State police say a 20-year-old man assaulted and attempted to sexually assault a woman who was out for a walk in Norfolk Thursday night.
Troopers got a report of a woman who appeared to be in medical distress walking in the Parker Hill Road area just before 7 p.m.
They responded to the area and located the woman. She was bloodied and injured, according to court documents.
“This was a random citizen that was passing by [and] observed this woman, the victim walking down the street appeared to be in medical distress,” said Trooper First Class Pedro Muñiz from Connecticut State Police.
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Troopers worked with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to identify Jason Heath, of Winsted, as the suspect, according to state police.
She told state police she noticed a man near her during her daily walk in the neighborhood and that he was getting closer to her, according to court documents. She said she felt uneasy about him.
She told police she turned around and walked past him and that he eventually got into a dark gray Mazda sedan and drove past her.
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She noticed the car again near Parker Hill Road but didn't see the man in the car anymore.
As the woman passed the car and an access road to a cell phone tower, she told police she felt an arm go around her neck and a body pressing up behind her, according to court documents. She said the man began to choke her and then pushed her to the ground.
"...I tried to scream but I couldn’t as I was actively being choked,” the victim said to police in a statement. “I clawed his face, arms, hands whatever I could grab.”
She said she began to lose consciousness but then came to and began to fight the attacker.
At that point she told troopers the man let go of her and said "I want to rape you. I want to have sex with you," according to court documents.
She said he had tried to pull off her pink spandex shorts. He then let go of her completely and apologized and said he would let her go and asked her to promise not to report him, according to court documents.
He then got back in his car and drove away.
He was taken into custody around 9:30 p.m.
According to court documents, Heath told state police he noticed the woman when she was walking that he thought she was attractive.
In a statement to police, Heath said "I started to get this weird urge when I would look at her. The feeling I had was sexual to the female. I then decided to try and rape her," he said, according to the court documents.
Heath told investigators he hid behind a rock wall and waited for her to walk by and then he grabbed her from behind and choked her.
He told police he came to his senses, apologized and asked the woman not to report him before driving away, according to court documents.
Heath is charged with first-degree sexual assault, third-degree assault, second-degree strangulation/suffocation, first-degree unlawful restraint, second-degree stalking, and second-degree breach of peace.
Heath appeared in Torrington Superior Court Friday where a judge raised his bond to $450,000.
