Warmer weather brings customers — and car thieves — to Fairview Heights shopping areas
Fairview Heights businesses had a steady stream of customers on Saturday, thanks to warmer weather and sunny skies after more than a week of frigid temperatures and heavy snow.
But people who wanted to get out of the house included thieves, who broke windows on about 10 vehicles parked outside St. Clair Square mall and Fairview City Centre, according to Sgt. James Mason of Fairview Heights Police Department.
A backpack and other items were taken from about half the vehicles, and a 2015 yellow Jeep Wrangler was stolen from behind the Dillard’s store.
“We had some very observant visitors in our business area who called us (about suspects in a black SUV),” Mason said. “They said, ‘Hey, here’s the vehicle. This is where it’s going.’ Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop the vehicle. It fled from us and got on the interstate, and it was gone.”
Mason said police department policy prohibits high-speed chases in cases of property damage or theft because of the safety risks they pose to the public.
Several break-in victims posted comments Saturday evening on the Metro-East Crime Facebook page. Staunton resident Dave Provost shared a photo of his “baby,” the yellow Jeep, and asked people to keep an eye out for it. The words “Wicked Addiction” appear on the side, representing his love of all things Jeep.
Provost said Sunday that he and his wife, Artie, had gone into Dillard’s just after 3 p.m. Saturday to return a Valentine’s Day gift and left 20 minutes later to find the Jeep missing. The parking lot was littered with broken glass from its tinted back window, near a white tent where COVID-19 testing was taking place.
“I was 100% shocked,” said Provost, 42, a safety coordinator. “Then I was [mad], and I was shaking. Who likes a thief? You work your [butt] off and then something like this happens.”
Provost said while he was talking to Fairview Heights police, they received radio calls about other break-ins in the area, as well as a report that an automated license-plate reader on Interstate 64 had detected his Jeep heading west toward St. Louis.
Another break-in victim on Saturday was Granite City resident Ryan Sedej, who posted photos of his 2019 burgundy Chrysler 300 with the rear window busted out on the driver’s side. It was parked behind the Macy’s store at St. Clair Square, near the food-court entrance.
Sedej had gone into Bath & Body Works with his fiancee, Jacquline Bodkins, and her 13-year-old son, Cody, to make an exchange that lasted about 25 minutes. The thieves took an Alexa voice assistant that Cody had bought at Best Buy earlier that day with a birthday gift card and a pair of his headphones. They left a $400 partially-covered tablet in the backseat.
“I don’t know if they got interrupted while they were in the car or they were just in a zone and didn’t even notice it,” said Sedej, 35, a factory worker.
A third victim was Mark Strange, a DuQuoin resident who does maintenance on construction equipment. He was shopping at the mall with his wife, Terra Luann, about 3:30 p.m., when he got a cellphone call from Fairview Heights police, asking him to return to his 2013 white Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD. Someone had smashed the rear window on the driver’s side.
The truck was parked close to Provost’s yellow Jeep, according to Terra Luann Strange, 32, a teacher whose parents live in O’Fallon.
“It could have been so much worse,” she said Sunday. “We still have our vehicle. Nothing valuable was taken. We’re trying to look on the positive side.”
Sgt. Mason said the break-ins serve as a reminder that people should always lock their vehicles when going into stores, make sure no valuables are visible from windows and take spare keys with them.
Fairview Heights police haven’t given up on finding the thieves who hit the city’s shopping areas on Saturday, he said.
“We do have some details about that (the black SUV), and of course the investigation is ongoing. So hopefully we can get some type of resolution.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2021 at 3:01 PM.
