CANARYVILLE — Joe Locasto started nearly every day by going for a walk to get a paper and a lottery ticket, his girlfriend said.
He walked so much that family and friends of the 63-year-old told him to be careful. To ease their concerns, he carried around a knife, said Mary Evans, Locasto's girlfriend.
"Everyone told him, you know what, the neighborhood is not what it used to be," Evans said. "He would say, 'Oh well, I have my knife.' "
But Evans said Locasto was not able to use his knife in self defense when a robber attacked him near his Canaryville home early Sunday.
Locasto was walking in the 600 block of West 43rd Street at 4:15 a.m. Sunday when another man got out of a grey station wagon and announced a robbery, said Officer Michelle Tannehill, a Chicago Police spokeswoman.
The two began fighting, and the robber pushed Locasto to the ground before stabbing him, Tannehill said.
He was stabbed three times in his right side and once in his upper right arm, Tannehill said, and he was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition.
Locasto remains in the intensive care unit at Stroger, Evans said. He underwent successful surgery to stop bleeding in his punctured lung and liver, but still is using a breathing tube and is dealing with blood pressure issues, she said.
"We're more hopeful now," Evans said of Locasto's condition. "It will be a long journey."
Evans began worrying Sunday morning when Locasto didn't call her at 4 a.m., when she wakes up for work, she said. He called after 5 a.m. to tell her he was on the way to the hospital after being stabbed.
"He called and said, 'Mary, I'd just been stabbed. I may never see you again," she said. "He said it happened so fast, he didn't even have time to get his knife."
Locasto frequently walked the neighborhood after being diagnosed with a heart condition many years ago, Evans said. His doctors told him to get healthier, so he quit drinking and smoking and began walking, she said.
"He's just a wonderful man," she said. "He's an old timer who loves his neighborhood."
After being stabbed, Locasto noticed that some of his property was stolen by the robber, Tannehill said.
The robber, believed to be a man in his 20s or 30s, ran away, Tannehill said. No arrests have been made, she said. Evans said police are looking for surveillance footage from a nearby gas station and library to see if it caught the attack.
Evans, who lives in Joliet, said she wasn't surprised that Locasto was attacked.
"I hear about the crime on the news every day," she said.
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