Two Teen-Agers in Bronx Are Held In Attacks on Woman Neighbor, 72

Two teenage boys, one 13 year old, the other 14, were held in the Bronx yesterday in connection with a six-day siege of terror against a 72-year-old woman, a former concert pianist, who lived in the same apartment building.

The two looted the apartment, smashing keepsakes of a lifetime and choking the woman and eventually raping her. Her only income was from social security.

The building was staked out in response to her first complaints, on the assumption that the intruders came from elsewhere in the neighborhood. Meanwhile the youths continued their raids on the woman’s apartment undetected.

Yesterday they were apprehended by Gonazalo Vargas the superindendent. The 14-year-old has a record of nine arrests dating to when he was nine.

The youths first broke in on Dec. 21. They returned on the 23rd and on each day thereafter for four days. Each time the woman called the police. Detectives said she gave confusing accounts of what had happened when police first responded. They said she created further confusion when she repeated her calls on succeeding days.

excerpt from NYT 12/23/77