Homeless Repeat Offender Blinds Elderly Woman With Nail Through Her Eye

A 75-year-old woman lost her right eye after a homeless man with multiple arrests for assault allegedly hit her in the face with a stick in Seattle on Dec. 5, local media reported Friday.

Jeanette Marken was on her way to pick up a food order near the King County courthouse when Fale Vaigalepa Pea, 42, hit her in the head with the board that had a screw at the end, Seattle-based KOMO News reported. Bodycam video released Friday revealed Pea was “notorious” among Seattle police officers for assaulting people. (RELATED: Haitians Allegedly Bilked Taxpayers Out Of Millions In SNAP Scam)

“He’s a regular. He usually punches. I guess today he decided to escalate things way worse from his usual,” one Seattle Police Department officer told an emergency medical technician who was treating Marken and preparing to take her to an area hospital.

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Pea had a history of arrests for assault going back to at least 2011, when he stabbed a person eight times and received an 18-month sentence of “community custody,” according to KOMO. He had been arrested for at least six assaults since 2020, and also had been booked at the King County jail on weapons charges, indecent exposure, property destruction and malicious mischief, KOMO reported.

According to a 2024 report by KING5, a Seattle TV station, over 700 police officers had left the Seattle Police Department in the last five years. The goal for the police force was 1,400 officers, but Seattle could only deploy 877, according to an Aug. 30, 2022, Instagram post by SPOG.

Marken learned that she will not regain the sight in her right eye following the attack, family members told KOMO, with some venting frustration about the attack.

“To take a wood club with nails and hit her at full force in the face? I don’t understand it,” the victim’s son, Andrius Dyrikis, told KOMO.

“He’s a usual? A usual what?” Dyrikis added “Attacking people? Civilians? What the hell is wrong with your system?”

A GoFundMe has raised over $36,000 to aid in Marken’s recovery from the assault.

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