Garner woman raped by man who broke into her home, police say

GARNER, N.C. (WTVD) -- A young woman returned to her Garner apartment Thursday night to find a man in her apartment, a man who raped her according to police.

It happened at the Westchester Apartment complex around 10:30 p.m.

The crime seems especially brazen because Westchester is directly across the street from Garner Police headquarters.

"That's pretty bold," a former resident of Westchester told ABC11. She, like a lot of women in the area, is scared and didn't want her name used in this story. Like the victim, she is 27.

If they know how the man got in, Garner police aren't saying.

But they are saying the victim, who didn't recognize her attacker, was injured and had to be treated.

"It's scary. Nobody wants to imagine something like that happening in your own home," said the former Westchester resident.

Police spent the day searching for clues that might lead them to the violent criminal still on the loose.

"We've been door to door. We're asking people if they saw anything unusual last night or heard anything unusual last night to give us a call so we can get the person who did this crime," said Lieutenant Chris Clayton with the Garner Police Department.

Clayton says sometimes people don't report something they have seen or heard because they don't think it's important.

"No matter how small or insignificant they think what they heard or saw or someone else said, that they need to let the police know," Clayton emphasized.

The woman who used to live at Westchester knows as long as the rapist is on the loose he could strike again anywhere.

"You never know. He could do something up the road or, you know, a few miles down the road. You don't know," she said.

That's why police are not only urging people to report anything suspicious they are also asking them to ramp up safety precautions.