Girl Attacked By Masked Man

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30603, 20 November 1964, Page 3

Girl Attacked By Masked Man

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 19. An 18-year-old girl told police today that a masked man armed with a knife bound and gagged her in her Newton home late last night and ransacked her room.

But the man said he would not assault her as “I have a sister of my own,” the girl, Annabella Harris, said today. Describing the incident today Miss Harris said she awoke just before midnight

when she sensed someone in the room. “I was on my side and turned over just as he lunged down at me with a knife,” she said. “I screamed and screamed, but stopped when he said he would kill me if I didn’t.” She said the intruder was wearing a handkerchief over the lower part of his face. “He asked me if I had any money in the place and searched all my bags,” she said. “Then he tied me up with fishing cord and put some plaster across my mouth. [My hands were behind my back and I couldn’t move. “He said he wouldn't assault me because he had a sister of his own.” Miss Harris said she eventually managed to pick up the knife with her feet and cut the string around her legs. She also worked the plaster from her mouth on the pillow. “I walked around to a house in Virginia avenue and knocked on the door with my head,” she said. A woman who answered her knock said she was “very distressed.” “She was crying and couldn’t stop shaking,” the woman said. Miss Harris lives in the house with her sister, who was away at Whangarei.