Media Report Woman Murdered For Ignoring Man’s Catcalls. Here’s The Full Story.

Tragedy struck the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) this week. Ruth George, a talented and thriving student studying physical therapy, was murdered and sexually assaulted by a mentally ill homeless man after she left a professional fraternity event Saturday night.

George was walking alone to her car in a parking garage when she passed a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line stop on campus. Twenty-six-year-old Donald Thurman saw George and tried to talk to her. George ignored him, since he was a stranger, and continued walking to her car. Thurman followed her, still trying to talk to her and “catcalling” her, according to prosecutors. George continued to ignore him, which made Thurman angry, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said at a bond hearing last week, The Chicago Tribune reported.

Prosecutors allege that Thurman followed 19-year-old George to her car, where he then choked her from behind, dragged her into the back seat of her car, and sexually assaulted her. He then fled the scene.

George’s sisters became concerned when she didn’t return home and called the police. Her friends, family, and the police tracked her cell phone to her car, and found George cold to the touch, unresponsive, and partially nude. It was clear she had been involved in a struggle.

CPR was performed, but George was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators tracked Thurman and charged him with first-degree murder and criminal sexual assault.

Thurman already had a criminal past, having been sentenced in August 2016 to six years in prison for stealing a woman’s iPhone and fleeing in a stolen vehicle. He was paroled in December 2018. Though police found the jacket he wore when he allegedly murdered George at a home, Thurman was considered homeless, “bouncing from place to place,” his court-appointed attorney, Assistant Public Defender Valerie Panozzo, said, according to the Tribune. Panozzo also said Thurman had a history of mental health problems.

George’s death is a tragedy.

The media, however, have framed this tragedy in a way that attempts to paint women as being in danger anytime a man speaks to her.

Thurman was not a member of the fraternity that held the event George attended the evening she died. He was not a student of UIC and was not affiliated with the university at all, but many media outlets – CNN, for example – didn’t report Thurman’s history of mental illness or the fact that he was not affiliated with UIC. The Washington Post waited until the end of its story to mention these facts.

A death like this is an absolute tragedy, and the media shouldn’t try to frame these stories to push a narrative that women are constant victims and that even ignoring a man’s catcalls can get them killed. The George case was not about catcalling, it was about a mentally ill man who stalked and murdered an innocent woman. Yet the media continues to try and insist that women – especially college women – are in constant danger at the hands of men.