The lead suspect in the July slaying of 11-year-old Ryan Harris, currently under arrest on charges of sexually attacking a 10-year-old girl in January, has been convicted in two cases of attacking women.
The 29-year-old Chicago man pleaded guilty in 1994 to sexually abusing an 18-year-old who was mentally handicapped, and he pleaded guilty in 1994 to aggravated battery for choking a woman with his hands and a 48-inch-long cord.
The suspect, who is scheduled to appear in court Friday on the charges involving the 10-year-old, also was indicted in 1991 on a charge of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl but was acquitted after a jury trial in 1992.
Police and prosecutors declined to comment on the continuing investigation of Ryan’s July 27 slaying, but a source familiar with the inquiry said the suspect was taken from Cook County Jail on Wednesday morning by police violent crimes detectives to Wentworth Area police headquarters for questioning.
As police continue to question the man, authorities are refusing to rule out the possibility that the two boys, ages 7 and 8, against whom charges were filed on Aug. 9 and dropped on Sept. 4, may have been involved in some way in the Ryan Harris case.
Sources said police came to investigate the suspect because a check of the state’s criminal sex-offender database showed that DNA evidence from Ryan’s underwear was similar, but not exactly the same, as that of a man sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1987 for a sexual assault.
That man, who is now being held in the Cook County Jail on a charge of predatory sexual assault of a child, is the suspect’s brother.
Because the DNA of family members can be similar, police decided to test the brother, particularly because he is under arrest in a case similar to Ryan’s slaying.
The suspect lives in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood where Ryan, a resident of Lynwood, was staying with her godmother and where her body was found July 28.
The suspect has denied killing the girl but has said he engaged in a sex act that stained her underwear, sources said.
In the case for which he has been charged and is being held, the suspect is alleged to have been armed with a pistol when he approached a 10-year-old girl shortly before 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 14 as she walked to a store in the 300 block of West 71st Street–less than a mile from where Ryan’s body was found in the 6600 block of South Parnell Avenue.
Police charged the man demanded money, was given $1 and then forced the girl into an abandoned building and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.
The girl ran home and told her mother. The suspect was arrested Aug. 28 after the girl identified him from a photo array, according to court records. Police reports show, though, that the victim was not able to pick the man out of a lineup.
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The girl’s mother said the past eight months have been difficult for the family.
“She’s not the same little girl she used to be,” the mother said in an interview Wednesday. “She was just going to the store to get some candy before it closed.”
She said her daughter is back at school and undergoing counseling, but she has sudden mood swings.
“I’m also going through a lot myself, coping with my daughter. All we can do is just pray,” the mother said.
As she watched and heard the news accounts of Ryan Harris’ slaying, she said she suspected the two cases could be connected.
“I’m just angry that this happened to my little girl. She didn’t deserve it,” she said, fighting back tears.
She said they had lived in Englewood for only a few months when the assault occurred. They have since moved to another neighborhood.
“We’ll never forget it. We’re just trying to put this behind us,” she said.
A review of Cook County court records showed the suspect in Ryan’s slaying was indicted in 1991 on charges of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old high school senior. The victim claimed he followed her off a bus near 29th Street and South King Drive in Chicago and grabbed her when she tried to flee.
She contended he assaulted her after holding her by the neck and pretending he had a gun. She later identified the man in a lineup.
The case was considered weak because there were no other witnesses, the attack allegedly occurred in a high traffic area in front of an apartment building and medical evidence was inconclusive, according to court records.
A jury acquitted the man on the charges on June 10, 1992.
He was charged four months later in the sexual abuse of an 18-year-old woman on Aug. 23, 1992. He pleaded guilty in 1994 and was sentenced to time served–about 180 days.
In that case, according to records, the man forced the victim to disrobe by threatening to kill her and then choked her unconscious with her belt before sexually abusing her.
Also in 1994, he pleaded guilty to aggravated battery in an attack on Sept. 13, 1994, on a woman who claimed her assailant choked her with a cord, according to court records.
He was sentenced to 6 years in prison in that case. He was released on parole last September.
Residents in the building where the suspect stayed in Englewood said the man spent his time lifting weights, playing basketball and doing odd jobs in the neighborhood. Neighbor Robert Bass said the man had an on-again, off-again relationship with a woman who lives in the building.