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There is another twist to the story:
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1093347022303690.xml
Here's the short: He is an epileptic, got a metal plate in his head, he was NOT masturbating. He most likely had an epileptic seizure and was wandering off not knowing what he was doing.
How about all you assholes who said he deserved to get raped with a tree branch come out and justify that again?
Here's the long:
Beating victim recalls nothing
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Regina Brett
Plain Dealer Reporter
Mario Russo's girlfriend says he remembers nothing.
He doesn't know who broke his nose.
He doesn't know who fractured his jaw.
He doesn't know who crushed his trachea.
He doesn't know that the people charged with beating him told police he was a Peeping Tom they caught masturbating while peering in the window of a sleeping child.
Last week, the North Royalton police told the media that a security camera at the Bunker Ridge apartments captured the attack on Aug. 14.
"Everything's on tape," Detec tive Jay Drake told reporters.
Police now say the video captured the attack on Russo but does not show him masturbating outside the window. It shows Russo standing outside the brick Bunker Ridge apartment building about 50 feet from the one he lives in, looking at a window, then stepping behind a giant bush.
"I can't see him doing anything," Drake said on Monday.
Detective Dave Loeding, public-information officer for North Royalton, also said the video does not show what the suspects alleged.
"You can see him go to the window for an extended period of time, which is abnormal, but it does not show what these people are saying," Loeding said. "Let's keep in mind, this idea of masturbation and all that comes from the assailants themselves."
On Monday, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted five adults in the attack. The following face charges of attempted murder, rape and felonious assault: Khalid Arafat, 34, of Cleveland; Stacy Umstott, 28, of North Royalton; Nicholas Phipps, 21, of Cleveland; Athena Lemieux, 20, of Elyria; and Brandon Breeden, 19, of Elyria. Authorities said they are considering charges against a 15-year-old Mentor girl who was with the five during the beating.
The police have no neutral parties to explain what Russo was doing in the parking lot at 4 a.m.
Mario Russo can't tell them.
But his girlfriend, Jennifer Lewis, believes she has the answer.
Russo suffers from a head injury, she said. He has told different stories of how he got it: an industrial accident, a car accident. He has a metal plate in his head and takes a pharmacy of prescriptions just to function.
On Aug. 6, Russo had a seizure that landed him in the hospital for four days, hospital records show. North Royalton police had found him wandering along Ridge Road and called an ambulance.
That's what Russo does during a seizure, Lewis said. He wanders. He blanks out, forgets who he is, forgets where he is. He gets wobbly, gazes off, zones out and makes no sense.
Russo had a seizure Aug. 13, the day before the attack. He was treated and released from the Parma Community General Hospital emergency room, records show. Doctors checked his Depakote to prevent more seizures, but the drug has mixed results on him.
Russo, 44, came home from the hospital, watched TV and went to bed around 10 p.m. Here's Lewis' recollection of what happened the next morning:
The sound of the Metro Life Flight helicopter woke her just before 6 a.m. She looked outside. Police cars filled the parking lot. An officer saw her and waved for her to come down.
Where's Mario? she wondered. He usually woke at 4 a.m. to put on the coffee, buy a newspaper and start the crossword puzzle.
"There's been an assault," the officer told her. "Do you know anybody with dentures?"
"Oh my God, that's Mario," she said. He had been kicked so hard, his dentures had flown out.
"Do you have a picture of him?" the officer asked. "We can't identify his body."
His body?
Lewis said she went up to their third-floor apartment to get a photo of him. That's when she noticed his coffee mug filled, his deck shoes parked on the floor. Russo never went anywhere without those shoes. Not to do laundry, not to go have a smoke, not to visit a neighbor across the hall.
She figured he must have had one of his seizures and wandered off. She gave the officer the photo.
"This is him?" he asked. The picture didn't resemble the bloody mess paramedics put in the helicopter. Russo's blood soaked into the grass and dirt near a small cherry tree.
As police started the homicide investigation, Lewis called her dad. He calmed her down, then called the hospital to give them Russo's medical information.
Lewis' parents drove her to MetroHealth Medical Center. A police officer took them by surprise when he asked, "Did he make it?"
How bad was he?
Lewis said she didn't recognize the man in surgical ICU. She knew him by his blue eyes and long, dark eyelashes. She grew hysterical, crying. Her mom sobbed, and her dad whispered, "Oh, my God."
Russo's face was a mess of cuts and blood and stitches. His nose was crooked. His jaw hung near his cheek. His eyes were swollen shut. His face was as puffy as a Mylar balloon. He was on six IVs. A feeding tube. A ventilator.
Lewis cried over and over, "I love you, I love you."
The hardest part was going home without him, she said.
Russo remembers nothing, Lewis said. He wakes each day in MetroHealth unsure where he is. Then it comes back in stages: The place. The wounds. The beating. But no reason.
He's not angry, she said. He's confused.
They broke the news to him in stages, day by day. First they told him that a group of people beat him. Then they told him that someone sodomized him. The hardest truth is yet to come: The whole world thinks he's a Peeping Tom. But North Royalton police say Russo has never been charged with a sex crime.
Every time Russo asks, "Why? Why did they do this to me?" Lewis doesn't know how to answer.
"They're all in jail," she keeps telling him to comfort him.
He doesn't know that TV tabloids are swooping into town to cover the story. "Inside Edition" and Montel Williams want to do stories on vigilante justice, a detective said.
Russo got to go outdoors Monday for a few minutes, Lewis said. He had to wear a hat and glasses as disguise from the media and for his own safety. She said he is still wobbly and confused but might go into a rehab program in two weeks. He no longer needs the ventilator, the respirator, the oxygen.
The bruises are fading, she said. One eye is still black. His lip is still swollen. His face still looks crooked. The doctors reset his nose, wired his jaw and stitched his face and the insides of his mouth that tore under the shoes and fists.
"I'm just so sore," he told Lewis. "So sore."
He's not angry, she said. He just wants to go home. They want to get back to their quiet, slow life, to watch television, to hold hands.
Russo doesn't remember a thing.
Except how much he loves her.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
[email protected], 216-999-6328
© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1093347022303690.xml
Here's the short: He is an epileptic, got a metal plate in his head, he was NOT masturbating. He most likely had an epileptic seizure and was wandering off not knowing what he was doing.
How about all you assholes who said he deserved to get raped with a tree branch come out and justify that again?
Here's the long:
Beating victim recalls nothing
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Regina Brett
Plain Dealer Reporter
Mario Russo's girlfriend says he remembers nothing.
He doesn't know who broke his nose.
He doesn't know who fractured his jaw.
He doesn't know who crushed his trachea.
He doesn't know that the people charged with beating him told police he was a Peeping Tom they caught masturbating while peering in the window of a sleeping child.
Last week, the North Royalton police told the media that a security camera at the Bunker Ridge apartments captured the attack on Aug. 14.
"Everything's on tape," Detec tive Jay Drake told reporters.
Police now say the video captured the attack on Russo but does not show him masturbating outside the window. It shows Russo standing outside the brick Bunker Ridge apartment building about 50 feet from the one he lives in, looking at a window, then stepping behind a giant bush.
"I can't see him doing anything," Drake said on Monday.
Detective Dave Loeding, public-information officer for North Royalton, also said the video does not show what the suspects alleged.
"You can see him go to the window for an extended period of time, which is abnormal, but it does not show what these people are saying," Loeding said. "Let's keep in mind, this idea of masturbation and all that comes from the assailants themselves."
On Monday, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted five adults in the attack. The following face charges of attempted murder, rape and felonious assault: Khalid Arafat, 34, of Cleveland; Stacy Umstott, 28, of North Royalton; Nicholas Phipps, 21, of Cleveland; Athena Lemieux, 20, of Elyria; and Brandon Breeden, 19, of Elyria. Authorities said they are considering charges against a 15-year-old Mentor girl who was with the five during the beating.
The police have no neutral parties to explain what Russo was doing in the parking lot at 4 a.m.
Mario Russo can't tell them.
But his girlfriend, Jennifer Lewis, believes she has the answer.
Russo suffers from a head injury, she said. He has told different stories of how he got it: an industrial accident, a car accident. He has a metal plate in his head and takes a pharmacy of prescriptions just to function.
On Aug. 6, Russo had a seizure that landed him in the hospital for four days, hospital records show. North Royalton police had found him wandering along Ridge Road and called an ambulance.
That's what Russo does during a seizure, Lewis said. He wanders. He blanks out, forgets who he is, forgets where he is. He gets wobbly, gazes off, zones out and makes no sense.
Russo had a seizure Aug. 13, the day before the attack. He was treated and released from the Parma Community General Hospital emergency room, records show. Doctors checked his Depakote to prevent more seizures, but the drug has mixed results on him.
Russo, 44, came home from the hospital, watched TV and went to bed around 10 p.m. Here's Lewis' recollection of what happened the next morning:
The sound of the Metro Life Flight helicopter woke her just before 6 a.m. She looked outside. Police cars filled the parking lot. An officer saw her and waved for her to come down.
Where's Mario? she wondered. He usually woke at 4 a.m. to put on the coffee, buy a newspaper and start the crossword puzzle.
"There's been an assault," the officer told her. "Do you know anybody with dentures?"
"Oh my God, that's Mario," she said. He had been kicked so hard, his dentures had flown out.
"Do you have a picture of him?" the officer asked. "We can't identify his body."
His body?
Lewis said she went up to their third-floor apartment to get a photo of him. That's when she noticed his coffee mug filled, his deck shoes parked on the floor. Russo never went anywhere without those shoes. Not to do laundry, not to go have a smoke, not to visit a neighbor across the hall.
She figured he must have had one of his seizures and wandered off. She gave the officer the photo.
"This is him?" he asked. The picture didn't resemble the bloody mess paramedics put in the helicopter. Russo's blood soaked into the grass and dirt near a small cherry tree.
As police started the homicide investigation, Lewis called her dad. He calmed her down, then called the hospital to give them Russo's medical information.
Lewis' parents drove her to MetroHealth Medical Center. A police officer took them by surprise when he asked, "Did he make it?"
How bad was he?
Lewis said she didn't recognize the man in surgical ICU. She knew him by his blue eyes and long, dark eyelashes. She grew hysterical, crying. Her mom sobbed, and her dad whispered, "Oh, my God."
Russo's face was a mess of cuts and blood and stitches. His nose was crooked. His jaw hung near his cheek. His eyes were swollen shut. His face was as puffy as a Mylar balloon. He was on six IVs. A feeding tube. A ventilator.
Lewis cried over and over, "I love you, I love you."
The hardest part was going home without him, she said.
Russo remembers nothing, Lewis said. He wakes each day in MetroHealth unsure where he is. Then it comes back in stages: The place. The wounds. The beating. But no reason.
He's not angry, she said. He's confused.
They broke the news to him in stages, day by day. First they told him that a group of people beat him. Then they told him that someone sodomized him. The hardest truth is yet to come: The whole world thinks he's a Peeping Tom. But North Royalton police say Russo has never been charged with a sex crime.
Every time Russo asks, "Why? Why did they do this to me?" Lewis doesn't know how to answer.
"They're all in jail," she keeps telling him to comfort him.
He doesn't know that TV tabloids are swooping into town to cover the story. "Inside Edition" and Montel Williams want to do stories on vigilante justice, a detective said.
Russo got to go outdoors Monday for a few minutes, Lewis said. He had to wear a hat and glasses as disguise from the media and for his own safety. She said he is still wobbly and confused but might go into a rehab program in two weeks. He no longer needs the ventilator, the respirator, the oxygen.
The bruises are fading, she said. One eye is still black. His lip is still swollen. His face still looks crooked. The doctors reset his nose, wired his jaw and stitched his face and the insides of his mouth that tore under the shoes and fists.
"I'm just so sore," he told Lewis. "So sore."
He's not angry, she said. He just wants to go home. They want to get back to their quiet, slow life, to watch television, to hold hands.
Russo doesn't remember a thing.
Except how much he loves her.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
[email protected], 216-999-6328
© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
