EDGEWATER — A woman whose car blew a back tire in Edgewater had her purse swiped by a man who offered to change the flat, sent her to the trunk to get the spare and then made his move.
The supposed good Samaritan didn't even stick around to change the tire, instead he pretended to help look for the purse thief and then vanished.
The purse had two iPhones, $150 in cash, credit cards and the Social Security cards of seven of the woman's family members.
The victim in the case is Kathy Tran, 46, who with her brother-in-law runs Dung Gia Vietnamese restaurant in Des Plaines.
She was driving on Peterson Avenue near the intersection with Hermitage Avenue on March 5 when another driver told her she had a flat.
“They tell me, your car got problem," said Tran, who then stopped in front of the #84 CTA bus stop near Peterson and Ridge. "I park at the bus stop and just say, 'Oh my God.' ”
A man sitting at the stop saw her walk to the curb and offered to lend a hand.
“He see me stop there. Very nice guy. He say, ‘You need my help?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, ‘Ok, I help you.’ ”
He pointed Tran toward North Hermitage Avenue, just a little west beyond the bus stop, and told her to get off the much busier Peterson Avenue to change the tire. He met her on the 5900 block and told her to pop the trunk and grab the spare tire.
But when Tran leaned in to grab the spare tire, she heard the front door of her vehicle open and shut.
She looked up from the trunk, she said, but didn't see anything amiss. The man still was standing there.
“I feel in my heart and I think, I have to bring my purse with me — so I go up and open the door and my purse is gone. And he says, 'Oh, my god your purse is gone, I’ll help you look.'”
But after pledging to help track down the vanishing purse, the man left and didn't return, Tran said.
A passing driver stopped when she saw Tran crying on the side of the street next to her car.
“One lady, she see me standing outside and I cry and cry, and she say, 'What you need?' And I say I need the police, I lost everything.”
Officers arrived and took the report but no arrests have been made. Tran described the thief as a white male in his late 40s or early 50s who spoke with an accent, according to Chicago Police.
“When you see him, you think, very nice guy. You don’t think he’d do that. Looked like a very nice guy,” Tran said.
Tran has lived for seven years in Des Plaines after coming to the United States from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
“I feel bad right now, I don’t know. I can’t believe people be able to do that,” said Tran. “My brother bought me a new phone with the old number. And the money, everything’s lost. And so, everything’s gone.”
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