Murder in Woodstock

Rapists Are Cowards

Rapists like Scott Deojay are cowards. They can't face the fact that when the police zero in on them, their time on the street is minimized. They tend to, just like the crimes they commit, do things that make themselves appear even weaker and guiltier. In Deojay's case, strapping a belt to his neck and trying to hang himself just made him look like he had things to hide. It wasn't evidence, of course—but it spoke to how Scott Deojay dealt with pressure from the police.

As Deojay's girlfriend watched him carefully after handing him the knife he had demanded, she was shocked when he cut the strap off his neck and then dashed out of the garage, grabbing the keys to her car off the counter.

Outside, in the driveway, Deojay then jumped inside his girlfriend's car and began to take off out of the driveway.

Meanwhile, the Plainfield Police Department had dispatched a few officers to the scene after receiving the call from Deojay's girlfriend.

"I did not want him to leave because of his frame of mind," Deojay's live-in girlfriend later told police.

With that thought in mind, she then ran after her car, grabbing the knife Deojay had dropped on the ground. Just before Deojay was ready to pull out of the driveway, she took the knife and slashed three of the four tires of her own vehicle so he couldn't leave.

Deojay then too, another car in the same driveway, but didn't have the keys.

By then, the Plainfield Police were pulling into the driveway.

One of the officers tried speaking to Deojay, but he was "extremely distraught," the officer later wrote in his report, "and did not want to talk about trying to hang himself."

Deojay's girlfriend explained what happened.

Within a few minutes after their arrival, the officers charged Deojay with "interference with an emergency call and breach of peace in the second degree."