Lee’s Summit mom sends message after fighting back against sexual assault suspect
LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. — A brave and courageous mom is sharing her story with FOX4 after she says a man broke into her home and assaulted her – while her children were there.
The suspect is now in jail being held without bond. This happened Monday in Lee’s Summit, and when police arrived, an officer had to physically pull the suspect off the woman.
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“The 911 person – the dispatcher had said, ‘You’re safe now, Sarah. They have him in handcuffs,’” Sarah Bommarito recalled.
Bommarito says she refused to be a victim that day and decided to fight back. That is exactly what she did, but for nearly 15 minutes, she lived her worst nightmare.
It was what you would expect on a spring Monday with warm temperatures and kids out for play. But the nice day turned into terror when a man followed Bommarito’s children inside her home.
“’Hey, I think you’re in the wrong house.’ That’s what I said to him… you’re in the wrong house,” Bommarito said.
The man was determined to stay in, but the mother of two was more determined to get him out, and that’s what she did. She locked her door and immediately called 911, but he wouldn’t let up.
“He went to my front door and incessantly rang the bell – just over and over and over again – just pounding,” she described.
The man then moved to another door, and according to investigators, that’s when Khalil Cooper broke in and began sexually assaulting Bommarito while her two daughters and their friend were upstairs.
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She was on the phone with 911. The entire attack was recorded.
“The outcome of what happened to me is so different because of the officer that came in that side door and didn’t wait – he didn’t wait for back up,” Bommarito said.
That officer had to pull Cooper off of her, wrestling with him until backup arrived, and then he was arrested and is now charged with three felonies, including two counts of sodomy or attempted sodomy as well as burglary.
Four days after she was brutally attacked, this mother has a strong message to her fellow women:
“Before you do anything to destroy evidence, do not wash your hands, do not wash your body. I wanted to set myself on fire, I wanted to be clean, I wanted all of those things, and you have to fight because you will destroy your evidence, so fight back,” she said.
She says she wants to thank Lee’s Summit Officer Price for his actions that stopped this attack.
