CHICAGO — Prosecutors yesterday accused a Chicago man of abducting a 14-year-old girl outside the Harold Washington Library and sexually assaulting her in a nearby portable toilet.
Judge David Kelly refused to hold Julian Murray without bail, saying he found the state’s DNA evidence “quite compelling” but short of the legal threshold needed to deny bond.
The 14-year-old girl, who has a diagnosed intellectual disability and an estimated IQ of 62, left the library at State and Van Buren on the evening of October 29, Assistant State’s Attorney Jonathan Huff told the judge.
As she crossed Van Buren, Murray, 41, exited the nearby Red Line elevator. Huff said he grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her into a nearby porta-potty. They had never met before.
Murray raped the girl inside the portable toilet as she tried to push him off, then fled when he was done, Huff alleged. The girl called a friend’s mom immediately to report what happened. The woman took the girl to a hospital for treatment and evidence collection.
Testing of the evidence produced a match with Murray’s DNA records in a law enforcement database, Huff said. But Huff did not know the statistical accuracy of the DNA association, saying that would be determined by testing a new DNA sample taken from Murray.
Instead, Huff argued that a law enforcement database matched Murray to a DNA sample taken from a developmentally-challenged 14-year-old girl’s private area as proof that Murray should be held without bail.
“I think the evidence is compelling at this particular point,” Kelly told Huff. “But I’m not certain that it’s great, and I’m not sure that it’s abundantly evident. It is quite compelling.”
Citing “the arguably limited evidence” before him, Kelly ordered Murray to pay a $25,000 bail deposit to go on electronic monitoring.
Murray’s defense attorney argued that the description the girl gave of her attacker—a man in his 30s or 40s with a black beard and mustache with twists in his hair—could describe any number of people in the area of the attack. He said Murray worked as a restaurant cook until a few months ago and is currently homeless.
According to Huff, Murray is an eight-time convicted felon, mostly for manufacture-delivery of narcotics. He is currently on probation for felony retail theft in DuPage County and has an outstanding burglary warrant in Lake County. Kelly said he must post an additional $20,000 bail deposit to be released on the burglary charge.