North suburban mother of 11 recovering after attack from serial woman puncher

LAKE VILLA, Ill. (WGN) — Kathleen Miles is a north suburban mother to 11 kids and the grandmother to seven more. She’s the rock of her family, but now she’s recovering after getting rocked by a man in the Loop, who has spent time in jail for doing just that to several other women years ago.

“This has rocked our whole family cause the rock needs someone to take care of her,” Miles said from her Lake Villa home on Tuesday.

Miles has worked in the Loop for the last two decades, and a couple of weeks ago, she said she was walking to the train with a coworker along West Washington Avenue when a stranger blew through them and struck her in the face.

The attacker, WGN-TV was told, watched as she lay on the ground bleeding before a good Samaritan, who turned out to be state senator Willie Preston, stepped in, took off his shirt and tried to stop the bleeding.

Miles suffered a number of injuries, which included a broken nose and multiple facial fractures.

But what’s just as alarming is the suspect, 32-year-old William Livingston, is already known to authorities and WGN-TV as well.

“I felt a hand in my pocket, turned my head like that, and there was a man directly in front of me, and he punched me directly in the face,” Cami Blechschmidt said in 2022. “We made eye contact, and like, he just had pure hate in his eyes. Just anger, pure anger.”

Nearly four years ago, Blechschmidt, a DePaul University student, told WGN-TV that Livingston randomly attacked her and three other women within a 22-minute timeframe.

Records from the Chicago Police Department show Livingston has been arrested seven times in the last ten years over allegations of similar attacks, leaving people like Miles and her loved ones wondering how many more women will become victims if the powers that be don’t step in.

“I think every system has failed him, whether it’s mental health or the justice system, I feel he’s been failed,” Miles said. “And as a result, we’ve all been failed.”