Woman Thrown Down Hill After Being Raped, Stabbed

A woman who had been beaten, raped, stabbed six times and thrown down a Topanga Canyon hillside managed to crawl back up and across a road for help early Saturday, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

One of the victim’s rescuers angrily denounced several other people who refused to get involved when the blood-soaked woman staggered up and begged: “Somebody please help me.” The rescuer also downplayed her own role.

“It’s amazing that people think what we did is heroic,” said Dana Vinson after helping to transport the injured woman to the hospital. “What we did was simply morally correct.”

The 31-year-old Canoga Park woman told deputies her attacker was an acquaintance who lured her out after midnight by asking for help in finding his missing father.

Deputies arrested Joseph Serapiglia, 20, a Rhode Island man who had recently moved in with his father in Canoga Park. Serapiglia was asleep when investigators showed up at his door at 6 a.m. Saturday. He was being held without bail on suspicion of attempted murder and rape.

The woman was in guarded but stable condition with a punctured lung and skull fracture at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Woodland Hills, authorities said.

Serapiglia called the woman, a casual acquaintance, after midnight, claiming that his father was missing in Topanga Canyon and that he needed help because he was unfamiliar with the area, said Sheriff’s Sgt. John O’Brien.

Serapiglia drove the woman up Topanga Canyon Boulevard to the top of the canyon, a popular lovers’ lane, where he pulled his van off the road at a turnout that leads to a gated fire road, O’Brien said. The woman told deputies Serapiglia beat her inside the van and raped her. She was dragged out of the van, stabbed six times in the upper body, then beaten again, before being pushed down a 25-foot embankment, O’Brien said.

After “leaving her for dead,” the attacker drove off, O’Brien said.

The woman, less than 5 feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, managed to crawl up the hill to the road. She tried to flag down a couple of cars on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, but none stopped, O’Brien said, noting that the road was lightly traveled at the time and the drivers may not have seen her.

The victim spotted a small car parked at a nearby view site that overlooks the valley and staggered up to it, a witness said. Sitting on the hood and talking quietly were two 24-year-old Canoga Park women and a man. Vinson, one of the women, said she and her friends had thought of going to the beach but decided against it and parked at the peak among a half-dozen other cars to look out over the Valley. Vinson then saw a figure stagger out of the darkness.

“Hey you guys, somebody please help me, I’ve been raped and stabbed,” Vinson said she heard the victim say. “She walked up to us and as soon as she got close enough I could see that she was bloody from head to toe.”

Vinson said that when the woman appeared the other cars began to back out and leave in a hurry. Vinson’s male friend stayed while the two women drove the victim to the hospital because there was not enough room for him in the car. After his friends left, he tried to catch a ride down the hill with one of the other motorists, but was refused, Vinson said. He hid behind a bush for a while out of fear that the attacker might still be near. He then hiked to a mobile home park.

“I was just amazed by the whole thing,” Vinson said of the unwillingness of others to lend a hand.

Vinson said she and her friend raced to the hospital. “I’m sorry,” the victim kept saying to them, apparently embarrassed to ruin their evening. “I’m bad,” she said, apparently realizing the seriousness of her wounds.

The hospital called authorities, who arrested Serapiglia.