CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WKBW) — A woman from Cheektowaga tells 7 News she lived out a worst-case scenario after coming home from a night out in Downtown Buffalo.
"I knew it was life or death, I knew I would not walk out of that situation alive," said Kelly.
Kelly is a teacher and asked that we now show her full name or face to protect herself and her students.
She's sharing her story to try to catch her attacker and raise awareness so this doesn't happen again.
What happened
Kelly says she left her home after 6 p.m. to grab drinks with her friends to celebrate her upcoming birthday.
The night ended at Lucky Day and made her way to her car. She says she and a friend noticed another car stalling near where she was parked.
"We thought it was weird, but we didn't think anything of it," said Kelly.
So she went on her way, getting to her home in Cheektowaga around 2 a.m.
"I pulled into a driveway. I sat in my car for a minute, when I got out of it, in the corner of my eye I saw someone standing there and when I turned, this man pushed himself onto me. He kept telling me I was beautiful, tried to kiss me. I started to fight back," said Kelly.
She describes her attacker as a Middle Eastern man with a beard, around 5'10" tall. She recalls him mentioning her coming from a bar.
"I remember thinking, 'how does he know I was at a bar before this?'" said Kelly.
She was able to grab her phone and take the above photo before she says he grabbed her again.
"And that was when I told him that if you're going to kidnap me, you're going to have to kill me because I'm not going down without a fight. He said get in the car, get in the car. He laughed, threw me in the back," said Kelly.
She says he floored it down George Urban Boulevard, but she fought and grabbed the steering wheel, which took them off the road when he stopped.
"He said just go just go and unlocked the child locks and I was able to get out and I ran for help," said Kelly.
She says she's mostly gotten support, but there are also people denying her story.
"You have those few people who are saying, you're lying, how can you explain this, how can you explain this, it's really frustrating on an emotional level, because I just want this to be over with," said Kelly.
What are police doing?
Cheektowaga Police confirmed to 7 News that they're investigating and working on this around the clock.
We're told they don't want to put out any bad information and there's not enough yet to share anything publicly.
