Girl held in hammer attack denied limited release
The 15-year-old Schaumburg girl accused of putting her 58-year-old neighbor in a coma by attacking him with a hammer March 29 has been put on suicide watch after threatening to kill herself in the juvenile detention center.
However, a Cook County judge Tuesday denied an assistant public defender's request that she be released to her great-aunt's custody in south suburban Markham and confined to the home on electronic monitoring.
Assistant State's Attorney Adrienne Lund stated her office's extreme opposition to any form of release for the girl, who faces not only charges of attempted murder, armed robbery and aggravated battery for the March 29 incident but also has a prior charge of vehicular hijacking on her record.
"This girl should not be out of custody, your honor," Lund told Judge Richard Walsh.
Prosecutors are working on a request to transfer the girl's case to adult court, though the next progress hearing is scheduled for May 25 in juvenile court.
The girl's 18-year-old sister, Latifa Johnson, is already being prosecuted in adult court on a charge of obstruction of justice.
Investigators have stated their belief that Johnson played no part in the attack on 58-year-old Rajesh Thakkar, but have accused her of attempting to clean up his blood from the walls and floor of the hallway of the apartment building they share before police and paramedics arrived.
Johnson's next court date is May 18.
Schaumburg police have said robbery was the apparent motive of the 15-year-old's attack on Thakkar as he went to check his mailbox in the foyer of their apartment building on the 100 block of Pickwick Drive after his evening shift at an Elgin gas station.
Investigators believe the girl tried to drag Thakkar out the back door of the apartment building toward the man-made pond behind it after striking him on the head with a hammer.
Lund said Thakkar is only beginning to come out of the coma he's been in since his injury. He's listed in fair condition at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he's undergone surgeries to his brain and eye.
In addition to verbal threats to kill herself, the 15-year-old girl has sustained minor injuries on her wrists and was spotted tying a sheet around her neck while she sat with a Bible in her lap, according to court testimony Tuesday.
Assistant Public Defender Jerome Barrido said his request to transfer the girl to her great-aunt's custody came from a belief that the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center was proving an unsafe environment for her, one where she was getting into fights with fellow detainees.