© Tillman Family; Fort Collins Police Dept/The Associated Press
Lydia Tillman survived a brutal attack by Travis Forbes, seen in right photo, who killed another woman months earlier.
"I can talk," said Lydia Tillman with pride and great effort. For a woman who spent over five weeks in a coma after being sexually assaulted, strangled and doused in bleach, this is no small feat.
"I'm tough," said Tillman, an acclaimed sommelier and a seasoned world traveler.
At a 4th of July fireworks celebration in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado, Tillman, 30, met a stranger who returned with her to her apartment, sexually assaulted and strangled her, beat her head, shattered her jaw, and left her for dead. To cover his crime, police say the man then poured bleach on her body and throughout her apartment, then started a fire.
Despite the physical trauma, Tillman found the strength to survive by leaping out of her second-story window and running into an ambulance that had just arrived. When the medics asked whether she knew the assailant, Tillman repeatedly told them "No, no, no" before suffering a stroke that left her in a coma for over five weeks.
Tillman would later learn that police had already been building a case against her attacker for an assault on another woman -- an assault that ended in murder.
After 19-year-old Kenia Monge went missing in downtown Denver on April 1, police questioned Travis Forbes, 31, a local entrepreneur, after Monge's step-father found a text message from Forbes on Monge's cell phone.
Comment: While it can be said that a person, if able, has a right to die at their own choosing, it's also possible that there are underlying motives such as loneliness, depression or other, that are actually cries for help. Every situation is different and there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.