Suspect Arrested In Libertyville Jogging Trail Attack
(CBS) -- A 21-year-old man has been arrested for trying to sexually assault a woman on a jogging path in a Lake County forest preserve earlier this month.
Denilson Martinez-Rodriguez, of Waukegan, was charged Tuesday with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse, and one count each of aggravated battery, sexual abuse, and unlawful restraint.
The 23-year-old victim was running west on the North Shore Bike Path on June 15, when she turned onto the Des Plaines River Trail to head north, and was grabbed from behind near the underpass beneath Route 176.
The woman, who managed to fight off her attacker, talked with CBS 2 about her ordeal and asked that her identity not be revealed.
"Right away, I thought this guy's not going to do anything to me. I'm not going to let him hurt me," she said.
The victim said, when she approached the Des Plaines River Trail underpass, it was flooded, so she crawled over the rocky embankment to get through. That's when she heard someone behind her.
"That's when I heard the rocks tumbling. And at that point I was grabbed," she says. "I hit him and I grabbed his arms to get him off of me. And I screamed for help."
She said she began climbing up the embankment to busy Route 176, and when she screamed for help, her attacker ran off.
Police later released surveillance images of the attacker.
Gurnee police stopped Martinez-Rodriguez as he was leaving a trail behind Warren Township High School on Monday, after getting a 911 call about a suspicious person on the trail. Police noticed he matched the description of the suspect in the Libertyville attack, and took him to the Lake County Forest Preserves Ranger Police station, where he admitted to attacking the woman on June 15, Lake County Forest Preserve police said.
Martinez-Rodriguez was due in court on Tuesday.