Two weeks after a carjacker pointed a gun at her forehead and stole her car from her driveway, an Elmwood Park woman is speaking out in order to alert residents that carjackings can happen even in places where most people wouldn’t expect them.
The woman, whom the Pioneer Press/baiduhai is identifying only as Elizabeth because her attacker is at large, is a mother of four who arrived home and parked on her driveway after dropping off her youngest children at a basketball camp at an Oak Park high school on Sept. 13 when she was met by carjackers.
“I had a very busy day with my children. I went to a Boy Scout/Girl Scout kickoff event at Keystone Park and was in my Boy Scout shirt. After that, they had basketball camp from 7 to 9 p.m.,” she explained.
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She arrived back at her Elmwood Park home at 7:22 p.m. when she noticed a car parked on the street in front of her home.
‘A man with a gun’
“When I pulled into my driveway I saw a black Ford Edge with tinted windows parked on the street. I stood there for a minute, thinking it was a guest of my neighbors and waited for them to get out so that I could say hello. They never got out, so I figured they were texting or something and went to my back seat to get my kids’ shin guards and soccer shoes out of the car. I then went to my driver side door, and reached in to grab my coffee mug,” Elizabeth recounted.
“At that point I heard shuffling but thought it was the neighborhood kids. But I turned around and saw a man with a gun pointed at me. It had some sort of silencer on the end of the gun, some padding, and was pointed at my forehead. He said ‘Give me your keys’ and I quickly gave him my keys while shaking. I started backing up from my car and he still had the gun aimed at me. And then I lost it. I started saying ‘Please don’t shoot me’ and I realized he wasn’t wearing a mask to protect his identity and was going to kill me because I was a witness.”
She said she also realized the gunman wasn’t alone.
“I kept my eyes focused on him [the gunman] and saw out of the corner of my eye, someone get in through my passenger door.”
She said the man with the gun jumped in her car and the two men took off, with another man driving the Ford Edge right behind. Later, police determined that the Ford was also stolen, Elizabeth said.
Police responded within a couple of minutes and got surveillance footage from neighbors’ doorbell cameras. They also worked with River Forest police, who saw the carjackers on surveillance video following her from Oak Park and also saw her waving to her friend on Lake Street, she said.
So far this year, Oak Park has experienced 19 carjackings while Elmwood Park had none until now.
Happened at dinnertime
“I’m speaking up mainly to let residents know that it was early in the evening; it wasn’t after hours,” Elizabeth said. “We all have our double guard up when we’re coming home after hours. We know there are risks of going out after 10 p.m. at night, with drunk drivers and the people who are out at that time who may not be up to any good. But before hours, at dusk, outside your home, a weeknight at 7:20 p.m. is usually thought of as safe.”
She said she knows the exact time she arrived home—7:22 p.m., because of footage from neighbors’ doorbell cameras. She also said she believes the carjackers may have spotted her car—a 2017 Volvo XC60 SUV— when she was in Oak Park.
Elizabeth said she was convinced that she was going to be killed and is not sure what caused the gunman to refrain. As the men sped away in her car, with the Ford Edge following, the gravity of the situation hit her.
“After they left, I just let out a scream and was terrified. I was crying and screaming and realized my bag was on my back with my phone so I called 911. “
Elizabeth said police responded quickly, and afterwards helped eased her mind by stationing a squad car outside her home. She said she’s always cautious and wonders why the police department gave advice about the importance of being alert.
“When the police said to me that people have to be more aware of their surroundings, that sounds to me like in the 1970s and 1980s when women were getting raped and they blamed it on their clothing,” she said.
Elmwood Park Police Chief Frank Fagiano responded that he wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but said it’s a good preventive measure to stay aware of one’s surroundings. “If you go to the grocery store, always park in a well lit area, park where other cars are. Always check your mirrors– these are common things,” he said.
“We encourage people to put cameras on their houses. Any personal protection you can do for yourself, we encourage it.”
There’s nothing that Elizabeth could have done differently in this incident, though, he said.
She normally chooses where to park based on visibility.
“I have a two-car garage that I never park in because I feel like going into my alley into the garage isn’t as safe as parking on the driveway where everyone can see you,” she said. “But unfortunately it didn’t help me in this situation.”
After she called 911 and the police responded, a neighbor picked up her children, telling them only that their mother’s car was stolen. Later, they learned the details, Elizabeth said.
“My children are very sad to learn what happened to me. They have cross-country training and my son was running a race and said he was thinking of me the entire race…If they would have shot me that night they would have left my children motherless. It’s very sad,” she said.
New security system, new routines
Because her house keys were on the same keychain as her car key, she said she had to call a locksmith that night to have her locks changed.
A few hours after the carjacking, police located the car, which had a GPS system activated. They located it on the 1600 block of North Avers Avenue in Chicago’s Humboldt Park Neighborhood, Fagiano said.
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But because the carjackers, who remain at large, still had her car key, she had to have her car re-keyed. She also spent more than $2,000 to install cameras, motion spotlights and glass break detectors at her home.
Elizabeth said she’s slowly getting back to normal but is considering moving and still is afraid.
“I’m trying to live my life as normal as possible,” she said. “I’m very grateful that I survived this but it’s very unsettling because I know they are out there.”
She also said her new cameras and motion detectors will not put her mind completely at ease.
Elizabeth added that now when she arrives home, she makes sure her children get inside before she does.
“Now when I pull into my driveway I tell them to hurry up and run to the front door and I get out after them. In the past I’d get out of my car and they’d get out and stroll in right after me. But things have changed because I wouldn’t want carjackers to take my car with my children in it. I worry about what they would do to them as witnesses.”
Elizabeth, who works in human relations for a family-owned company in downtown Chicago, said she believes the deceased owner, who she was very close to, may have been her guardian angel during the carjacking.
“I really felt that he [the carjacker] was going to shoot me that night and feel like I had an angel on my side. The owner of [the company she works for] was my father figure for 21 years. I was very close with him. He would always say, ‘Lizzy, I don’t know how you do it’ and I would always reply that ‘I wing it.’
“After the carjacking, someone posted on my Facebook wall that I have ‘wind beneath my wings’ and it hit me. Just recently, I was sitting in my office downtown and told his son that he was the wind beneath my wings. I can’t wing things anymore….I felt like he was present that day.”
As for advice to others, she said she doesn’t know what the right course of action is, but just wants to spread awareness.
“I wouldn’t want to tell someone to not fight back because that may save their life. I don’t want to give recommendations. But I want to spread awareness that it happened in a ‘safe’ area.”