COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Burnside man brutally beat his mother with a baseball bat after she refused to sign his student loan documents last week, prosecutors said.
Clarence Mack-Williams, 20, told his mom she didn't love him before launching a pepper-spray attack and beating her so severely that parts of her skull were exposed, Assistant State's Attorney Lorraine Scaduto said in court Friday.
The liberal arts student only stopped when his mother pretended to be dead, Scaduto said.
Mack-Williams went on to flag down police a half-hour later and ask them to send an ambulance to his mom's South Shore home, prosecutors said. He told officers he'd spoken with his mother on the phone and she didn't sound well, according to prosecutors.
The attack began Wednesday morning when Mack-Williams went to his mother's house in the 7000 block of South Cornell Avenue.
Scaduto said the Illinois Institute of Art student "became irate" when his 51-year-old mother refused to sign for the loan. The mother asked her son to leave because she was trying to head to an appointment, prosecutors said.
At that point, Scaduto said, Mack-Williams sprayed his mother with pepper spray before grabbing an aluminum bat and beating her head and arms.
The woman drifted in and out of consciousness as her son beat her so badly that parts of her skull were exposed, prosecutors said. She pretended to be dead until her son left, then called 911.
When police arrived, they found a pepper-spray can and holster, as well as an aluminum bat, Scaduto said. The victim was taken to a hospital in critical condition. As of Friday afternoon, her condition had stabilized.
Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, Mack-Williams flagged down police in the 8700 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue — just feet from his home — according to a police report. He said his mother was having a medical emergency and requested an ambulance.
Police had been canvassing the area looking for Mack-Williams after his description was released to law enforcement earlier that morning, the police report said. He was promptly arrested.
Mack-Williams, of the 8700 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue, was charged with felony domestic battery and attempted first-degree murder.
On Friday, Cook County Judge Laura Sullivan ordered him held in lieu of $1 million bail.
Mack-Williams' public defender said his client was studying liberal arts at the Illinois Institute of Art.
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