A Forest View boy faces a felony burglary charge after a 17-year-old girl whose parents were out of town found him in her bedroom early Thursday morning, Riverside police said Saturday.
Police said the girl woke up in her bedroom in the western suburb about 4 a.m. when she saw the boy, wearing a black hoody and glasses, standing over her bed. She screamed, police said, and the boy took off from the residence.
An 18-year-old friend of the girl was asleep in a different room and told police she was unaware that the burglary had taken place or that the boy was in the home.
Riverside police Chief Thomas Weitzel called the incident “an extremely unusual occurrence for the village,” in a press release.
“They didn’t know each other. He was a complete stranger, ” Weitzel said in an interview. “There was no connection there at all, [it was] just completely random.”
Weitzel also said that the boy entered through an unlocked back door located off of an alley. He said he encourages residents to lock their doors.
“He went into that house because she didn’t lock the doors,” he said.
After fleeing the home, a passing patrol officer and a neighbor both noticed the boy “almost simultaneously,” Weitzel said.
More Top Picks Soil Landscapes
“(The officer) sees this kid, and then another resident who works an early-morning shift came out of an adjacent building and flagged the officer down and said, ‘That kid over there is acting suspicious,'” Weitzel said.
When the 17-year-old boy was approached by police he “had jewelry on him that seemed to be expensive in nature,” outside the apartment complex, police said.
The boy told police who stopped him that he was going to his girlfriend’s house in Riverside and that he had bought the jewelry for her, according to the press release.
That patrol officer briefly detained him and photographed the jewelry, the release said. Police later followed up with the girl, who identified the boy in a photo lineup.
Police said they were then able to track the boy’s cellphone to an address on the 8000 block of Edgewater Road in North Riverside where he was taken into custody before “giving a full confession.”
Weitzel said the boy was taken to MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn to be “evaluated.”
“He appeared to be suffering from some type of psychological issues because his behavior was very erratic. ” Weitzel said. “We had his mother come down, she was involved in the whole process.”
Police said the boy was charged with residential burglary as a juvenile.
The 17-year-old girl’s parents have been notified of the incident, Weitzel said.