CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police said they plan to charge a man who attacked a woman in a parking deck near SouthPark Mall on Monday evening, then tried to commit suicide as officers closed in on him.
Debra Browning told Eyewitness News she had just left her office on Fairview Road about 6:15 p.m. Monday and was approaching her car in the parking deck when the man grabbed her.
"He grabbed me from the front," Browning said. "He was in my face and his eyes were right here."
The assailant was trying to pry her keys out of her hands and threatened her, she said.
The man became more desperate as she fought back.
"He tried to head-butt me. He tried to bite me in the neck. I tried to knee him in the groin and we were fighting back and forth," Browning said.
"I lunged forward to take him down with me and when I did, that (was) we both fell."
Two women in the parking deck saw the struggle. They started screaming and running toward the fight and that was when the attacker ran off, police said.
Browning and the two witnesses gave officers a description of the attacker and they found a man matching his description in woods about a half mile away.
The man approached Nathaniel 39-year-old Scott, police said.
"As he appeared to surrender, he proceeded to slash himself across the throat with a box cutter he had," Capt. Todd Lontz said.
Officers performed first aid and called paramedics who took Scott to the hospital where he underwent surgery and is recovering from his injuries, Lotz said.
Browning is still nervous about what happened to her.
"All the other places I've been by myself and never, never had this happen," Browning said. "I've got to change my life now because of this."
WSOC
