Oak Park police looking into the details of an attack on a 14-year-old Chicago girl last Tuesday involving a hammer said Monday they don’t believe the battery is related to last year’s bludgeon murder of UIC professor Peter D’Agostino.
The girl was attacked last Tuesday morning in the city’s Marquette Park neighborhood by an alley near 69th Street and Campbell Avenue. She told police she was walking to school just before 9 a.m. when she noticed a man walking toward her. After the man passed her, the girl said, she sensed him approach her from behind. As she turned to face him, the man struck her in the head with a hammer.
The girl is reported to be doing well after treatment at a hospital to close a head wound.
The girl described her attacker as black, approximately 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-1, 150-160 pounds, with a dark complexion, an afro and small “scraggly beard.”
The “person of interest” being sought in connection with the attack on D’Agostino is described as “5-10 to 6-2, thin to medium build, medium complexion.” An accompanying police artist rendering shows the man with a mustache and goatee.
However, Oak Park Deputy Chief Bob Scianna said Monday that the hammer used in the recent aggravated battery is smaller and of a different design than the one most likely to have killed D’Agostino. Scianna said the detective currently in charge of the D’Agostino investigation was made aware of the incident, and that Chicago police were notified last Wednesday of the similarities to the D’Agostino case.
D’Agostino, 42, was attacked as he walked home in the 1100 block of South Harvey Avenue last June 22.