As the night turned colder, local police continued to search for the man who they said stabbed a woman along a bike trail somewhere between Sunset Park and Vairo Boulevard early Wednesday afternoon.
The man, described as a 5-foot-8 white male in his 20s or 30s with a pointed beard and a bite mark on one of his hands, “attacked” the female along the bike trail with a knife, stabbing her in the throat, Ferguson Township Police Chief Diane Conrad said.
Penn State Spokeswoman Lisa Powers identified the woman who was attacked as a Penn State graduate student. The woman was treated and released from the hospital Wednesday, according to an alert issued by the Centre County CrimeStoppers.
The woman’s injuries are not considered life threatening, Conrad said Wednesday evening, and she is able to speak, Powers added. Neither Conrad nor Powers could confirm the graduate student’s name.
Conrad said the female was treated at the local hospital and is “very traumatized” by the event. She could not confirm where the incident happened, as the woman had moved from the location of the incident when she was found near the Overlook Heights area off North Atherton Street in Ferguson Township.
The woman was headed northbound from Sunset Park on a bike trail at about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday when the man stabbed her in the neck, Conrad said.
The woman was found conscious, but Conrad could not confirm if the woman knew the man.
Officers from every local police station aided in the search that included miles of brush-covered and wooded fields stretching between Vairo Boulevard and Penn State’s campus. Conrad said they were also using police tracking dogs and helicopters to find the man.
As of Wednesday night, Conrad said the search perimeter extended from Pennwood North Apartments to Interstate-99. Conrad said police had no reason to believe the man they were searching for was not in the secured perimeter.
Police, armed with large guns and dressed in green camouflage, were stationed along a makeshift perimeter throughout State College and at the entrances and exits of all recreational trails.
Police said they would exhaust all resources before stopping their search for the unidentified man, Conrad said.
Penn State University notified students through a PSUTXT alert shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, advising students that there was a person with a knife reported near Vairo Boulevard.
The text told students to stay inside and secure their residences.
The university also released a press release on Penn State Live shortly after the text with more information on the person police were seeking and the last spot he was sighted.
Because the man is still considered to be at large, police are asking anyone with information or reported sightings to contact them immediately by dialing 911.
