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Mother attacked after confronting man exposing himself near Safeway

A mother in Federal Way was violently attacked Monday after she says she confronted a man who was exposing himself outside of a grocery store on SW 336th Street.

Amanda Edwards, 35, sustained four fractures to her face and will need multiple surgeries.

The mother of three says she was walking home from Safeway around 6:30 p.m. Monday when a man in a white car pulled up and asked for directions.

"He was fully exposed with his genital in his hand," Edward says, "He started smiling."

It didn't become a problem until, she says, he also approached another woman who was with a young girl who was about 8 or 9 years old. Edwards tells KIRO 7 she took out her phone and tried to take a picture of the suspect's license plate. He saw her do it and drove off, she said.

"That hit home because I'm a mother," she says, "It was really that little girl that made me do all of this."

Thinking the incident was over, Edwards continued on her half-mile walk home. She was a few houses away when she was brutally attacked.

"He just ran up on me really fast. I had no chance to get away because he grabbed me with both hands," she said.

Edwards says it was the same man who had exposed himself to her at the grocery store. She doesn't remember the attack but was beaten unconscious. She suspects, it was retaliation for stepping up.

"He had it out for me," she says, "because i did warn the lady and let her know he was doing that."

Investigators with the Federal Way Police Department told Edwards Friday that the suspect in the case was arrested. They were able to locate his vehicle by taking a closer look at Safeway's surveillance video.

Despite what she has been through, Edwards says she would do it all over again.

"You can't just approach women and treat women or anybody in general the way he did," she said.

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