On the evening of September 29, 1984, most Western Springs residents were going about their normal routines, unaware of what was unfolding at Tischler Finer Foods.

Tischler’s Ad – September 1984

In September of 1984, Tischler Finer Foods, located on the southeast corner of Wolf and Burlington, had just celebrated its third year of operation in Western Springs. And, by all accounts, the supermarket was highly successful. But, on the evening of September 29, shoppers were surprised when a 25-year-old man entered the store, brandished a handgun, and announced a hold-up.

After demanding and obtaining the store’s cash receipts, he fled into the parking lot, firing a shot at an employee who ran after him.

While sleepy little Western Springs might have appeared to be an easy target for the robber, nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, the robber had picked the location where he was almost certain to be captured. Why?

Village Hall (red) & Tischler’s (yellow)

It seems that Police Chief George Graves happened to be hosting a detectives association meeting that evening. And, the location was the Western Springs Village Hall, directly across the Burlington railroad tracks and less than a half-block from the Tischler store.

When a phone call of a robbery in progress came in, 30 detectives, plus uniformed police, immediately ran a short half-block south and began searching the neighborhood around the food store. Even a K-9 unit from the Cook County Forest Preserve Police joined in the search. But, since it was dark, the suspect was able to hide for more than hour.

Despite this, police noticed a parked truck nearby, which they determined had been implicated in an earlier hold-up of a Darien food store. So, they staked out the vehicle and, sure enough, the suspect eventually ran to the truck and tried to flee the scene.

K-9 patrol

Chief George Graves

According to Chief Graves, a Western Springs police officer saw the suspect reaching for what appeared to be a weapon and so he fired a single shot. That was enough to make the suspect stop the truck and surrender. He was then escorted to the Western Springs police station where he was charged with armed robbery and for firing at the store clerk.

Subsequently, the suspect was linked to a number of previous armed robberies in both Brookfield and Darien. In fact, according to later police reports, the offender was a suspect in a total of nine area armed robberies.

Police also recovered some $1,000 in cash from the suspect’s truck. And, so ended what was perhaps the most quickly solved crime in the village’s history.