Woman recognizes late-night attacker — he just painted her house, California cops say

A woman asleep in her bed early Saturday morning awoke to find a man straddling her with a knife to her neck, California police say.

The man threatened “to kill her if she screamed,” Sunnyvale police said in a Facebook post.

Believing she was about to be raped, the woman grabbed the knife by the blade, seriously injuring her hand, Capt. Craig Anderson told The Mercury News.

She screamed for help and fought back during the 3:45 a.m. attack, police said. The man repeatedly punched her in the head and bit her arm.

Her screams woke her 13-year-old daughter, who also helped fight off the man, police wrote on Facebook. He escaped through a sliding glass door.

But the woman had seen enough to identify him as a painter who had worked on her home a few days earlier, Anderson told The Mercury News.

She told police he was one of several contractors who had done renovation work on her house recently, KPIX reported.

The woman was hospitalized for her injuries, officers said. She was released Monday.

On Monday, police arrested Jorge Perez Diaz, 32, at a Mountain View apartment on suspicion of burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, criminal threats and assault with the intent to commit rape, officers said.

Anderson told The Mercury News that a San Jose woman reported in May that Diaz had closed a bedroom door while working at another home to isolate her inside, but she escaped.

“To us, we’re not thinking this is the first time he’s done something like this,” Anderson told the publication.

Police ask that anyone with additional information contact detectives at 408-730-7100.

This story was originally published June 22, 2021 at 2:09 PM with the headline "Woman recognizes late-night attacker — he just painted her house, California cops say."