LAKE VILLA, Ill. (WGN) — Kathleen Miles is an Illinois mother to 11 kids and the grandmother to seven more. She’s the rock of her family, but now she’s recovering after being punched by a man in Chicago’s Loop, who has spent time in jail for doing just that to several other women years ago.
“This has rocked our whole family cause the rock needs someone to take care of her,” Miles told Nexstar’s WGN on Tuesday.
Miles has worked in the Loop for the last two decades, and a couple of weeks ago, she was walking to the train with a coworker along West Washington Avenue when a stranger struck her in the face.
The attacker watched as she lay on the ground bleeding before a good Samaritan, who turned out to be state senator Willie Preston, stepped in, took off his shirt and tried to stop the bleeding.
Miles suffered a number of injuries, including a broken nose and multiple facial fractures.
The suspect, 32-year-old William Livingston, is already known to authorities from past attacks.
“I felt a hand in my pocket, turned my head like that, and there was a man directly in front of me, and he punched me directly in the face,” Cami Blechschmidt told WGN in 2022. “We made eye contact, and like, he just had pure hate in his eyes. Just anger, pure anger.”
Nearly four years ago, Blechschmidt, a DePaul University student, said Livingston randomly attacked her and three other women within a 22-minute timeframe.
Records from the Chicago Police Department show Livingston has been arrested seven times in the last 10 years over allegations of similar attacks, leaving people like Miles and her loved ones wondering how many more women will become victims if the powers that be don’t step in.
“I think every system has failed him, whether it’s mental health or the justice system, I feel he’s been failed,” Miles said. “And as a result, we’ve all been failed.”
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