A 26-year-old woman was torched by a madman on a Chicago train Monday night — more than a week after another straphanger was stabbed in the chest at Windy City station, according to police.
The 45-year-old assailant allegedly doused the woman with a liquid and set her ablaze after the two got into a heated argument aboard a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train near Clark and Lake streets in the Loop around 9:25 p.m., the Chicago Police Department said, according to multiple reports.
The train rolled to a stop at the Clark/Lake Station and the unidentified attacker bolted, while the badly burnt straphanger staggered out of the car and collapsed — with the flames already out by the time police arrived, NBC 5 Chicago reported.
The victim was rushed to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, with severe burns covering her body.
“Just seeing her lying on the ground and she was kind of hyperventilating and in a lot of pain,” one horrified witness told FOX 32 Chicago.
“You could tell she was in really bad shape. All the medics were down there and there was a big turnout as far as responders and so forth.”
The Blue Line was reportedly shut down for hours after the attack, though service resumed normally by Tuesday morning.
A person of interest was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon and the investigation remains ongoing, police said, NBC reported.
The fiery assault comes more than a week after a knife-wielding lunatic pulled a large blade from his backpack and plunged it into the chest of a 27 year-old woman sitting on a bench at the UIC-Halsted Blue Line platform near the University of Illinois Chicago on Nov. 10, according to police.
The woman sustained a laceration to the chest and was taken to a nearby hospital.
The brute ran off, and it appears he still remains at large.
The recent spate of commuter attacks comes nearly three months after 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly fatally stabbed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutksa with a pocket knife in an unprovoked attack aboard the Lynx Blue Line train in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Aug. 22.
Brown, a homeless schizophrenic, was swiftly arrested and indicted last month for violence against a railroad carrier and mass transportation system resulting in death.
The federal charges make the disturbed felon eligible for the death penalty.
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