Elderly Small Business Owner Allegedly Beaten With Metal Pole By Woman

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - An elderly woman allegedly was beaten outside of her Sacramento business earlier this month and police are now working to identify the attacker.

Mary Terry-Pilcher still can't believe how a normal morning at work quickly turned into her getting beaten and left with severe swelling around her eye.

"I did not see this coming at all," she said.

Mary was getting ready to open her shop when she says a random woman asked if she needed help, began following her, and then out of nowhere, starting attacking her.

"She wouldn't let up. I mean she beat and beat and finally two guys came over, she had me on the ground and two guys came over from the liquor store and pulled her off of me and they left," she explained.

Mary thought the attack was over but it wasn't.

"She came back and this time she had found a piece of metal like a metal pole," she said.

Mary says she was then hit several times.

"I'm screaming, my glasses went flying," she said.

She ran inside her store for safety but says the woman kept going after her.

"And I was holding on to the door and she was pulling on the outside of the door and she was so strong she was actually pulling the top of the door open and she actually said, I'll kill you (expletive)," she said. "I just kept holding the door and finally suddenly she disappeared."

Greg Pilcher, Mary's husband, hopes surveillance video of the suspected attacker helps police identify who the woman is.

"It makes me mad that I wasn't there," he said.

Detectives are also trying to speak to the driver of an SUV who they say drove the woman away.

"I've never had any experience like this at all," Mary said.

The random attack outside a Sacramento small business is leaving nearby neighbors wondering why anyone would beat up a 71-year-old woman who's now upping her safety.

"When I come in the morning, I come in and lock the door," Mary said.

Police say according to witnesses, the suspect could be homeless.