CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The man suspected of fatally stabbing a Maryland grad student in the Loop over the weekend is also wanted for attacking two other women in downtown Chicago this month.
A community alert describes the attacker as a Black man in his 30s and possibly homeless. Police said he is between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11 and has dreadlocks or was wearing a bandana that looked like dreadlocks.
He is suspected of approaching Anat Kimchi, 31, and stabbing her around 4 p.m. Saturday in the 400 block of South Wacker Drive. She was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
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Kimchi had been working on her doctoral degree in criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland. Her family said she was in Chicago visiting friends.
Police said the same man attacked two other women earlier this month, approaching them from behind and hitting them with an object.
• On June 10, the man struck a 25-year-old woman in the head from behind as she walked on a sidewalk in the 500 block of South Franklin Street around 9:30 p.m. The woman was hospitalized in fair condition.
• Around 7:10 p.m. June 13, he struck a 50-year-old woman with a “long heavy object” as she walked in the first block of East Ida B. Wells Drive. The woman dropped her personal items and the man took them, then hit her two more times before he fled, police said The woman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with lacerations to the head.
Earlier this week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said police knew who stabbed Kimchi and were “scouring the various homeless encampments downtown.”
“We know who he is. We’ve got good film of him. We believe he’s a homeless individual,” Lightfoot said. “It’s awful. No question about it.”
But at a later news conference, Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan stopped short of saying investigators know who the attacker is.
“We are seeking the identity and the eventual arrest of the person who stabbed that female,” he said.
He declined to comment further, other than to say investigators have video of the attack and a witness who is cooperating.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2021. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)