Winter Park woman fights off man accused of trying to strangle her with purse

According to a Seminole County Sheriff’s Office report, Keri Rodriguez pulled into a shopping center parking lot Tuesday around 6 p.m. She says there’s a restaurant there that gets lots of Uber Eats orders, so she was hopeful she would get some delivery requests. But it quickly went wrong.”My door swung open. And a man dove into my car,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez says the man latched onto the crossbody bag she was wearing.”Took the strap, and he just started strangling me. And he kept saying things like, ‘You’re going to die today. We’re all going to die today.’ And he was like doing weird things with his mouth, like just fidgety and really scary,” Rodriguez said.Rodriguez said a metal piece broke off, cutting her up. She said as he pulled tighter, she realized she had to fight to stay alive.”Survival, survival, especially with him saying he was going to kill me. I knew that if I blacked out, he probably would,” Rodriguez said.Rodriguez said when the strap finally broke, the man took off on a bicycle with her purse and the money inside. “Luckily, I have for my phone, one of those cases, that has my credit cards in there and my identification, but he didn’t know that,” Rodriguez said.Rodriguez reported it, and Friday, not long after WESH 2 spoke with her, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office announced they arrested Anthony Debellis for the crime. But Rodriguez said that she wanted to share what happened to her so that others know that if someone hurts them, they are not at fault. That it’s OK to speak up.”We are the victim of it. Backlash? We might get some, but it’s so important to help the next person. I’m doing it to help the next person,” Rodriguez said.The sheriff’s office says the man who was arrested had no connection to Rodriguez and is a convicted felon. Rodriguez told us via text message that she started crying when we told her about the arrest and that she only hoped it was the right person. Top headlines: Police: 2 women face charges for tossing baby back and forth in Volusia County Terrifying video shows Girl Scouts fleeing from charging 14-foot alligator Dead woman’s body discovered along Satellite Beach, police say