Rockdale Strangling Defendant Denied Release Under SAFE-T-Act: Judge

ROCKDALE — Will County Judge James Harvey has ruled that 25-year-old Rockdale man Isiah McWilliams must remain in Will County's Jail while awaiting trial in connection with allegations that je tried to strangle a woman inside his Rockdale residence last Friday.

Prosecutors have charged McWilliams, of the 600 block of Warren Avenue, with two counts of aggravated domestic battery and six counts of domestic battery.

According to the pretrial detention documents from the Will County State's Attorney's Office, on Friday, two Rockdale officers were called to Warren Avenue for a domestic disturbance in progress. The victim was outside, in panic and crying on the street curb. One of the officers went inside to interview McWilliams, "who he knew ... from previous police contacts," according to court documents. However, police said, McWilliams' father told the officer his son was not there and had walked away to cool down.

The victim told Rockdale police that McWilliams woke her up around 4 a.m. and requested a sexual act. "She said no, and Isiah got upset," court records indicate.

According to court documents, when the woman sat at the end of her bed, McWilliams took off the upstairs bathroom, and then he came back, asking, "What did you take off the ground?"

She told him it was her phone charger, and that's when McWilliams put her into a chokehold with both hands behind her head and his arms around her, making it hard to breath or call for help, according to prosecutors.

The woman told police she began to lose consciousness, so she managed to bite his fingers to free herself. At that point, McWilliams slammed her to the ground, the court records say.

When the woman got her phone to call 911, McWilliams picked her up and slammed to the floor again and "while on the phone with 911, Isiah kept telling her to tell them not to come, and I'll take you home," prosecutors told the judge.

The woman went outside to wait for police. She had injuries to her left temple, a laceration to her bottom lip and a scrape to her left elbow. Rockdale police later captured McWilliams upon seeing him walking back toward Warren Avenue.

McWilliams is already on court probation out of McDonough County for a 2022 unlawful possession of a gun case. He was previously charged in Will County in 2023 with aggravated domestic battery involving strangulation, but that case was dismissed due to the victim, a different woman, failing to appear in court, prosecutors noted.

McWilliams has been the respondent in at least three orders of protection since 2020, court files show. A 2020 domestic battery charge in Will County was also dismissed when the woman who was the victim failed to appear for his trial.