Teen girl sexually assaulted in Cook County forest preserve

MAYWOOD, Ill. (WLS) -- A teenage girl heading home following a homecoming dance in Chicago was sexually assaulted near the Thatcher Woods Forest Preserve in west suburban Maywood.

The victim is from the area and about 11:45 Friday night, she had attended the dance in Chicago and had taken the train back to the Maywood, Forest Park area. She was walking the rest of the way home when police say a man grabbed her on busy Madison Street near First Avenue, and then took her into Thatcher Woods, where the sexual assault took place.

"A man dragged her into the woods and assaulted her, and obviously she's quite traumatized by it," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. "She got away. We've been working on the case since then, but just the nature of the area, we think could be something where there's some people driving by that time of night, it's highly traffic, there might be something people saw."

Sheriff's investigators are re-tracing the victims steps and are hoping that since she was taken from a busy street, that anyone who may have been driving along Madison near Thatcher Woods at that time and seen something unusual will give Cook County Sheriff police investigators a call.

They hope that would lead them quickly to an arrest in the case.