After a 78-year old woman was brutally beaten in her home on Chicago’s Northwest Side, a reward has been offered in an effort to capture the assailant responsible for the crime.
Authorities said the home invasion took place around 1:15 p.m. Friday afternoon, in the 4100 block of N. Avers Ave. in the city’s Irving Park neighborhood.
During the incident, the woman, who family requested not be identified for her safety, was cleaning her home when a man entered the apartment and brutally attacked her, leaving her with serious injuries and stealing jewelry from the home.
With authorities still searching for a suspect in the case, activist Andrew Holmes has offered a reward of $1000 for information leading to the assailant's capture.
The woman was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston in critical condition, according to police, and was placed in a medically-induced coma. She remained sedated Saturday, family said, but was talking a bit and sharing her account of the attack.
"She kept saying 'he told me not to look at him,' and then she closes her eyes," the victim's daughter Lissette Martinez said. "Why should she go through this just for some jewelry? Just for some jewelry?"
The victim's daughter said she suffered a fractured nose, bleeding on the brain and stitches on her eye – which her family said could easily leave her without any vision at all.
A former nurse in Puerto Rico, family members said the victim is the kindest woman they know and lives a modest life. Standing under 5’ tall, they said she would have let the intruder take anything he wanted without a fight – and that he only got away with a few items.
“They went through her room, they went through her drawers and they found a little bit of jewelry,” Morales said, adding that seeing the extent of her mother’s injuries fills her with anger.
“How could anybody do this to an elderly woman?” she asked. “She can’t do anything.”
No one is in custody in connection with the attack, according to police, who said the offender was described as a tall Hispanic man wearing glasses and a red cap.
Morales and the victim’s family delivered an emotional plea for someone to come forward, as they hope for justice in the senseless beating.
“How would you feel if this was done to your mother? To your wife, to your daughter?” Morales asked. “Anyone listening to this – we just want justice.”
The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact detectives at (312) 744-8263.
