A man was reportedly charged with sexually assaulting and murdering the University of Illinois at Chicago student found dead in a campus parking garage this weekend, officials announced Monday.

Donald Thurman, 26, allegedly confessed to killing 19-year-old freshman Ruth George after he followed her inside the Halsted Street Parking Garage about 1:35 a.m. Saturday, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

Thurman is not a student at UIC. It’s unclear if he knew George before the alleged attack.

George, who’s from a Chicago suburb, was found strangled to death in the backseat of a family owned car at about 11:15 a.m. Saturday, shortly after her family reported her missing.

The death of George, a kinesiology major who was part of the university’s Honors College, shook her family and the campus community.

Her older sister, Ester George, wrote in a Facebook post, that Ruth “was the light of our family and the best of all of us.”

“She was wise beyond her years and now she is gone to soon.”

UIC’s Chancellor, Michael Amiridis, said in a statement that George had “dreams and aspirations to become a health professional and help others.”

“The traumatic loss of life of one of our community members is very difficult to comprehend and surely invokes a range of emotions for all of us,” he said.

Thurman was hit with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault charges, the report said.

He was tracked by down by investigators about 2 a.m. Sunday outside of a nearby subway station. Police recognized him with the help of parking garage surveillance footage, according to university police.