Boy finds badly beaten woman
Middle-schooler on bike gets help for victim in yard
A Boston middle school student made a disturbing discovery yesterday morning on the way to school: A woman who had been beaten bloody lay on the lawn at a home where the boy routinely drops off his bicycle, neighbors and police said.
The boy found the woman in a yard on Winthrop Street at about 7:35 a.m. as he was heading to Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury, across the street from where the woman was attacked, residents said.
Police said the victim was so severely injured that they first believed she had been shot in the head. But once the woman, 38, was taken to Boston Medical Center, doctors discovered she was the victim of a beating.
Officials said she had severe head trauma from the assault.
She was in critical condition but was expected to survive, authorities said. Police said no arrests have been made.
Yolanda Williams, a resident of the Winthrop Street apartment building, said middle school students routinely drop off their bicycles at the building for safekeeping while they are in class.
She said the boy spotted the woman and then went and knocked on the first-floor door, telling residents what he had seen. Williams said her aunt rushed outside to help the woman, trying to stop the bleeding until paramedics arrived.
A spokeswoman for Boston public schools said that the boy was seen by a counselor at the school once he arrived there and that a relative later came and took him home for the day. Counselors will be on hand this morning for any students disturbed by the event, the spokeswoman said.
"It's just been horrible around here," said Williams, who has lived in the neighborhood for nine years and is pregnant with twins.
She said a teen acquaintance of her family was shot multiple times Friday night a short distance away on Winthrop Street.
Police confirmed that the nonfatal shooting occurred on Oct. 10 near the intersection of Dennis and Winthrop streets and that the victim was 18 years old.
"I am ready to move," Williams said. "It's time to go." 