Crowd Watches As Woman Stripped, Forced Off Bridge

DETROIT (AP) _ Dortha Word condemns the people who watched as her daughter was attacked and then chased off a bridge to her death as being ``guilty as the ones that did it.″

Dozens of onlookers gathered, and some cheered, as three men pulled Deletha Word from her car, ripped off her clothes and chased her until she either jumped from or was forced off the Belle Isle bridge.

None of the 40 or so passers-by tried to help the 33-year-old woman during the confrontation, said Sgt. John Morel. Three suspects have been arrested, and prosecutors said today that one was being charged with murder.

``I can just feel it,″ Dortha Word said Monday, crying into her hands, pictures of her family filling the walls of her home. ``My baby was down there all by herself. I know she was scared to death.″

Belle Isle, a popular island park in the Detroit River between Michigan and Canada, was packed with people early Saturday morning.

Trouble started around 3 a.m., Morel said, when Word was involved in two minor traffic accidents. A car with three men inside chased her onto the bridge connecting the island to Detroit and rammed her car, forcing her to stop.

One of the men smashed her car with a crowbar and pulled her from the car, ripping off some of her clothes, said Cmdr. Gerald Stewart. The man pushed her against the car and beat her, he said.

When Word tried to run, police said the man with the crowbar chased her. What happened after that is unclear.

Mrs. Word was sure her daughter was forced into the river.

``They ... made her leap over that bridge and beat her hands. She was holding onto the bridge, and beat her hands away from that banister,″ she sobbed, citing an account she said police gave her.

Word’s cousin Carol Neely said Word would have never jumped because she did not know how to swim. The bridge is about 32 feet above the water.

Lawrence Walker, 21, was in the bumper-to-bumper traffic that had formed on the bridge when he noticed a crowd running to the edge. He got out of his car and followed, and when Word went over the railing, he jumped into the river after her.

Word moved away from him in the water and he quickly lost sight of her. He said afterward that she may have thought he was one of the attackers.

``It seemed like people didn’t care,″ Walker said, noting that when he ran up, some of the onlookers were laughing about the attack.

Word’s body was found miles downstream late Saturday morning. It was missing one leg, possibly cut off by a boat’s propeller.

Police arrested two 20-year-olds and a 19-year-old on Sunday with help from witness tips, said Lt. Billy Jackson.

This afternoon, assistant prosecutor Richard Padzieski said that his office was seeking a warrant charging one man with second-degree murder. He said no charges were filed against the other two, but still might be later. Prosecutors were seeking a judge to approve the murder warrant.

Friends and relatives described Word, who had a 13-year-old daughter and worked at a grocery store while earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing, as ambitious, quiet and popular. Mostly, they said, she loved to help others.

``If she had been on that bridge, and somebody was beating somebody, she wouldn’t have stood and watched,″ Dortha Word said. ``She would have helped them. She might have got hurt trying but she would have helped.″