Carjacking Victim's Mother Sees Her Car On TV, Spinning Out On Dan Ryan Expressway
CHICAGO (CBS) -- An out-of-control Car spun out of control and slammed into a wall on the Dan Ryan Expressway early Monday, and the car was carjacked just last week.
The latest carjacking is yet another piece of evidence of a disturbing trend in Chicago.
CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli on Monday caught up with the woman who owns the smashed-up car – and saw it crash on TV.
The woman and her mother were both too afraid to show their faces. But they did want to share their carjacking horror story.
They said the carjacking crew struck again on Monday morning, this time targeting an Illinois Department of Transportation worker as he was leaving work. One member of the crew even carjacked a third car as he escaped when his suspected accomplices were arrested.
Well before dawn Monday, video from overhead showed a stolen Nissan Maxima spinning out on the Dan Ryan Expressway. The car slammed repeatedly into a concrete barrier with a shower of sparks on the Dan Ryan near 35th Street.
It was a dramatic ending to a chase that sources say topped a hundred miles an hour at times.
And the car belongs to the woman Puccinelli spoke with, who said the trauma is still with her.
"It's going to be with me," she said. "I can't trust anyone."
And that is how it's been for the past week, because it was last Monday night when the woman and her fiancé were in the now-smashed-up car near their Calumet Park home.
That was when they were bumped from behind.
The woman's fiancé made the mistake of jumping out to check the damage.
"They put a gun to his side," the woman said.
And seconds later, the woman was staring down the barrel of a gun held by a masked man.
"Another guy had gotten out of the car, and pointed a gun to my face," she said.
The 37-year-old immediately dissolved into tears.
"At that point, I kind of figured you, know, we were getting ready to die," she said.
But the robbers did not fire their weapons – they sped away. That was a week ago.
And then on Monday morning, the carjacking victim's mother saw her daughter's car on television - speeding on the expressway with police in hot pursuit.
"I'm grateful my child is alive," the woman's mother said, "because it could have went the other way."
Police said the chase began around 1:45 a.m., when the suspects were driving the woman's Nissan Maxima near 35th Street and Wentworth Avenue, and got out and carjacked the IDOT worker – who was driving a Jeep Cherokee.
Some of the suspects remained in the Maxima and sped off.
Police arrested two suspected carjackers at the scene after the car spun out.
Police said a third suspect bailed out of the disabled vehicle and carjacked a third car – a Honda Civic - before speeding away.
For the Maxima owner, a mother of three, watching her car get destroyed on camera was not pleasant. It triggered flashbacks of when she lost the car to the carjackers.
"Today was kind of like reliving that moment all over again," she said.
As to what's next for her, the woman said: "Trying to not be scared anymore; trying to get on with my days one day at a time."
Two of the carjackers were believed still to be on the loose late Monday afternoon.
