A good Samaritan who answered a woman’s cries for help earlier this week was credited by a Cook County judge with stopping a brutal daytime attack outside Union Station in downtown Chicago.
The 71-year-old woman was walking her dog about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when Wilson Barreno came up behind her on the 200 block of South Canal Street, wrapped one arm around her neck and began to repeatedly stab her with his free hand, prosecutors said in court Friday.
Barreno, 25, stabbed the woman at least seven times, nearly puncturing one of her kidneys and cutting two arteries that required surgery to stop internal bleeding, prosecutors said.
He was charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery.
Amid the attack, a man walking in the area heard her cries for help and came to her aid, causing Barreno to run, prosecutors said.
The man then followed Barreno as others attended to the wounded woman and later held him in a parking lot for police to take him into custody, prosecutors said.
The woman was taken to a hospital in critical condition but was expected to survive.
A suspected motive was not given for the attack, which Judge William Fahy remarked was particularly concerning for him because of the “randomness of the attack.”
Borreno was the “definition of danger,” who had “pounced” on the woman from behind, Fahy said. “Luckily for the victim, there was a witness … who approached, causing this defendant to flee.”
Borreno was stoic throughout the proceedings and answered politely and in a soft voice when asked questions by Fahy.
A box cutter was found near the scene of the attack and a pocket knife was recovered from a trash can that Barreno was allegedly seen throwing something into, prosecutors said. Both items were awaiting testing by the Illinois State Police Crime Lab.
Barreno’s face was clearly recorded by video surveillance cameras before and after the attack, prosecutors said. He was also identified by the man who followed him.
Prosecutors said Barreno appeared to have left California on an Amtrak train days before the attack and had a ticket to travel by train to Washington, D.C., on a journey that was scheduled to depart a day after. It wasn’t immediately clear why he was traveling.
He was convicted of a misdemeanor count of obstruction/battery to a police officer last year in California but had no other criminal background, prosecutors said.
An assistant public defender said Borreno, who was born in Guatemala, has been living in Oakland, California, since 2015 and graduated high school there in 2017. He was most recently working at a cafe and for a cleaning service, the defense attorney said.
He was due back in court on Wednesday.
