Hunt On For Thug Who Robbed, Beat Senior Citizens

Photo DCPI Surveillance video of the suspect in the mugging of 101- year-old Rose Morat caught the crime on tape.

More than 1,000 calls and tips have come in to police after surveillance video of the mugging of a 101-year-old woman who uses a walker to get around was released to the public last week. Centenarian Rose Morat was assaulted and robbed of her purse in the lobby of her Jamaica Estates apartment building as she was on her way to church March 11. The mugging took place approximately half an hour before another senior citizen, 85- year-old Elizee Solange, was also attacked and robbed. Solange lives in Jamaica and the same suspect is believed to have committed the attack on her.

Morat's cheekbone was fractured in the attack and her purse, containing some $33, was stolen. The attack left Morat hospitalized for four days, but according to reports, she was back doing calisthenics in the hallway outside her apartment the following week.

Solange also suffered facial injuries and was robbed of $45, but what she said hurt her most was the loss of her wedding ring and another ring which had been given to her by her son. In her case, the mugger go on the elevator in her Jamaica building with her, got off at the floor below hers and attacked her at the door of her apartment.

A Gazette staffer reported that the superintendent of another Jamaica Estates building actually ejected the suspect, described as a black man in his 30s or early 40s weighing about 160 pounds and some five feet, 10 inches tall, from the building lobby, but did not realize he was confronting the much-sought mugger. The suspect was apparently undeterred by- or ignorant of- a heavy police presence in the neighborhood.--Linda J. Wilson