Bloody survivor of hammer-wielding killer ran for her life: witness
The sole survivor of Saturday’s hammer massacre on Long Island was bloodied, barefoot and running for her life down the street when Earl Sykes saw her.
“She was running between cars,” Sykes, 38, said of seeing the women through his car window sometime around 2 a.m., as he drove home from a late movie.
“She ran to my car and jumped on my hood,” he said of the blood-splattered woman, who’d just escaped a Hempstead home where a crazed man was bludgeoning his mother, sister, and a family friend to death with a large framing hammer.
“She was screaming, ‘Help me! Help me! Somebody is trying to kill me!’”
The woman, whose identity is being withheld by police, appeared to be in shock.
“You could see the fear in her eyes,” said Sykes, who works as an EMS.
She ran from his car, and began running up to the front door of the nearest house, banging with her fists.
Sykes said he dialed 911 and EMS as he made a U-turn and parked.
“I was trying to keep her calm,” he told The Post. “Telling her not to move.”
The woman’s wrist had been pounded by the hammer cops say was wielded by accused triple-murderer Bobby Vanderhall, 34.
Vanderhall was in custody Saturday, accused of the bludgeoning murders of his daycare worker mom, Lynne, 58, his sister, Melissa, 28, and his sister’s friend since high school, Janel Simpson, 29.
There is a fourth charge: attempting to murder the frantic woman who got away.
The woman’s wrist would turn out to be fractured; police said later Saturday that she was recovering from that defensive injury and several other contusions at an area hospital.
Her shirt was covered in blood, Sykes said. Her head, too, had been bloodied.
“She kept on saying over and over, ‘He is trying to kill us. Help me, please. It’s four of us. He is trying to kill us.’”
Sykes said he stayed with the woman until officers came.
“I feel sad about what happened,” he said. “But I was happy I came at the right time— because nobody was coming.”