HOUSTON — A University of Houston freshman said she's scared to walk on campus after she was harassed and followed by a man while leaving the library to head home.
"Definitely a traumatizing experience," said Mariah, 19.
She said the man approached her and told her to go to the restroom with him to do sexual things. She said though she kept walking, the man kept getting closer and closer.
"He was saying so much stuff that he wanted to do with me," Mariah said. "I was kind of traumatized. Why is this happening? Why is he telling me this right now?"
Scared and unsure what to do, Mariah called her mom who was more than three hours away in Corpus Christi.
"I could not help her in any way," her mom said. "I can't even explain how helpless I felt in that situation. Hearing my daughter go through that and the only thing I could tell her was to run."
Mariah said she walked through campus, across a parking lot and into the baseball fields. That route led her to unexpected safety.
"I saw cop lights and I said 'Thank God,' Mariah said. "I ran to the cops."
Mariah said a Houston Police Department officer just so happened to be pulling someone over. She asked that officer for help and they called campus police.
Mariah said this wasn't the first time she saw the man that followed her.
"I am guessing he lives in the area because I have seen him twice," she said. "That is the scary part. I am scared it's going to happen again."
Though fearful, Mariah said she'll be back at UH next semester, but she hopes this man is caught.
KHOU 11 contacted the university and the university's police department multiple times over the past 24 hours. Neither responded to our questions about this case or what they're doing about it.