AUSTIN (KXAN) — Sometime, likely in the morning hours of August 30, 2018, a woman living in the 1900 block of Platte Pass in the Apache Shores neighborhood of Travis County, was attacked and left for dead. She, along with her four-year-old daughter, are believed to have been beaten with a baseball bat found inside the home. The suspect who attacked them has yet to be found. 

Nearly eight months after the attack, law enforcement has renewed its efforts to find the suspect involved. 

Both victims survived the attack but received significant injuries to their skulls. The woman spent almost six weeks in the hospital recovering. For two of those weeks, she was in a coma. 

“They did not know for quite a while if I was ever going to wake up,” she explained in an exclusive interview with KXAN Investigator Brittany Glas.

Doctors said her skull was “pulverized” in the attack. She emphasized:

Her little girl also suffered permanent hearing loss, in addition to skull fractures of her own. 

Due to the nature and extent of her injuries, the mother — who we are not identifying by name for her protection — remembers little surrounding the attack itself. 

“There’s days and weeks of last year that I don’t remember at all. I don’t exactly remember that day. I know what I did, but I don’t remember doing it,” she said. 

The attack was so violent, in fact, when the 911 call was issued, it initially came out to emergency responders as a gunshot wound.

According to Detective James Moore with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, there’s renewed confidence in their ability to identify the suspect after DNA was obtained from the scene. It is currently being analyzed. 

“We are confident we are going to get this person in custody,” Detective Moore — pictured below — said. “We just want to get this person in custody as fast as possible.” 

That’s why they continue to ask for the public’s help in solving this violent crime. 

“We believe somebody out there knows something that could assist us in this investigation. It could be the most minute detail that could break a case open, or assist us or lead us in the right direction,” said Moore. “If you saw somebody that didn’t belong in the area, or something suspicious, a vehicle that didn’t belong in the area, or you’ve heard something in reference to this case that might be helpful, we would like to know that.”

Moore is a homicide detective at TCSO. He was called to respond to the scene the day of the woman’s attack. There was little expectation the adult victim would survive, he said. 

“[The attacker] needs to be taken off the street. Somebody who’s willing to enter a home and brutally beat a mother and her four-year-old child and leave them to die obviously is a predator of a different caliber. This case is of the highest urgency to us,” Moore said. 

What is most difficult for the adult victim to deal with isn’t her own injuries or the lingering consequences of them. She says it is witnessing the impact the attack has had on her little girl.

Referring to her daughtrer, she said, “She knows that the bad man really did come in, hurt mommy and hurt her.”

The mother says her daughter has horrible nightmares. She explains, crying:

“She says they’re like horror movies with very loud, loud screaming. I know she has a hard time because she’s so little and she doesn’t know what to do with what she may or may not have seen. I don’t remember anything and knowing that she was there, she was hurt, she saw her mommy get hurt. I don’t know what she saw. I don’t know what she heard. That’s really, really hard not being able to know any of that because I don’t know how to help her, or comfort her.” 

TCSO is asking anyone who knows any information about the case to contact law enforcement. 

You can submit information to the TCSO tip line by phone at 512-854-1444, or in an email at Majorcrimestips@traviscountytx.gov. Crime Stoppers can also be contacted at 512-472-8477.