Man Accused of Raping and Choking Bucktown Woman Found Dead in Hospital Parking Lot

A 27-year-old man who faced charges for raping a 26-year-old Bucktown woman was found dead Tuesday in a hospital parking lot after police said he shot himself, the Daily Herald reports. Michael Griffin, who had a recent address on Meadowlark Court in St. Charles and previously resided in Pilsen, was found in the front seat of his car at 9:59 a.m. in the hospital parking lot at Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin after missing a 9:30 a.m. court hearing, according to the Daily Herald.

Griffin is accused of raping the woman he met at a bar in Chicago in February 2012, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. He was invited back to the woman’s Bucktown apartment where he forced the woman into sex several times, prosecutors. When the woman tried to get away, prosecutors said, Griffin dragged her back into the apartment by her ankles and strangled her until she was unconscious, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Griffin, who was a student at UIC and a youth soccer coach, was expected in court Tuesday for a pretrial status hearing, the Elgin Courier-News reports. He had been free on bail after posting $75,000 of the $750,000 bail and faced aggravated criminal sexual assault and unlawful restraint charges, the newspaper reports.