A 93-year-old Queens woman returned to her childhood home in upper Manhattan to see how it changed after 73 years -- and she got an ugly dose of reality.
Career criminal Richard Davidson accosted Marjorie Ramondetta, who was born in 1919, and her daughter Linda Reynolds, 65, snatching their pocketbooks inside the Washington Heights apartment building on Tuesday, law enforcement sources said.
Davidson also violently shoved the women down a flight of stairs, causing serious bodily injuries, sources said.
"After we fell, he took the bags," Reynolds told The Post today. "I heard my mother say, ‘Please help me! I ran upstairs and I'm yelling, ‘Call the cops, call the cops, someone help us!’"
"We've never had such an upset in our life," added Ramonetta, who hadn’t been back to the building since 1940.
The trouble began at 12:20 p.m. Tuesday, when the women arrived at the tenement building on Amsterdam Avenue and West 164th Street to snap photos of the “old neighborhood” for a family scrapbook, Reynolds said.
Ramondetta was sitting on a stoop in front of the building getting her picture taken by Reynolds when Davidson stepped outside on his cell phone, then quickly went back inside, Reynolds said.
Davidson then greeted the two women as they entered the building.
“He said, ‘Can I help you? He was clean cut, clean clothes, clean shaven. He looked decent, " Reynolds recalled.
Davidson coolly asked them if they lived in the building, and Ramonetta said "she was born there and wanted to see what it looked like at present day," according to a police source.
Davidson then escorted the women to the second floor apartment, where Ramonetta once lived, the police source said.
"He [then] says, ‘I have to get my keys downstairs,’” according to Reynolds. “He came back up and said, ‘I'm going to hurt you.’”
Davidson then allegedly grabbed for their purses, which were strapped across their chests, but the women wouldn’t let go of their bags.
"I tried to kick him. I don't know if I kicked him in the legs, but my object was not the legs if you know what I mean," Reynolds said.
That’s when Davidson threw the women down approximately ten stairs, Reynolds said.
Davidson scooped up their purses and ran away, sources said.
The women rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where they were treated for their injuries.
“I'm in so much pain," Reynolds told a Post reporter, before showing her back and buttocks covered in dark bruises.
Later that day, Davidson was arrested on an unrelated grand larceny charge.
While in custody, he confessed to stealing the purses from the women earlier in the day as well as to a similar case on August 2.
Davidson has 21 prior arrests dating back to 2008, including busts for assault, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
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