A man is being held on $1 million bail in connection with the carjacking of a 68-year-old woman Wednesday morning at Oakbrook Center mall in west suburban Oak Brook.
Darnell Anderson, 26, of the West Side Austin neighborhood, was charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking with a gun and armed robbery, according to a statement from the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office. Judge Michael Wolfe set his bail at $1 million at a hearing Saturday morning.
The woman was sitting in her Honda Civic at 9:36 a.m. in the mall parking garage before going into work when a white Toyota Camry pulled up behind her, according to a statement from Oak Brook police. The Toyota had been reported stolen from Maywood.
One person then got out of the Toyota, opened the driver’s side door of the Honda, brandished a gun and ordered the woman to get out, according to police and prosecutors.
The woman got out of the car and rushed to open the rear door to get her purse before running away, police said. The suspect got into the vehicle, but then ran after the woman to take her purse.
One suspect then drove off in the Honda while a second drove away in the Toyota, authorities said.
Paul Darrah, a spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office, said it was still under investigation which role Anderson played in the carjacking, and charges have not yet been filed against a second suspect.
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Anderson’s next court date was scheduled for April 23, according to DuPage County Sheriff’s Office records.
“The very idea that someone would rob an innocent woman of her car and purse at a popular, well-traveled shopping mall is outrageous,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in the statement. “The allegations that Mr. Anderson did just that will be met with the full force of the law.”
The Toyota used in the carjacking was spotted about 5:45 p.m. that day on I-290 near Central Avenue, according to Illinois State Police. Four teenage boys were arrested after it sped away from troopers trying to pull it over and crashed on the ramp to Ashland.
The driver, a 15-year-old, was charged with aggravated fleeing and eluding, reckless driving and driving without a valid license, state police said. He and the three other boys, all 17, were also charged with criminal trespass to a motor vehicle in connection with the initial carjacking in Maywood. One of them was also charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.
The stolen Honda was later found in the 800 block of North Kilbourn in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood, police said.