A woman in Chicago was found dead after ignoring unwanted advances from a stranger who is being charged with her murder.
Ruth George, 19, was found strangled in the back seat of her car last week in the University of Illinois parking lot in Chicago. Prosecutors claimed that 26-year-old Donald Thurman admitted during questioning that he strangled and sexually assaulted George after she ignored his attempt to catcall her. Thurman was charged with first-degree murder. Chicago prosecutors requested that he be denied bail while awaiting his December 16 hearing.
George was an honor student at the university and repeatedly ignored Thurman’s advances as she and a sorority sister walked to her car. Chicago court filings describing the charges against Thurman claim the man found George “pretty and tried talking to her, but the victim ignored him.”
Court documents also describe Thurman as becoming “angry that he was being ignored,” and catcalled her before he pushed George to the ground and placed her in a chokehold before moving her in the back of her car and sexually assaulting her before killing her. “The victim continued to ignore the defendant and continued walking to where her car was parked,” the court document also said.
Thurman was released on parole from prison last year after serving two years of a six-year sentence for armed robbery. The court denied his bail in the first-degree murder charge. A statement from the George family said they “hold no hatred” for the man who killed their daughter.
