Metro-east man charged with robbery at library, carjacking at drug store
%20(1)%20(1)%20(1).jpg "A Cahokia Heights man has been charged in connection with the theft of a car and a carjacking.")
The identity of a Cahokia Heights man accused of robbing a woman of her purse and stealing her car from a library and carjacking another woman at a drug store was uncovered through a three-month police investigation by Metro East Auto Theft Task Force agents.
Talbot D. Dunn, 20, of the 400 block of Range Lane, has been charged in connection with the violence the two women endured.
The first offense Dunn is accused of committing occurred on April 26 on the parking lot of the Cahokia Heights Public Library in the 100 block of Park Drive. The second crime Dunn is charged with committing occurred on May 15 on the Walgreens parking lot in the 1200 block of Camp Jackson Road in Cahokia Heights.
The first victim, a 74-year-old woman, told St. Clair County sheriff’s deputies “the suspect forcibly took her purse as she exited the Cahokia Heights Library building on Park Drive,” said Lt. James Hendricks of the sheriff’s department.
The woman went back into the building to call police. And, when she returned to the outside to talk to police, she noticed her vehicle had been stolen, Hendricks said.
Dunn was charged Thursday by St. Clair County State’s Attorney Jim Gomric’s office with robbery, unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle, aggravated vehicle hijacking and aggravated battery. He is currently being held in the St. Clair County Jail.
Court records do not list a defense attorney for Dunn. A detention hearing has not been scheduled for him.
The second incident in which Dunn is charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking occurred on May 15 in the 1200 block of Camp Jackson Road in Cahokia Heights
A 69-year-old woman had parked her 2025 Hyundai in a handicapped spot in front of the Walgreens store.
The victim told police, “she was attacked, pushed to the ground and her car keys were forcibly pulled out of her hands,” Hendricks said.
The suspect fled from the reported location in the victim’s car, Hendricks said.
The vehicular hijacking case was taken over by the Metro East AutoTheft Task Force the same day. The following day, May 16, task force agents located the vehicle that had been taken from the Walgreens parking lot in the 800 block of East Fifth Street in Cahokia Heights behind a residence, Hendricks said.
While working on the aggravated vehicle hijacking case, agents with the task force learned about the robbery and stolen vehicle incident that happened at the Cahokia Heights Public Library and they began investigating that case.
Through an extensive investigation from May to August, investigators linked the same suspect to both incidents, Hendricks said.
