Ruse Burglars Strike in Hickory Hills

Hickory Hills Police are looking for a suspect who tricked his way into his elderly victims’ home and robbed a safe in what is being described as a ruse burglary.

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Police responded to a burglary that just occurred at 2:10 p.m. Dec. 12 in Hickory Hills. The elderly victims told police that a man came to their front door and said he had just purchased a home near them. The victims let the man inside their home so he could discuss their "fence line, according to information provided the Oak Lawn Police Department.

The man gave his name as “Villa” and moved the victims to another area of the house. Police said the man talked to the victims for approximately 15 minutes and left. During this time, the man used a radio/cell phone to communicate with another person.

The suspect is described a male white, approximately five-feet-ten-inches tall and 240 pounds, with an unshaven face and “very large belly.” Police said he was wearing a “used up” baseball cap, a dark, waist-length construction jacket, gray shirt, blue jeans and boots.

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Police said one of the victims and a neighbor also spotted a new, clean, silver/light blue/slate-colored minivan, possibly associated with the burglary. The minivan resembled a Chevy Equinox and may have had Illinois temporary tags.

Approximately $22,000 in cash, gold coins, collectable coins, religious medallions and a large amount of golf jewelry are missing from a safe. Police said that the keys to the safe were left close by.

Anyone with information or knowledge about the Dec. 12 is asked to call the Hickory Hills Police Department’s detective division at 708-598-1313.

An official for the Oak Lawn Police said that ruse burglars—those that target mostly elderly victims and use confusion and tricks to slip inside their homes and rob them—have been particularly active in the Chicago Metro region in 2012.

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