Police say 10-year-old Rockford girl was killed by a sex offender
By MARISSA PERLMAN
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CHICAGO (WBBM) — There’s new information about the terrifying murder of a 10-year-old girl.
Police said a registered sex offender kidnapped her and attacked her younger sister over the weekend.
CBS 2’s Marissa Perlman reports from Rockford that her death is shaking the community.
The 10-year-old girl was found behind an abandoned house, and CBS 2 was told she lived just a few blocks away.
The community is left with so many questions.
Destiny Huggins loved basketball and the color pink. She wanted to be a nurse. A source close to the family tells us she had just turned 10 in June.
Neighbors who knew her said they always saw her riding her bike near her home.
“I see them all the time you know and you just. I don’t know how something like this could happen.”
Saturday, Huggins and her younger sister were playing outside their home when police said a man identified as Antonio Monroe from Blue Island grabbed them.
Huggins’ six-year-old sister was choked during the attack but ran away. She told her mom a man grabbed her sister from their front lawn.
Less than 40 minutes later, police got a call saying someone found a lifeless body behind an abandoned home off 9th Avenue.
Jessica Dollar lives next door.
“It could have been my own. I mean, I’m right here. My son. It could’ve been me,” Dollar said.
K-9 officers helped police track down Monroe, who was just a couple blocks away. He was taken to the hospital after a fight with officers during the arrest.
It’s unclear why Monroe was in Rockford, about 100 miles northwest of his home in Blue Island.
“That’s what I want to know. Why was he here? Why this block? Why these kids,” asked Dollar.
Monroe is on the Illinois sex offender registry and was previously convicted of criminal sexual assault against a 19-year-old in Peoria.
He was 31 at the time.
The mayor of Rockford calls him a real-life monster:
“I have a seven-year-old daughter, and I just don’t understand how someone has this in their being to do something like this. To something as sweet and beautiful as that,” said Mayor Tom McNamara.
The suspect was charged with murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping, among other charges. He is in the hospital and has still not appeared in bond court.
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