Days after a 54-year-old woman was dragged by a carjacker who took her Jeep Cherokee at a West Loop gas station, the stolen car has been found. But Bella, her beloved 5-month-old Shih Tzu, who was in the car’s back seat, is still missing.
“That’s the worst part of the situation,” Liliana Palacios said Thursday of Bella, who joined her family in May as a Mother’s Day gift.
Now she’s hoping someone will help Bella come home.
Liliana placed Bella in her carrier and drove to the Shell station at 1160 West Van Buren to pick up a package from a drop-off locker. At around 5:15 p.m., a man jumped into the Jeep’s driver’s seat as Liliana was retrieving her package.
She said she opened the passenger door and struggled with the man who kept yelling, “Give me the keys! Give me the keys!”
With her legs still hanging outside the car, the carjacker knocked her to the floorboard, and her keys fell out as he kicked her, she continued.
Once the man secured the keys, she climbed into the passenger seat as he sped away. The man stopped in an alley in the 300 block of South Ashland and let her get out. But he took off with the car before she could get Bella.
Liliana ran toward a man who was taking out the garbage, “screaming at him for help,” she recalled. The good neighbor called the police.
She said police found her Jeep and pursued it on the expressways, but the people inside the car bailed out. Bella and her carrier were no longer inside the vehicle.
“They ran away, so I don’t know what happened” to Bella, she said.
Liliana has reached out to friends and co-workers for help. Her son is sharing information about Bella on sites dedicated to finding missing pets.
If you have information about Bella, Liliana can be reached at 773-875-0943 or lilyjoe@currently.com
