Jury finds Des Plaines man guilty of rape

After a four-day trial, a Skokie jury has found a Des Plaines man guilty of raping a woman who was jogging in a Des Plaines-area forest preserve in 2007.

Scott Hildreth, 51, of the 1600 block of Maple Street in Des Plaines, was convicted Thursday of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of aggravated kidnapping.

The jury deliberated for about an hour. Sentencing is set for Oct. 15 by Judge Timothy Chambers.

Area law enforcement officials said they remembered the case vividly because of its "vicious" nature and because Hildreth committed a similar kidnapping and rape 22 years ago in Mount Prospect.

Hildreth had been out of prison only three days before he attacked a 41-year-old woman in broad daylight while she jogged at Iroquois Woods Forest Preserve, east of River Road and Touhy Avenue, on April 16, 2007.

"From the moment he walked out of prison, he was looking for his next victim," said Cook County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Patterson.

He said Hildreth jumped out in front of the woman from behind a tree, threw her on the ground, threatened her with a screwdriver, dragged her off the path and assaulted her.

Sheriff's police released a sketch of the attacker to surrounding agencies and caught a break when a Des Plaines officer remembered Hildreth had committed the similar earlier crime.

"The act was so violent we kind of backtracked because this guy had done this before in Mount Prospect several years earlier," Des Plaines Police Chief Jim Prandini said. "We checked the Illinois Department of Corrections Web site and found out that (Hildreth) had been paroled (and) he was staying with a relative in the vicinity of Touhy and River."

Authorities picked Hildreth up shortly afterward.

"Their help was huge," Patterson said. "Somebody with experience and longevity knew this guy. Thank God they did."

According to the Department of Corrections, Hildreth was imprisoned on Oct. 6, 1989, was released on parole on Oct. 8, 1992, and finally discharged on Dec. 14, 1994. Barely five months later, he was back in prison, after a conviction of felony possession and use of a weapon, aggravated discharge of a firearm and aggravated vehicular hijacking.

He was released on parole on March 6, 2006, which he violated and was returned to prison on May 24, 2006. He was released from the department of corrections on April 13, 2007.