the woman could be crazy: the situation was not very believable.
I was worried, so I went to an other window of my house and from that window I could see that the woman was squatting, I called the woman, the woman turned to me and when she saw me she started to speak in a loud voice and convulsively. I said to her to stay calm, to wait and not to move. I want to say that in my flat there are two elderly person. I put my wife and my child in another room, I woke up my father in law and we opened the window. My father in law opened and closed the window I helped the woman. The girl was tall with curly and dark hair, she had the face and the nose bleeding. When she was inside I gave her some tissues to clean her face, I asked her if she was ok and when she said yes I explained her the way out. I said that at the end of the stair she would have found a gate that she could open with a push-button.
I want to say that we were very scared and we were very worried that the man was still behind the woman or that the girl was crazy. I didn’t turn the light on, and i didn’t do anything.
QUESTION: Have you ever seen the girl before?
ANSWER: No, never.
QUESTION: Did you call the police?
ANSWER: No, we didn’t know what to do and what to say, everything was incredible and surreal.
QUESTION: Do you want to say something else?
ANSWER: Yes, Yesterday afternoon, while my wife was going out she understood that there was a police check. My wife asked to the girl that was with the police, if she was the girl that the night before was on our balcony, the girl said that she was the woman that the night before was on our balcony. So we all came in the house and the girl, once she was inside, recognized the green window of our house.
QUESTION: Do you have something else to say?
ANSWER: No I haven’t, but I’m at your disposal if you need me.
A Fight Back Woman 