Olney rape victim dies; family asks public's help in hunt; cops post video

Dorthea Ratteree took one look at her sister's face last weekend and saw the handprints of a monster.

Her sister, Eraina Merritt, a 47-year-old mother of four, lay motionless in the intensive-care unit of Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Her eyes were swollen shut. A bandage covered her scalp and a tube drained blood from her brain. The left side of her face, with bruises and cuts, was a purplish blue. A machine helped her breathe. She couldn't speak.

"I screamed," Ratteree said. "It didn't look like her. It was awful for the eyes to see. She was so disfigured. I knew it was her, but it didn't really look like her. It was so brutal. . . . I just thought, 'How can someone do that to another human being?' "

Merritt, known as Tia to her family, was viciously beaten and raped about 10 p.m. last Wednesday behind the Olney Steak and Beer Deli, on Broad Street at Olney Avenue. Merritt, who lived on Warnock Street, a few blocks from the deli, was pronounced dead at 8:47 a.m. Monday.

Now police are seeking the public's help to find her killer. They have released surveillance video taken inside the store of a man inside the deli before the attack. He is described as black, between 18 and 22 years old, about 6 feet 1, with a heavy build and medium-brown complexion.

Two deli employees taking out the trash saw the attacker pummel Merritt, who was crumpled naked on the ground, said Police Capt. James Clark, head of the homicide unit.

The man ran off and the employees called 9-1-1.

Merritt had not been in the store, Clark said. "We don't know if they knew each other or it was a chance encounter," he said.

Merritt's father, Larry Merritt, said he had Eraina when he was 17. He raised her as a single dad after her mom died of cancer when Eraina was just 4.

Eraina worked in housekeeping and day care, her father said, and had four children: Dorian, 20; Larry, 18; Nathaniel, 16, and little Eraina, 10.

A single mom, she battled drug addiction off and on, he said, and she spoke openly about her struggle. She had been in rehab at least twice.

"Before my mom died last year, she took care of her better than a nurse," Merritt said.

She was like a mother to her youngest sister, Monique Merritt, 31. "She taught me to walk and she changed my diapers," Monique said.

"She always called me Pepsi because she bribed me to walk with a Pepsi," she said.

Eraina's children didn't see her in the hospital - her family thought it would be too hard.

"She was a good mom," said her son Nathaniel. "Everybody's sad. It's not something we ever expected to happen to our mom."

The family waits for the day that her killer is found.

"I think he's a monster," Monique said. "I don't think he should walk this earth. He took something special from us. She was the light in this family.

"I know the culture is not to snitch, but someone knows who did this. And that someone has a mother, maybe a daughter and a sister. The person has to speak up."

The surveillance video is posted on YouTube at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0sA_Q9uA-ew. The person of interest is seen wearing a dark Aero hoodie.

Anyone with information about this crime should call homicide at 215-686-3334 or -3335.

Staff writer Stephanie Farr contributed to this report.