A 19-year-old already arrested for an attempted burglary and suspected in at least one other home invasion, also faces charges that he beat an elderly woman during a home invasion at her Northeast Philadelphia apartment earlier this week.
Dimetry Worthy of the 2200 block of Strahle Street was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly tried to break into another elderly woman's -- in this case a 78-year-old's -- home on the 2100 block of Emerson Street, according to Philadelphia Police.
After questioning, Worthy was charged with the severe beating of an 86-year-old woman just hours earlier inside her unit at the Meadowview Apartments on Algon Avenue in Rhawnhurst.
Police tell NBC10 that Yevdokiya Rulevskaya -- who felt safe enough in her apartment that she often left the door unlocked -- woke up to find a man in her bedroom. She started screaming and he began beating her, cops said.
Rulevskaya was beaten so badly her right eye socket was broken. She also got stitches on the side of her face and her forehead.
"Hope the police will catch this animal," Rulevskaya's granddaughter told NBC10 in an e-mail.
Rulevskaya, who only speaks Russian, was taken to the hospital where she told investigators in broken English that her attacker had a dark complexion and stocky build.
That description matches Worthy.
Worthy is being held on $75,000 bail on assault, burglary, criminal trespass and related offenses in relation to the Rhawnhurst home invasion.
He was arraigned around 2 a.m. Friday for beating Rulevskaya, the attempted burglary and a handful of other incidents, according to court documents.
He was caught in part thanks to Joan Stratz, the victim in the Emerson Street attacks, thinking quickly when a man she didn't recognize came to her door saying he was the landlord. She refused to open the door and then the man allegedly smashed a window with a hammer, Stratz tells NBC10.
Worthy was arrested a few blocks away with a hammer and gloves.
"You work all your life, you save a little bit of money -- I live on social security," Stratz told NBC10's Monique Braxton. "Cut me a break. What do they expect to gain by breaking into someone's house and hurting them?"
Worthy is also accused of invading a 62-year-old woman's home on the 2400 block of Hoffnagle Street around 2:30 a.m. on March 17. In that instance he allegedly woke up the woman demanding money. Police say the woman cooperated with her alleged attacker, gave him a small amount of money, a couple candles and two bottles of vodka.
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Worthy was also charged early Friday with two counts of attempted auto theft and criminal mischief after two women reported Tuesday that their cars were broken into and ransacked while parked on the 8100 block of Algon Street.
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