A Rogers Park woman who says she was beaten with a cooking pot and robbed inside her own apartment took matters into her own hands after a jarring coincidence — Facebook suggested she add her alleged attacker as a friend. Instead of clicking accept, she turned to Google and ChatGPT to hunt him down, eventually leading Chicago police to arrest 24-year-old Isaiah Del Torro at a West Side bus stop on September 7.
A Night Out Turns Violent
According to CWB Chicago, the woman met Del Torro outside Rino bar in River North at closing time on June 13, and the two exchanged phone numbers before she invited him back to her apartment. At some point during the visit, she asked him to leave. Prosecutors said Del Torro, who was 23 at the time, refused to go — and instead grabbed a cooking pot and struck her repeatedly in the head, arms and legs, per the outlet's report.
Del Torro then allegedly fled with her phone and purse. Stunned, the woman grabbed a knife and chased after him, the report states. Police encountered her near the Morse Red Line station, and EMS rushed her to St. Francis Hospital, where her head wound required 14 staples, according to the same account.
Surveillance Images and a Facebook Coincidence
The woman's building manager later provided her with surveillance images of the alleged attacker, some of which showed him carrying her blue purse, the outlet reported. Not long after, Facebook's algorithm delivered an unsettling twist: it suggested she add Isaiah Del Torro as a friend, and she recognized his profile as belonging to the man who had attacked her. Reviewing his older photos, she then found a more recent account belonging to him as well.
From there, the woman put photos of Del Torro into Google and ChatGPT and learned that he lived on the West Side near Madison Street, per the report. She passed everything she'd gathered — along with the phone number he had given her — to Chicago police detectives.
Spotted at a Bus Stop, Then Arrested
On September 7, the woman spotted Del Torro standing at a bus stop in the 2400 block of West Madison Street and called 911. Patrol officers took him into custody at the scene, the outlet's report notes. Judge Shauna Boliker ordered Del Torro detained on charges of robbery, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm and theft.
Prosecutors said Del Torro had juvenile adjudications for robbery and identity theft dating back to 2017. The case underscores how ordinary people are increasingly turning to consumer tech and AI tools to do investigative legwork once left almost entirely to police — a trend playing out elsewhere in unrelated and far more serious contexts, including a lawsuit that accuses ChatGPT of helping a gunman plan the Florida State University mass shooting, as reported by PBS NewsHour. Florida's attorney general has separately opened a criminal investigation into the chatbot's alleged role in that shooting, according to ABC7.
