Joliet man gets life for brutal stabbing death of woman in 2014

A southwest suburban man who stabbed a woman so many times that the pathologist conducting her autopsy could not even count all the wounds was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday.

Drumaine McKinley, 37, was found guilty in March of the fatal stabbing of Joslyn Woods on Sept. 3, 2014, in the laundry room of a “troubled Joliet apartment building” in the 300 block of Broadway, a statement from the Will County state’s attorney’s office said.

The jury found  the murder was “brutal and heinous,” making McKinly eligible for a life sentence, according to prosecutors.

“Drumaine McKinley’s act of horrific violence was both senseless and pitiless,” State’s Attorney James Glasgow said in the statement. “There can be no explanation for the atrocity he committed against this young woman. This is a truly evil man who will spend the rest of his life rotting in misery inside a dank prison cell where he cannot harm anyone else on our streets.”

After a night of “heavy drinking,” McKinley contacted Woods and arranged to meet her about 6 a.m. at Evergreen Terrace, though neither of them lived there, prosecutors said during the trial.

They met at 6:22 a.m., and security camera video shows McKinly “striking and slashing wildly at the frightened woman and then leaving her to die on the laundry room floor,” prosecutors said. He left the room at one point, but “returned to stab her more times before his final departure.”

He stabbed her “so many times that the pathologist who performed the autopsy could not accurately determine the number of wounds she suffered,” prosecutors said.

McKinley then ran back to his mother’s home in Joliet, “dumping his bloody shirt and socks in trash cans along the way,” prosecutors said.

A police canine tracked his route, first along Ottawa Street, where his the dog found his shirt; and then Union Station, where he had ditched his socks. When the canine unit reached the mother’s home, other officers had found McKinley hiding in some nearby woods, prosecutors said.