Katherine Newman is from Canada and showed remarkable bravery during her confrontation with a serial assault suspect. She and her friend, Crystal, were staying at the Alamo Hotel in Anaheim when they were attacked by a man armed with a knife.
Police believe the suspect they arrested Saturday night assaulted those women and three others during a five-hour crime spree in Anaheim and Garden Grove.
The suspected attacker was caught on surveillance video and identified as 32-year-old Ulises DeLaTorre. Garden Grove police arrested DeLaTorre in the 6100 block of Robin Way in Buena Park Saturday night.
DeLaTorre is a parolee who served several years in prison for attempted murder. He also has a number of gang-related felony convictions on his record.
He's believed to be responsible for attacks on five women in four different Orange County locations on Thursday.
Video from security cameras from a convenience store allegedly shows the suspect walking outside the Alamo Hotel in Anaheim before the two women were assaulted Thursday.
Katherine and Crystal were entering their hotel room when a man attacked them. She fought back even as he tried to drag her friend away.
"I have to keep him out until somebody notices something is going on. I just have to keep him from getting past the doorway, so I just kept punching and punching, and I just lunged forward and I said, 'no Crystal' and I pulled her back and I just kept pounding," said Katherine.
"He came down with a knife, and he got my arm and got her eye in the process, he cut her. She has six stitches in her eye. She started screaming at this point, and finally we heard people running around upstairs at this point, and they're the ones who actually called police first."
She says the suspect punched her in the back of the head with so much force she started bleeding, but she kept fighting, and he finally went away.
Katherine, who lives in Canada, had come to Southern California with her friend to run in Sunday's Tinkerbell Half Marathon. After the attack, Katherine returned home.
DeLaTorre is being held without bail and is expected to appear in court in Orange County on Tuesday.
Anyone with information regarding the assaults was urged to contact Garden Grove Police at (714) 741-5070.
