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Niagra Falls, N.Y. • After being violently thrown to the ground and robbed of her purse and shoes during her first ever visit to Niagara Falls, Japanese tourist Koyuki Nakahara thought she would never return.
Yet she was back in New York last week, this time at the request of prosecutors who said her testimony was crucial in making sure her alleged attacker would be punished.
"If I did not come back he would be released. It wasn't fair," Nakahara said by phone Thursday.
That still didn't make it easier to return to the place where the man she'd asked for directions on Christmas night responded by pounding her face into the concrete and dragging her into the dark where she feared she would be raped.
"I don't have to go. Just forget it," Nakahara told herself at home in Tokyo, convinced she had put the attack that left her bruised and frightened behind her.
Then a Skype call with prosecutors who asked her to recount details brought home how deeply she'd been affected.
Testifying would make Niagara Falls safer for other women and would prove empowering for her, she decided.
"I decided it's OK to show my feelings and let the criminal know you cannot do that. You cannot hurt me because I am a woman, I'm not as strong as you or I'm not living here or whatever," she said.
And so Nakahara agreed to return to help prosecutors build a case against 44-year-old Robert MacLeod, who was arrested after police released pictures from surveillance cameras.
"Without her coming back to testify, the case likely would have been dismissed with no conviction," Deputy Niagara County District Attorney Doreen Hoffman said Wednesday. "Because under the constitution, you have the right to confront your accuser, and we can't indict a case based on hearsay. We can't just put in written statements given by victims."
It's a right that can embolden criminals who target tourists, Hoffman said. "Criminals don't anticipate them to be here to prosecute."
Macleod, of Niagara Falls, pleaded not guilty to robbery and assault after his Dec. 31 arrest and was released on $25,000 bail. Niagara Falls police and the district attorney's office have scheduled a news conference for Thursday, when they are expected to release results of a grand jury proceeding that could mean more serious charges.
No phone listing was available for Macleod. The attorney who represented him when he was arrested didn't respond to a telephone message seeking comment.
Robberies and assaults are relatively rare in Niagara Falls State Park, state statistics show. From 2011 to 2014, state parks police received an average of two reports of robberies — involving the use or threat of violence — and no more than one assault report each year. An average of 43 larcenies per year was reported, according to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Nakahara had been traveling with a tour group when she ventured out of her hotel on her own and became lost. A stranger she asked to point her in the right direction at first seemed helpful. Then he pulled her hair and pushed her down to the ground. When he dragged her to a dark and secluded area, she was sure she would be sexually assaulted and wondered if she would survive. But her attacker eventually fled and she was taken to a hospital.
Nakahara later continued on with her trip, which included stops in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, not wanting to be deprived by the attack of her chance to enjoy her travels.