CHICAGO — The Beverly family that went viral last week after armed men robbed and carjacked them in their back yard woke up to an encore performance on Tuesday. Someone returned to their home and stole their second car, the one the carjackers didn’t take.
Chicago police responded to the home in the 9300 block of South Pleasant a little after 7 a.m., and cops immediately started searching for the family’s black 2020 Land Rover, according to a law enforcement source.
The vehicle’s keys were taken during the armed robbery, so police suspect that today’s theft is related to the earlier crime.
Our source said police found the Range Rover a couple of hours later in the 9700 block of South Merrill.
CPD does not identify crime victims by name or provide exact addresses, but a spokesperson confirmed that police responded to a robbery in the 9300 block of South Pleasant around 7:20 a.m.
“A vehicle was stolen from that block; however, it was soon recovered in a nearby district. No case report was generated,” CPD said in an email.
On November 2, a 46-year-old woman and her daughter returned home in the Land Rover around 8:45 p.m.
As the woman crossed the yard, two men ran up the driveway and knocked her to the ground. One ripped away her purse and rifles through it, while the other held a gun to the fallen woman.
“I’ll shoot you,” one barked while demanding the Range Rover’s keys. He took her purse when she told him that’s where the keys were.
As the robbery was unfolding, the woman’s husband, also 46, walked out the back door. The two robbers aimed their guns at him and ordered him to the ground, threatening to shoot him, too, the report said.
According to the report, the robbers asked him for the keys to the Audi, which was parked in the driveway. He told them they were in the vehicle, so one of the carjackers ordered him to show him where the keys were.
After getting the Audi’s keys, the carjackers “began to debate between each other in order to decide which vehicle to steal,” the incident report said. They decided to take the Audi.
Last Wednesday, Chicago police officers spotted the Audi traveling without its lights near Oglesby Avenue and 97th Street. Knowing it had been carjacked, they tried to pull it over, but the driver sped away, and they terminated the pursuit, a second CPD report said.
The officers continued to search the area for the car. They found it parked in the 9600 block of South Crandon, less than a half-mile from where CPD found the stolen Range Rover this morning.
Police said a witness described a woman who was seen exiting the Audi’s passenger seat. Officers found Kayla Bell, 24, matching the description about two blocks away, the report said. She was arrested after the witness confirmed that she was the person who exited the Audi, according to the report.
Bell is charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass to a vehicle, but she is not accused of participating in the hijacking. She was released from the police station with instructions to show up for court on December 18, court records show.
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