Pacific Beach

The woman known as the “bag lady of Pacific Beach,” Sara JoAn Rutledge, was unable to identify in court Friday the man charged with her near-fatal beating and said she doesn’t remember anything about the attack. Rutledge, 56, a well-known figure who collected aluminum cans along Mission and Pacific beaches to support herself, suffered severe facial injuries in the pre-dawn beating on Sept. 1. One doctor at the trial said the injuries showed the kind of physical damage inflicted by a high-speed car wreck.

Rutledge’s testimony came on the second day of the jury trial of Jose Hernandez Herrera, 27, an illegal alien charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and assault with intent to commit rape. On the witness stand, Rutledge, who has given up street life since being placed in a Clairemont group home, said she was “in the right place at the wrong time, I guess I shouldn’t have been there.”