Man admits to 2nd attack

A man arrested earlier this week in an attempted sexual attack on a woman on a Wauconda jogging trail has confessed to a second incident and may be related to the most notorious serial rapist in recent county history, police say.

Lake County sheriff's police said Friday that Robert J. Evans, 28, already accused of trying to rape a young woman on the Millennium Trail near Gossell and Fairfield roads, has admitted to a similar act last month.

Evans, of Round Lake Beach, has admitted being responsible for an Oct. 15 attack on a 50-year-old woman near a barn near Fairfield and Chardon roads, sheriff's police said. That attack was interrupted by a relative of the victim, who scared the attacker away, police said.

In addition, sheriff's investigators said, Evans told them he is a half-brother of Christopher Hanson, a former Round Lake Beach man sentenced to life in prison earlier this year after being convicted of attacking a woman in a secluded area, the fourth attack linked to him.

"We live in a world where sexual evil is rampant," said Sheriff Mark Curran, who was the court-appointed defense attorney for Hanson before being elected sheriff.

"This is personified in the behaviors of Robert Evans and his half-brother. I am elated that another sexual predator is off the streets of Lake County," he said.

Assistant State's Attorney Steven Scheller said Evans was arrested Oct. 31 by Lake County Forest Preserve police after a female victim told them she was jogging on Millennium Trail and ran past a man going in the opposite direction.

The woman told police she soon heard the man running behind her and that he grabbed her by the neck and dragged her into some bushes beside the trail.

Her attacker repeatedly told her to keep quiet, Scheller said. The woman was able to escape when she pushed her attacker off her and ran away.

Lake County law enforcement officials said Friday there were disturbing similarities between that attack and Hanson's June 5, 2006, assault on a 19-year-old Wildwood woman whom he raped repeatedly.

In both cases, they said, the attackers stalked jogging trails in secluded areas, faced their victims on the trail, then turned around to commit their crimes.

That Evans tells police he is related to Hanson is of interest to officials, Scheller said.

"Both incidents have a number of similarities that we find very upsetting," he said. "There is a hunter-versus-prey scenario in both of these situations that is profoundly frightening."

Scheller said officials are attempting to confirm the family relationship between Evans and Hanson, but that it will ultimately have nothing to do with the case against Evans.

"Whoever his relatives are, we will proceed on this case as we proceed on every case," Scheller said. "We will go into court with the evidence we have against the defendant we are prosecuting."

Hanson was sentenced to life in prison for the 2006 attack and had previously been convicted of two attacks on women in 1993 and a third in 2000.

Curran was an attorney in private practice in 2006 when he was assigned to represent Hanson. He also was a prosecutor for the Lake County state's attorney's office and Illinois attorney general's office before going into private practice.