Joliet murder defendant charged with inappropriately touching nurse at jail

A Joliet man charged with the 2021 murder of a man in Elwood faces a charge that accuses him of inappropriately touching a nurse at the Will County jail.

On Feb. 10, a nurse at the jail was performing her daily medical duties within one of the pods where Derrell Draper, 40, of Joliet, was housed, according to Will County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kathy Hoffmeyer.

“As the nurse was standing in the pod, Draper came from behind her and touched her in an inappropriate fashion,” Hoffmeyer said.

Draper was then charged with felony aggravated battery of that nurse.

Draper has been in jail since Feb. 27, 2021, after an Elwood Police Department investigation led to prosecutors charging him with the murder of Robert Bigger, 30, of Shorewood. Elwood is south of Joliet.

In 2021, Elwood Police Chief Fred Hayes said Draper and Bigger were co-workers at a Home Depot warehouse in the village. Bigger was found shot to death in a car near the warehouse, he said.

The killing of Bigger was the first murder in Elwood in nearly 12 years, at that time.

Since Draper’s time in jail, he’s been charged with exposing himself in a lewd manner on May 29, 2021, possessing a sharp object on June 27, 2021, grabbing another inmate and pulling his head into a door on July 5, 2021, and possessing another sharp object on Sept. 5, 2022.

Those cases still remain pending as of Thursday.

Draper’s murder case has yet to be resolved. He’s scheduled for a pretrial hearing on March 17.

Draper’s bond in jail has been set at $6.6 million.