A 26-year-old Westchester man is in Cook County Jail awaiting an April 11 court date after being charged with stealing jewelry from the home of a friend and then selling it for money to buy drugs.
Brookfield police arrested Christopher A. Duncan in Westchester on April 3 just before Duncan was scheduled to hop a Greyhound bus to Florida, according to the police report.
Two days earlier, two Brookfield residents contacted police to report that several items of jewelry had gone missing from their home between March 22 and March 27. One of those items was a gold and diamond wedding ring.
The residents believed that the items may have been stolen by their son’s friend, who had been at their home during that week. Police said they were able to confirm that Duncan had stolen several items, because Duncan’s roommate found several pieces of jewelry under his mattress and brought them to the owners on March 28, a day before the complaint was filed.
Police said that Duncan sold the wedding ring at a store in Downers Grove for $460. The store’s owner confirmed Duncan had sold the ring on March 27, but that it had already been sent out to be melted down.
Duncan also reportedly admitted selling several pieces of the jewelry for a total of $285 at a pawn shop in North Riverside and at a cash-for-gold store in Westchester.
Sleeping in the basement
The arrest of two people for trespassing in the basement of a Riverside apartment building has led to the arrest by officers from the West Suburban Enhanced Drug/Gang Enforcement (WEDGE) police task force of two others in Stickney for drug offenses.
On April 7 at 7:45 a.m., Riverside police responded to a burglary alarm at 22 East Ave. and met someone who said two people were sleeping in the basement storage area.
Police arrested a 29-year-old Brookfield man and a 26-year-old Stickney woman for criminal trespassing, and reported finding evidence of heroin use inside the storage area where the two had been squatting.
Police reported that a door to the basement appeared to have been forced open. The man reportedly told police he discovered the basement on April 7. The woman reportedly told police they had sought shelter in the basement for two days.
Based on information gained in that investigation, WEDGE officers executed a search warrant in the 4000 block of Clinton Avenue in Stickney and arrested a 30-year-old Stickney woman and a 25-year-old Des Plaines woman, charging them with possession of drug paraphernalia.
Police reported finding “hundreds” of hypodermic needles inside the home.
3rd robbery suspect arrested
A third suspect has been charged in connection with the strong-arm robbery of a 15-year-old boy in Brookfield on March 26.
Brookfield police on April 5 arrested 21-year-old Vedran Basic at his home in the 2700 block of South Wesley Avenue in Berwyn. According to police, Basic was identified as one of the three attackers in a lineup conducted after his arrest. Basic also reportedly has provided police with a written confession of his involvement.
Police charged Basic with one count of robbery, a felony.
At a hearing on April 6 at the Maybrook courthouse, a Cook County judge set Basic’s bail at $25,000. He is in Cook County Jail awaiting an April 11 court date along with two others, 23-year-old Arsenyl Hill, of LaGrange, and 20-year-old Shane Jones, of LaGrange Highlands. Both Hill and Jones are also charged with robbery.
The three allegedly stole an iPhone from their victim as he walked with a group of friends on Jackson Avenue near Park Avenue at about 8:30 p.m. on March 26.
An appointment with theft
A 29-year-old Berwyn man who works as a massage therapist in North Riverside reported on April 4 that his wallet was stolen from his jacket by one of two men who had come into the office earlier that day.
At about 2:45 p.m., two men walked into the office, one of them wishing to speak with the massage therapist. The therapist spoke with the man and set up an appointment for 4 p.m.
When 4 p.m. came and no one showed for the appointment, the therapist called a cellphone number the man had given him, but the person who answered said he had the wrong number.
The therapist then checked his voicemail to see if the man had tried to contact him, but instead had a message from his mother about a call from the therapist’s bank, reporting unusual credit card activity, including several purchases that day at Target in Broadview.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, April 2-8, and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Unless otherwise indicated, anybody named in these reports has only been charged with a crime. These cases have not been adjudicated.
– Compiled by Bob Uphues
