A 25-year-old woman slashed in the neck with a broken bottle by an unhinged homeless man on a SoHo street, leaving her critically wounded, is an up-and-coming costume designer who was shopping materials for her boss when she was attacked, her mother said Tuesday.
The victim’s husband and mother have flown into the city to be at her bedside at Bellevue Hospital while her attacker, Muslim Brunson, awaits arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on attempted murder charges, police said.
“I don’t know a whole lot yet,” the woman’s 65-year-old mother told the Daily News. “I just arrived in New York this morning after flying all night. I’m heading to the hospital now.”
The victim, an Arizona native, was scouting out boutiques near Broome and Wooster Sts. to buy clothing and fabrics for her boss when Brunson, 46, allegedly attacked her with a broken glass water bottle about 3 p.m. Monday.
The victim and her husband both work in theater. It was her lifetime dream to be a costume designer, her mother said.
“We’re all in shock,” her mother said about the attack. “She loved (New York City). It was her dream to be a costume designer and she was working in the field she loved.”
Brunson slashed the young woman in the neck during the unprovoked attack, cops said.
“(The detectives) said it was mental illness,” the mother said of the random attack.
“He hit her in the trachea,” she added. “She was in surgery last night but we don’t know (the extent of the damage).”
A security guard who works at a sunglass store near the scene of the incident heard the victim screaming and ran to her aid.
“I applied pressure on her neck,” the security guard said. “Girls came to help with a tissue. A guy pulled over [and] he had tissues. We tried to apply as much pressure as we can.”
A few moments earlier, Brunson, who is homeless, attacked a 29-year-old woman at the same corner, smashing the bottle he later used to stab his younger victim over her head.
The bottle shattered when it hit the older woman, who was not seriously hurt. Brunson picked up the broken bottle, kept on walking down the street and attacked the younger woman, NYPD Assistant Chief Jim McCarthy, commanding officer of Manhattan South, said at a press conference.
“As he was walking by her [in] an unprovoked attack, he slashed her in the neck with a broken bottle, causing a serious injury,” McCarthy said. “She lost a lot of blood.”
The young woman was “conscious and alert” when she was rushed to the hospital, McCarthy said.
Bruson was wearing an NYPD hoodie when he was grabbed at the scene. Cops charged him with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
