A postal inspector looks out over a Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul mail car damaged in the Rondout Train Robbery in 1924.
Courtesy of Jim Moran
The recent tunneling burglary at a Woodfield Mall jewelry store adds another chapter to the chronicle of major and memorable thefts, break-ins, heists and holdups in the suburbs stretching back 100-plus years.
Among the most indelible are the 1924 Rondout train robbery in Lake County, the lives and deaths of Hanover Park’s Bonnie-and-Clyde-style bank robbers Jeffrey and Jill Erickson in the early 1990s, the lore of the still-unidentified Wheaton Bandit and the demise of notorious gangster Baby Face Nelson following a shootout in Barrington.
But the Aug. 1 theft of at least $1.5 million of merchandise from Marquise Jewelers at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg remains a story in search of an ending.
Marquise Jewelers at Woodfield Mall was robbed late last week by burglars who tunneled through walls of neighboring storefronts to gain entry to the jewelry store.
Eric Peterson/epeterson@dailyherald.com
Schaumburg police said the crime involved at least six people and was perpetrated by cutting through the drywall of another active tenant, then through a vacant unit, which allowed access to the jewelry store.
“It was done after mall hours,” said Marquise Jewelers co-owner Asma Anwar, who described the loss as devastating. “Normal snatch-and-grabs we can handle.”
The brazenness of the burglary is what separates it from more modern retail thievery where teams of robbers show up en masse and overwhelm store workers.
Still, there’s no shortage of audacious heists in the suburbs, one of the oldest and most storied turned a century old this year.
Rondout Train Robbery
Scads of books and movies have chronicled the storied Rondout Train Robbery of June 12, 1924, widely believed to be the largest train robbery in U.S. history.
That day, Milwaukee & St. Paul train No. 57 embarked from Union Station in Chicago with a cargo of cash, bonds and jewels bound for Federal Reserve Banks. Postal Inspector William Fahy told a robbery crew which of the eight cars had registered mail and which numbered postal sacks should be taken.
That night Willis Newton and accomplice Brent Glasscock hid on the train before it left. At Rondout — an unincorporated enclave of Lake County — the pair forced the engineer at gunpoint to stop the train in a remote spot at the Route 137 crossing. Four accomplices along with the forced help of train clerks loaded 63 mail bags into four waiting stolen Cadillacs.
Postal workers pose with mail sacks recovered from the notorious Rondout Train Robbery, considered the largest such heist in American history.
Courtesy of Jim Moran
As the mail sacks were being loaded, Newton emerged from beneath the coupling of two cars and was shot five times by Glasscock, who was said to have mistaken him for a mail clerk. As the robbery was ending, the others realized Newton had been shot and placed him atop mail sacks in one of the cars.
A blood trail showed someone had been injured, and authorities learned a doctor was treating someone for gunshots at a home in Chicago. That led to the questioning, confession and arrest of suspects.
The Bearded Bandit
Nearly 70 years later, Hanover Park couple Jeffrey and Jill Erickson were believed to have robbed eight banks in Chicago and the suburbs in the early 1990s, making off with an estimated $180,000.
Jeff Erickson initially began robbing banks by himself, wearing a disguise of a fake beard and ball cap, while making getaways in stolen Japanese cars. Eventually, his wife Jill would act as an accomplice in the robberies, serving as the driver.
The pair eventually were caught after police and FBI agents began staking out stolen Japanese cars in the suburbs. Federal agents spotted Jeff Erickson attempting to enter a stolen Mazda in Schaumburg in December 1991 and moved to make an arrest.
Jeffrey Erickson, an infamous suburban bank robber known as the Bearded Bandit, was shot when he tried to escape from federal custody in Chicago in 1992, then took his own life.
Daily Herald file
While they caught him, Jill sped away in another vehicle, leading authorities on a high-speed chase throughout the suburbs, ending with a gunfight on a dead-end street in Hanover Park. While she had been shot multiple times by law enforcement, an autopsy determined her fatal gunshot wound was self-inflicted.
Jeff Erickson died a year later trying to escape from custody in the middle of his trial. He escaped from his handcuffs, overpowered one of two marshals he was with, stole a gun and used it to kill one of the marshals. As he tried to flee the court building in downtown Chicago, Jeff Erickson was confronted by a court security officer setting off a firefight that ultimately killed the officer and seriously wounded Erickson. Erickson shot and kill himself a few minutes later, according to accounts from the time.
The Wheaton Bandit
Justice doesn’t find everyone, however.
The Wheaton Bandit has never been identified and is believed to have committed as many as 16 suburban bank robberies from January 2002 to December 2006. And he will never face any repercussions either as the statute of limitations for his crimes expired in December 2011, five years after the last robbery for which he’s considered responsible.
Bank surveillance footage shows the Wheaton Bandit, a serial bank robber in the suburbs who no longer can be prosecuted for his crimes.
Daily Herald file
Ross Rice, the then-spokesman for the FBI’s Chicago office, commented at the time on the rarity of the statute of limitations taking effect in regard to a serial bank robber. Authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the Wheaton Bandit’s arrest up until then.
“To have a serial robber of this magnitude commit this many crimes and not be apprehended is unusual,” Rice said. “There’s at least one person out there who knows who committed these crimes.”
This drawing of the presumed Wheaton Bandit was released by the FBI Dec. 11, 2006. He was believed responsible for the robbery or attempted robbery of 16 suburban banks, but never caught.
Courtesy of Cook County sheriff
Though seven of his first eight heists were in Wheaton, he then branched out to Carol Stream, Geneva, Naperville, Winfield and Glen Ellyn, stealing about $150,000 altogether.
When authorities released a sketch after a witness reported a man acting suspicious outside a bank that was robbed an hour later, the crime spree ceased.
The Battle of Barrington
Chicago in the 1930s was essentially ground zero for notorious gangsters, between the abundance of bootleggers and bank robbers roaming the area.
A memorial in Barrington’s Langendorf Park honors the federal agents killed in a 1934 gunfight with Baby Face Nelson.
Daily Herald file
Lester Joseph Gillis, better known as Baby Face Nelson and at one point the FBI’s Public Enemy No. 1, committed what is believed to be his second-ever bank robbery in Itasca in 1930.
“Baby Face Nelson” was born Lester M. Gillis on December 6, 1908, in Chicago. He died in 1934 after the Battle of Barrington shootout with FBI agents.
Courtesy of Department of Justice
However, it’s his demise following an incredible gunbattle with federal agents in a Barrington Park that became his most infamous suburban legacy.
In late November 1934, Nelson was traveling back from Wisconsin with his wife Helen and fellow gangster John Paul Chase when they were spotted by federal agents hunting for them near what is now Langendorf Park.
A pursuit ended at the park after Nelson’s vehicle was disabled by bullets fired by federal agents.
During the firefight, Nelson shot agent Ed Hollis to death and mortally wounded agent Samuel Cowley, but he also was mortally wounded by a slug to the gut from Cowley’s machine gun.
The gangster trio would escape in the agents’ car, but Nelson died later that night at a safe house in Wilmette.
Barrington officials, including former Mayor David Nelson, staged an elaborate recreation of the chase and firefight as part of the village’s 150th anniversary celebration in 2015.
“We had no idea if anyone would even show up to watch it,” Nelson recalled. “It was so cold that day, that’s what I remember most, but several hundred people showed up. And at the end of it, there were people there with tears in their eyes.”
∙ Daily Herald staff writer Jake Griffin contributed to this report.