Stepmom isolated in Du Page jail

A Carol Stream woman charged with the attempted murder of herstepdaughter has been segregated from other prisoners in the Du PageCounty Jail after a weekend altercation with another inmate, thecounty sheriff's police chief, Joseph Caulfield, said yesterday.

Catherine Hozian, 26, was threatened Saturday night, he said, bya second inmate, whom he refused to name, who told Hozian: "If I hada knife, I'd cut your head off."

Hozian and the other inmate were isolated in separate cells,Caulfield said, a move Hozian's attorney protested in a Wheatoncourtroom.

Schaumburg attorney James Driscoll told Du Page Circuit JudgeRobert A. Nolan that he plans to file a motion to ask that his clientbe removed from the isolated cell.

"My client is very distraught," Driscoll said. "I don't see whyshe has to be locked up when (the altercation) was initiated by theother inmate." He said he believed the altercation stemmed from "thenature of my client's charges."

Hozian's 7-year-old stepdaughter was found wandering along adesolate Du Page County road earlier this month. The girl reportedlytold police that Hozian had strangled her unconscious and left herfor dead in a nearby field.

Carpentersville police and Kane County authorities are alsoreinvestigating the 1982 death of the girl's 5-year-old brother,which was ruled at the time to be accidental.