Police were questioning a 28-year-old Hickory Hills man Wednesday night in connection with the stabbing and sexual assault of a 13-year-old Southwest Side girl who was rescued in a forest preserve by a good Samaritan who was driving to work, authorities said.
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The girl was found trembling and covered with blood shortly before 9 a.m. in the Crooked Creek Forest Preserve near 103rd Street and Kean Avenue in unincorporated Cook County, said Palos Hills Police Chief Sam Nelson.
The driver who found the girl is an Orland Park resident. He was taking a shortcut to get to his job in Justice, Nelson said.
”He was in the process of going through the forest preserve when he saw the girl,” Nelson said. ”He sees a girl who is trembling, shaking and crying. As he gets closer, it appears she is covered with blood.”
The man, whom police would not identify, took off his shirt, covered the girl with it, and helped her into his car, Nelson said.
He said the girl told her rescuer that she had been raped.
The driver then took the girl to Moraine Valley Community College, 10900 S. 88th Ave., Palos Hills, where they notified authorities. They waited there until the Palos Hills police and the North Palos Fire Department arrived, Nelson said.
Cook County Forest Preserve Police Lt. Gerald Palacios said at a news conference Wednesday night that the girl ”had been criminally sexually assaulted and stabbed numerous times.”
The girl was listed in fair condition at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn with stab wounds to the chest and neck and a cut on the neck, said Lawrence Corridon, a hospital spokesman.
Nelson said the girl told a female police officer that she knew her assailant.
Reggie Priestly, a spokesman for the Cook County State`s Attorney`s Office, said late Wednesday that the suspect had not been charged in connection with the incident. Palacios said the man possibly could be charged. The suspect, who was described by Palacios as an ”acquaintance” of the girl, was arrested at his Hickory Hills home between 3:30 and 4 p.m., Palacios said.
Nelson said the suspect works at a Justice convenience store.