A parolee was arrested Wednesday night after he backed into a sheriff’s squad car and then fled in a stolen car, police said.
William J. Neely, 26, who has no permanent address, was taken into custody after he crashed into a ditch near Lindenhurst after police deployed a tire-deflating device. A passenger in his vehicle was also charged for outstanding warrants.
According to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Neely had fled from police Tuesday night while allegedly driving the stolen vehicle.
At about 10 p.m. Wednesday, an officer saw the stolen Chevrolet Avalanche at a gas station on West Yorkhouse Road near Waukegan. When the officer approached in his vehicle, Neely allegedly backed into the squad car, disabling it.
Neely then drove away. Another office spotted the vehicle near Sandy Court and McCarthy Road in Wadsworth, but Neely again fled. Police pursued the vehicle toward Lindenhurst, and officers placed the tire-deflating device at the intersection of Illinois Route 45 and Stearns School Road.
After running over the tire deflator, the Avalanche, which was towing a trailer, swerved as it turned onto Hutchinson Road and then went into a ditch.
Neely was arrested and charged with aggravated fleeing. His passenger, Kristen M. Brennan, 34, of Antioch, was arrested for outstanding warrants in McHenry County and a Wisconsin parole violation.
According to court records, Neely was convicted in 2023 on a felony fleeing charge.
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A Green Oaks man who allegedly sexually abused a teenage girl after convincing her to come to Illinois from North Carolina has been charged with multiple offenses, according to Lake County authorities.
Andrew W. Szech, 43, of the 31000 block of Prairie Ridge Road, is facing numerous charges for sex abuse, drugs and firearms after local and federal law enforcement converged on his house Tuesday.
On Monday, U.S. Marshals received information that a 15-year-old girl reported missing from Kannapolis, N.C., may have come to Szech’s house. The sheriff’s office began an investigation and determined that the girl was at the Green Oaks house.
Police surveilling the house said they saw Szech and the girl leaving at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Officers arrested Szech and rescued the girl.
A search of Szech’s house yielded drugs including about five pounds of marijuana, along with a firearm, police said.
Police said Szech began communicating with the girl in June and convinced her to travel by bus to Chicago. Szech picked the girl up there and brought her to his Green Oaks residence.
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Prosecutors have upgraded the charges against two men for the shooting death earlier this month of a Zion man in Waukegan’s commuter rail parking lot.
Waukegan police said this week that Alan Green, 34, of North Chicago, and Keyonda Triplett, 30, of Waukegan, have been charged with the first-degree murder of Xzavier Booker, 36.
Green and Triplett had been arrested last week on weapons charges related to the shooting and were being held in the Lake County jail when they were served with warrants charging them with murder.
Police said Triplett drove Green to the Metra station parking on North Spring Street around 3:30 a.m. on July 7. Green exited the vehicle and shot Booker numerous times at close range before re-entering the vehicle with Triplett and leaving.
Police took the men into custody that night in North Chicago. Both were armed with handguns, police said.
