Employee steals $20,000 in jeans

A former store employee is suspected of taking 47 pairs of jeans -- worth $450 each -- from an Aurora outlet store and selling them on eBay, police said.

Police started investigating whether the former worker took the $20,000 worth of jeans from Diesel outlet store at the Chicago Premium Outlets mall in Aurora after they got a tip about the jeans being sold on eBay, officials said.

from the Sun-Times

Bomb threat empties suburban WalMart

Officials are still investigating a bomb threat that led to evacuating about 200 people from Wal-Mart on Sunday morning in north suburban Antioch.

An unidentified male called the store at 475 E. Route 173 around 11 a.m. and threatened to blow up the 200,000-square-foot building, said Antioch police Cmdr. Jim Ruth.

Police and fire departments responded immediately and evacuated the building -- with 200 customers and store personnel inside -- in about 20 minutes.

Investigators conducted a search, were unable to find anything suspicious and allowed people to re-enter the building three hours later, Ruth said.

He said this was the first bomb threat made to this Wal-Mart since the store opened in October 2004.

from the Sun-Times

West Side woman kills abusive boyfriend

A 24-year-old West Side woman, charged with fatally stabbing her live-in boyfriend, was only defending herself when he became “enraged” and tried to attack her, the woman’s attorney said this afternoon.

Edrinna Bryant, who was ordered held in lieu of $350,000 bail today, even drove Levile Hardy to Mount Sinai Hospital after he was injured in their apartment in the 1600 block of South California late Friday, Bryant’s lawyer Mark Kusatzky said.

On their way to the hospital, Hardy placed a phone call to his mother and admitted to her he was the “aggressor,” Kusatzky added.

But Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Antara Nath said hospital personnel had initially noticed Bryant did not have any injuries when she first came to the emergency room. But, when she came back after moving her car, they noticed she had “obvious self-inflicted stab wounds to her hand,” Nath said.

Neighbors had heard the couple arguing inside their apartment building and then later saw Bryant outside, standing over Hardy, 30, with a large butcher knife in one hand and two knives in the other hand, Nath said.

Hardy was stabbed in the chest bicep, shoulder and hand.

Bryant, a receptionist at the Metropolitan Club, had been trying to leave the apartment, which made Hardy angry, Kusatzky said. The lawyer said Hardy came after Bryant with a knife when she ran inside the bathroom to escape.

from the Trib

Priest accused of abuse plunges from church balcony

A Shorewood Catholic priest who parishioners described as a "very holy man" apparently tried to kill himself by jumping from the balcony of a shuttered downtown Joliet church Wednesday as Kane county investigators began looking into allegations he molested a 13-year-old boy, authorities said.

from the Trib