Authorities have charged two men with a February 2023 Libertyville-area carjacking in which, authorities say, they ran over a woman and kidnapped her toddler, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
The men, who are 19, are in custody on unrelated charges, the sheriff’s office said. They were both 17 at the time they committed the crime, so their cases have been assigned to juvenile court, police said.
For that reason, the sheriff’s office said their identities have not yet been released. One of the suspects is from Waukegan and the other from Lindenhurst, authorities said. They have been charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking.
According to police, the pair carjacked the woman on Feb. 23, 2023, at around 3:30 p.m. The woman and her 2-year-old son had pulled into her driveway on Illinois 137 near Libertyville when the pair pulled in behind them in a 2000s BMW.
One of them battered the woman and then drove off in her SUV with the child still inside, authorities said. The woman was run over and suffered serious injuries to her extremities, police said. The child was abandoned a short time later in the parking lot of a Waukegan business.
Someone from the business saw what happened and brought the child inside until police responded.
“The investigation spanned several months due to the complexity of the case and the thorough work required to build a strong evidentiary foundation,” the sheriff’s office said. “Detectives pursued dozens of leads, meticulously reviewing hours of video surveillance, physical evidence reports, and cellular tower data.”
Although the case has been referred to juvenile court, prosecutors said they are seeking to have it transferred to adult court.
