In an incident that shocked the community in the US, a 19-year-old Indian-American girl student was sexually assaulted and after which she was strangulated to death in Chicago. The police confirmed the news and added that it was a brutal murder.
The girl identified as Ruth George hailing from Hyderabad, honours student at the University of Illinois was found dead in the back seat of a family-owned vehicle in a campus garage.
The culprit identified as Donald Thurman, 26, was detained by the cops on Sunday from a Chicago metro station. It has been learnt that he is not associated with the university. On the next day, he was formally charged with first-degree murder and has aggravated sexual assault for murdering Ruth George.
The medical examiner had ruled George’s demise a homicide by strangulation. As per university, George was a sophomore and kinesiology major. The university added in a statement that George’s family reported to the University Police on Saturday that she was missing from since Friday evening.
Her mobile phone was pinged to the Halsted Street Parking Garage, and police and family members responded to find George unresponsive in the back seat of a vehicle owned by her family.
Police had then requested help from the FBI Evidence Response Team to help in the processing of the crime scene and to finish off forensics on the vehicle.
As per the university, police had retrieved video footage from existing university cameras of the assailant who was seen walking behind George on Saturday.
She had entered the garage on foot at around 1:35 a.m., followed by the offender. The latter is seen again on video footage at approximately 2:10 a.m. walking on Halsted Street.
The cops then examined the video footage from the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago POD cameras, and its internal system to determine the travel patterns for the offender.
Thurman, who has a criminal history, was detained on Sunday near the Blue line train station at Halsted and Harrison streets. He was then taken into custody where he gave a full confession to this horrific crime.