Police search for suspect in baseball bat beating

A Chicago woman is praying her husband will recover from a brutal attack that came out of nowhere after a St. Patrick's Day fundraiser.

Linda Tisdale and her husband Dennis were walking to their car near a church on the Northwest side on March 3rd around 2 a.m. Dennis had finished a fundraiser at Our Lady of Victory Church and he and Linda had joined friends at the Windsor Tavern just around the corner. All of a sudden, a man jumped out of a passing SUV and began beating Dennis over the head with a baseball bat.

Linda said Dennis and the attacker fought in the street.

"Somebody started screaming at my husband and saying that he hit their car with his arm and the guy was swinging a bat," Linda Tisdale says. "I thought he's a punk kid and my husband's a strong man and I wasn't worried."

After Dennis walked away, the attacker hit him in the head with the bat. Linda ran to her husband, but immediately knew something was seriously wrong.

"I asked him a question and he couldn't speak," Linda explains. "He tried to speak but I guess he started talking like a stroke victim."

Dennis was rushed to Lutheran General Hospital and underwent brain surgery. He was finally able to go home last Friday.

38th Ward Alderman Tim Cullerton is a family friend. He's offered a $1,500 reward to help catch the man he calls a coward.

"If he's riding around our community with a baseball bat in his car, this is probably not the first time that he's used it or threatened to use it," Cullerton says.

Linda is pleading for someone who recognizes the attacker to call police.

"Somebody like this does not need to be on the street," Linda says. "If he did this to my husband, he could do it to anybody and anybody's family could be completely destroyed from this."

Police have issued a community alert along with a composite sketch of the man they are looking for in connection with this attack. The attacker is described as a 25- to 42-year-old white man with a light complexion and shaved head. He is about 5-foot-7 and 160-180 pounds, and was last seen wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, according to police.