Man Awaiting Trial For 2012 Bucktown Rape Kills Himself, Police Say
(STMW) -- A man charged with sexually assaulting a woman in the Bucktown neighborhood in 2012 was found dead in a northwest suburban hospital parking lot Tuesday morning, an apparent suicide.
Michael Giffin, 27, was found dead in the Advocate Sherman Hospital parking lot of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Elgin Courier-News is reporting.
Giffin was charged with sexual assault after a January 2012 attack in Bucktown. He had previously lived in the 1700 block of South Carpenter in Chicago, but Elgin police Cmdr. Glenn Theriault said he had been living on Meadowlark Court in west suburban St. Charles.
Giffin was scheduled to appear for a pretrial status hearing Tuesday morning at the Leighton Criminal Courts building at 26th and California, Cook County state's attorney's office spokesperson Lisa Gordon said. Because he did not appear, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The sexual assault happened just after 4 a.m. on Jan. 28, 2012, in the 2300 block of West Street, the Chicago Sun-Times reported at the time. When the woman fled the apartment after the assault, Griffin allegedly pursued her and dragged her back inside, police said.
She was taken to Saint Mary Medical Center in "stable" condition, police said.
Prosecutors said Giffin met the victim at one bar, went to another bar with her, and they then shared a cab back to her home.
She invited him in and they had a beer, but when she said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep, he forced her to have sex with him multiple times, prosecutors said, at one point threatening to kill her.
When Giffin went to the bathroom, the victim ran out into the hallway and screamed for help, but he grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her back into the apartment, prosecutors say. He then choked her until she was unconscious.
The victim later identified Giffin as her attacker, prosecutors say.
Giffin had posted $75,000 bail, 10 percent of a $750,000 bond set for the alleged assault. No trial date had been set.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
