[Magdalen] Prayer Request

[Jay Weigel]

Prayers, please, for Rachel, a young woman who is the daughter of a friend
in Tennessee, who was assaulted Wednesday. She is injured and badly shaken,
but alive. It could have been worse. She was very brave and did all the
right things.

Here are the circumstances, in her own words (She will not mind my sharing
them here as she shared them on Facebook):

Yesterday afternoon I did what I almost always do and I headed to Panther
Creek to walk/run. I parked at the visitor center, and went my usual route
across the length of the road and back down toward Old Wagon Trail. There
was a man behind me on the road as I was walking towards the trail and we
briefly talked about which side of the road was the safest to be on. When I
turned onto the trail I took out an ear bud and assumed the footsteps I
heard behind me belonged to the man I had just spoken to.

About half way down the trail the person behind me seemed awfully close
which was more annoying than anything. When we turned the first sharp
corner on the path so that we were both facing Panther Creek Road the man
came up quickly beside me. I was relieved assuming he was finally going to
pass me. Instead he punched me in the jaw. I was very disoriented, but not
so much that I didn't realize he was very aggressively grabbing and groping
me. All I could do was scream for help at the top of my lungs. I choose Old
Wagon because it's the most popular and therefore the most heavily traveled
trail in the park. I take this route nearly every single weekday, and run
into familiar faces on it all the time. It was around 1 in the afternoon on
a beautiful day. I was sure that if I screamed loud enough someone would
hear me. I have no idea how long we struggled, but he did finally get
scared of the noise I was making and he took off.

As he ran away I snapped a picture of him with my phone. He saw me do that,
and ran back toward me. He had already tried to take me down with a punch,
and he knew I wasn't going to stop yelling for help so this time he
strangled me. I have never in my life been so afraid. I couldn't breathe or
think and he kept demanding that I give him the phone. I finally held it
out and he took it. He called me some names, and then told me to run in the
direction we had been going, and he would go the other way. I did my best
to run back to the visitor center and waved down a ranger in the parking
lot.

I begged the ranger to quickly close the front gate hoping we could catch
him before he could leave, but he drove by as I was talking. I pointed him
out and the ranger went after him immediately. We filled out a report, and
they took pictures of my face, neck, and chest. He got away, but he had my
phone. My father (who has lost a phone or 2) was able to use my Google
account to track down my phone, and we called the police who used that
information to find and arrest him. He confessed and is being charged with
aggravated assault, sexual assault, theft, and evading arrest. I'm ONLY
putting this out there because I have so many friends and acquaintances who
run and hike in Panther Creek. PLEASE don't go alone. If you do tell
someone where you are going and bring pepper spray. We can't let this
happen to anyone else!!!