MANHATTAN — An attacker followed an 81-year-old actress into her apartment and punched her in the face repeatedly before fleeing with her purse, the NYPD said.
The woman, identified as actress Barbara Ann Davidson, was returning to her apartment building near West 13th Street and Seventh Avenue around 6:50 p.m. on Friday and had opened the door to her vestibule when the man attacked, police said.
The black hoodie-clad suspect repeatedly punched Davidson in the head and face — knocking her to the ground — and grabbed her handbag before fleeing the building, the NYPD said.
A surveillance camera inside the woman’s building captured the attack, which left her with bruises and bumps on her head and face, police said.
She refused treatment at the scene after the attack, the NYPD said.
Davidson, who's worked alongside Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Adam Sandler, told NBC New York she “felt a really bad blow to [her] head” during the attack.
“Thank God I’m OK — a little bruised,” she told the outlet, adding that she’s lived in the building since 1949.
Investigators believe the same robber may be linked to a similar incident on Aug. 2 on Horatio Street.
"We believe it’s the same individual. If you look at the pictures on each, it’s a male," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Monday. "He pulled the hat way low. Each time, he goes to 14th Street to the subway there and leaves to Brooklyn from there."
Police released a second video Monday of the suspect in a subway station wearing a blue hat with an "NY" logo.
Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).
