Man gets 120 years for raping woman, forcing her to assault infant
BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter drozek@suntimes.com June 18, 2012 5:00PM
James P. Murphy
Updated: June 18, 2012 10:19PM
An Oak Forest man who sexually assaulted a Wheaton woman after breaking into her apartment, then forced her to sexually abuse her 5-month-old daughter, was sentenced Monday to 120 years in prison.
“Forcing a mother to do that is an act the devil himself would be loathe to commit,” DuPage County Judge Daniel Guerin said as he hammered James P. Murphy with the maximum prison term allowed.
Murphy, now 37, carried out the attack early on Aug. 27, 2005, after cutting a window screen to steal into the 26-year-old woman’s apartment.
He was arrested about 10 months later after committing another rape in Chicago — an attack for which he already is serving a 30-year prison term.
A DuPage County jury earlier this year convicted him of attacking the Wheaton woman and her infant daughter.
In imposing the sentence, Guerin noted that Murphy first began committing sexual attacks in his early teens.
“Yours has been a life lived mostly degrading, terrorizing, stalking and sexually assaulting women and children,” Guerin said. “Now, that life is over.”
The Wheaton woman tearfully testified Monday that she still has “painful” memories of the attack but said “they no longer have power over me.”
She urged Murphy to turn to God as he serves his prison term.
“The God that comforted me and healed me can also do the same for you,” she said during his sentencing.
