4 arrested after high speed chase, crash; may be linked to Oak Brook carjacking

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Police arrested four people following a high speed chase on the Eisenhower expressway.

Chicago Police and Illinois State Police began pursuing a car that was reportedly carjacked in Maywood several days ago.

The chase ended when the car exited the Eisenhower at Ashland Avenue and crashed through a fence, then slid down the embankment and came to a stop on the shoulder of the highway.

ABC7 Eyewitness News spoke to the victim of the Maywood carjacking, who did not want to be identified. She said that on March 21 she was returning home with her aunt around midnight after a family outing when the two men approached the car and forced them out at gunpoint. They then took off in her vehicle.

The Maywood victim's car matches the description of a car that was involved in another carjacking and armed robbery Wednesday morning in a parking garage at Oakbrook Mall.

Police said a 68-year-old woman was getting ready for work in her car, which was parked in the mall's yellow parking garage. The woman said a white Toyota Camry parked behind her car and a man came out, opened her car door, pointed a gun at her and demanded she get out of the car.

As the man began pulling away in her Honda Civic, police said the woman grabbed her purse out of the back seat. Police said the man got out of the car, chased the woman down, snatched the purse back and drove off.

"I don't know that I would go back for my purse," said Sue Nolte, a shopper at Oak Brook Mall. "I would be like, 'Take it all, I don't care.' I just want to be alive."

Tanja Nafaska, another woman who lives and works in the area, said she had previously felt safe here.

"That's why I moved here," she said.

A police investigation is ongoing. Illinois State Police said the four people taken into custody following the crash were turned over to Maywood Police and that Oak Brook Police have also been contacted.