Posted on Tue, May. 06, 2008

WAVELAND -- Police are searching for two unnamed men, one white and one black, who held women at knifepoint in separate recent incidents.

In one case the victim escaped serious injury. In the other a woman was bruised and suffered a non-lethal knife wound to the throat. Ages and identities of both victims were not released.

Police said no immediate information was released on either case because they had hoped to catch suspects before alerting them by making public statements. "We had a few leads that we were trying to follow up," Waveland Assistant Police Chief Mike Prendergast said.

The first case occurred shortly after midnight April 28, when police answered a call to Kiln-Waveland Cutoff, Police Chief James Varnell said in a news release. Officer Zenas Cappie was waved down by a crowd of people gathered outside a bar. There Cappie found a woman in a nearby ditch.

Officers discovered she had been taken into an abandoned building and assaulted. The woman had "a large laceration on her throat and it appeared she had been assaulted, due to bruises on her face," Varnell said.

The woman was interviewed after being treated and later released from Hancock Medical Center. She told investigators she had been buying cigarettes at a convenience store on U.S. 90 and a man had followed her when she left.

As she walked toward her home on Gulf Street, the man approached, put a knife to her throat and took her to the nearby building. He threatened to kill her, then threatened to sexually assault her. That apparently did not happen, and the woman struggled free and ran to the ditch where she was found.

Police are looking for a white man, between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall and weighing 150 to 180 pounds. No further description was available.

The other case occurred Thursday, when police answered a robbery call on Phillip Drive about 10:45 p.m. A witness told officer Eddie Bessie a man had been seen running between buildings toward U.S. 90.

Bessie then located a woman who said she had just arrived home and was entering her apartment when a man pushed his way in the door, grabbed her from behind, held a large hunting knife to her throat and demanded money.

A struggle ensued and the would-be robber pushed the woman across the living room and into a bedroom, where he imprisoned her in a closet and tried to block the door with an end table.

In the process the woman cut a finger on the blade of the assailant's knife, Varnell said.

The woman escaped from the closet almost immediately, ran from the apartment and called to neighbors to notify authorities. By then her assailant had fled. Nothing had been taken from the apartment. The victim was treated at the scene for a small knife cut to the finger.

She and witnesses who saw the man fleeing described him as black, with short hair, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, and weighing around 150 pounds. He was dressed in a black sport coat, baggy black pants and brown dress shoes, Varnell said.

Police are asking anyone with information about either case to call 467-3669 or 255-9191.