(Police rendering of suspect)
Questions have arisen over a report of an attempted abduction in Winfield Tuesday evening.
On Tuesday evening, just after the alleged attempt, Winfield resident Jennifer Lynne, a Managing Partner at local law firm Cozzani and Malec, issued the following statement on her Facebook page:
WINFIELD : There is a Caucasian man about 6 ft tall, thin, wearing dirty jeans, black hoodie, black ski cap that he pulls down to a mask creeping around Winfield. He tried to abduct my 13 year old near Beecher Ave and East Street Park near downtown Winfield at approximately 7:00 pm tonight.
He almost caught her. He chased her down a path near the woods and East Street Park. She ran to the nearest house on Beecher Avenue looking for help and was hiding in their back yard behind their wood pile. The man trying to find her paced back and forth in front of the house searching for her and she was too terrified to move. The homeowner saw her hiding in his rear yard and came outside. He chased the man. She made it out ok, but this person is dangerous. God only knows what would have happened if he caught her.
There are other reports of him in Winfield walking around parks near the tracks and wooded areas near the tracks. The police need to find him and get him out of here. He’s been seen here roaming around for about a week. He seems to come out of nowhere and he waits in wooded areas near walking paths. Pass it on if you know anyone who lives in the area. Someone is going to get hurt if he is not caught.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Winfield Police Department issued a press release that read:
On Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at 10:10 a.m., the Winfield Police Department took a report of an attempted abduction that took place at approximately 6:40 p.m. on Tuesday, September 28, 2021. The incident took place near the walking path at the east end of Beecher Avenue as the victim was walking in the area. The victim related that a male white with dark hair and dark eyes between the ages of 25 and 35 approached her from behind and began to chase her. At the time of the incident the suspect was wearing a black long sleeve shirt, dark pants, black shoes and a black hat. The suspect was last seen by the victim on foot travelling west bound on Beecher Avenue toward Church street.
The Winfield Police Department is asking anyone that lives in the area of Beecher Avenue and has outside video surveillance to please review their video for Tuesday, September 28th between 6:15 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. If upon review any suspicious activity is observed, please contact Corporal Caringella at (630) 933-7160.
What struck many as odd was the apparent time delay between when the incident occurred (approximately 7pm Tuesday evening according to Lynne) and when it was reported to police (10:10am Wednesday, according to police), keeping in mind that Lynne posted her account Tuesday evening.
When asked about this, Ms. Lynne insisted that she had contacted police just after the incident.
“The Winfield Police were contacted when the incident occurred,” she wrote in a correspondence responding to inquires from this magazine.
Winfield Police Chief David Shar, in a phone interview, reiterated that the department was first contacted Wednesday morning. He declined to comment on the apparent discrepancy.
Scanner Traffic
Further muddying the waters was this post from Brendan Gentile, who manages the popular DuPage County Scanner Incidents Facebook group that monitors police and fire channels throughout DuPage County:
At 6:22PM the Northern Pacific calls in a “young Female teenager, wearing a red hoodie and red shorts sitting along the South side of the tracks.” PD responded quickly and was on scene at 6:23PM at the train depot. Now at 6:24PM, PD advises Metra and the UP to stop Train traffic and it’s done. 6:25PM PD heads east bound down the south side of the tracks, while a cruiser drives down the East Street Trail from County Farm Road, looking for the Female. There is NO mention of any males in the area. There is an older female found in a red and white striped shirt and blue jeans (that lives on Beecher), but clearly she does not match the description. At 6:27PM the UP advised DuComm that the teenage female was last seen walking back towards the East Street walking trail about 7 minutes prior. At 6:34PM all Winfield units clear the scene. Again, only the one female was found on Beecher, lives on Beecher and is not a teenager. Now at 6:58PM a FEMALE caller states that it’s been about a 10 minute delay, but she found a girl hiding in her bushes (not a wood pile as the Mother posted). So at roughly 16 minutes later or at 6:48PM roughly, a block away, a female found a teenager hiding in her bushes. Described as MAYBE 15 years old. When she confronted the young girl, the young girl stated she was being chased. Again, there was NO mention of any male in front of the home, no mention of one male chasing away another… Caller stated the girl was gone a moment later while she went for her phone to call 911.
When presented with this account, Ms. Lynne was dismissive.
“I don’t know who wrote the paragraph above, but it contains gross substantial errors or misrepresentations of the events that occurred on 9/28,” she wrote. “I would consider the information in the paragraph above to be almost completely inaccurate and a complete disservice to the community by anyone anyone who publishes that information. If it is posted- it should be removed. It only undermines the attack and the investigation.”
Interview Suggested, Then Declined
Largely in response to the account above, Ms. Lynne invited Fox Valley Magazine to join her at the scene of the alleged incident.
“We would need to do a full and complete interview in order to fully correct the record of this ‘poster.’ If you want to arrange something, we would need to delay your article. The statement of the facts in this case is so important and instrumental in catching the perpetrator. We can tell you her exact location and show you the evidence of it on Life 360. We can even walk the trail with you and relive the incident. We can show her outfit and then you can decide for yourself if the “poster” has misrepresented the facts. We can take you to the house where she was hiding and introduce you to the man that likely saved her life. We can show you where the perpetrator paced back and forth in front of that house hunting her down like a dog…”
After this magazine accepted the invitation for an on-site interview, Ms. Lynne abruptly reversed course, saying “We need to hold off on any interviews until the investigation is complete. I hope you understand and I thank you for reaching out during this difficult time.”
Overnight, it appears that someone has deleted all posts to Ms. Lynne’s Facebook account, including her post on the incident, all the way back to 2016. Also removed was any reference to her position at law firm Cozzani and Malec, where, according to the same page yesterday, she is a Managing Partner.
