Police: Girls who said they were mugged in New Lenox lied
BY SUSAN DEMAR LAFFERTY slafferty@southtownstar.com July 12, 2012 3:46PM
Updated: August 14, 2012 6:28AM
Two 15-year-old New Lenox girls who claimed they were mugged on Old Plank Road Trail on June 28 lied to police about the incident to hide the truth about what they were doing from their parents, Will County Forest Preserve District police Chief Bob Murphy said.
The girls were beaten and robbed — not on the trail but in Robbins, where they allegedly had been driven to buy drugs, Murphy said.
“When I read the report, I knew it didn’t happen where they said it did,” he said. “The truth is they were robbed by people they knew and they were trying to buy drugs.”
An unidentified 25-year-old New Lenox male who wanted to buy crack cocaine drove them to Robbins, where all three “got roughed up,” Murphy said. The man then dropped the girls off near the trail, at Cedar Road and Joliet Highway, police said.
Murphy said he will not charge the teens with filing a false report.
“The real issue here is that you have two 15-year-olds looking for drugs,” he said.
Murphy said he suggested to the girls’ parents that they could file a complaint with the Robbins police, but he said the parents have been “uncooperative.”
New Lenox police interviewed one of the girls, who admitted the incident happened in Robbins, he said.
“The bottom line is that it did not occur on our property. We’re washing our hands of it,” Murphy said.
