Authorities said Wednesday they were still trying to piece together a chain of events that started in Glenview with an apparent carjacking and kidnapping and ended inMorton Grove with a fatal car crash during a police pursuit.
Glenview police said Christopher J. Walsh, 20, died after crashing the car he was driving into a brick wall at a Chinese restaurant in Morton Grove while being pursued by Skokiepolice early Wednesday.
A female passenger, described by police as a 19-year-old from Glenview, suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the crash. Walsh and the woman were acquaintances, but authorities were still trying “”to determine what role she played in the whole thing,”” Glenview police Cmdr. Jeff Ader said.
Officials said they believe the ordeal began at Shermer and Glenview roads in Glenview, where a 22-year-old local man had reported that he had been carjacked and kidnapped.
The man contacted police at around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Evanston, saying his kidnapper dropped him off there, officials said.
A Skokie officer who had heard a bulletin about the carjacking spotted the car heading south along Skokie Boulevard. Skokie police Sgt. Michael Krupnik said the car accelerated away from the officer and crashed a short time later, just after crossing into Morton Grove.
Skokie police declined to say specifically how long the pursuit lasted or what speeds the cars were traveling.
Glenview investigators, meanwhile, recovered what Ader called an ordinary kitchen knife, which police believe was used in the carjacking.
Glenview police said Walsh lived in Chicago but was a former Glenview resident who has spent time at several halfway houses. The county medical examiner’s office listed his address in the 0-100 block of Park Drive in Glenview.
Ader said that Walsh and the 22-year-old Glenview man apparently knew each other. Police said the Glenview man suffered a minor cut.
The force of the crash in Morton Grove caused a brick wall outside the China Chef restaurant to crumble. Walsh was pronounced dead in Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
