Crime

CRIME Burglar tries to use stolen truck to break into currency exchange

A burglar ditched a stolen truck after trying to use it to break into a currency exchange at 7207 Roosevelt Road.

On Dec. 13 at 3:57 a.m., security footage captured a white 1990 Chevrolet pickup ramming into the back of the building and fleeing, heading north on the north-south alley between Harlem and Elgin avenues. The employee on duty said the force of the impact shook the building and they immediately checked the footage.

The rear door turned out to be heavily damaged, with a pickup truck hitch stuck in the glass.

Later that day, at around 7:30 a.m., police got a call from a resident living on the 1000 block of Marengo Avenue. He said he woke up to discover the white pick-up in front of his garage. The garage’s Ring camera showed the suspect leaving the car shortly after the burglary and jumping into a red SUV of unknown make and model and taking off. The SUV was last seen turning east on Harvard Street.

The check of the pickup’s license plate revealed that it was stolen out of Berwyn on Dec. 6. Its rear bumper was damaged, and its steering column was peeled. The pickup was towed to Nobs Towing for processing.

Antique store theft

At least 26 rings were stolen from Krenek’s Antiques storefront display while the only employee on duty was helping another customer.

The incident took place Dec. 13 at around 3 p.m. Several customers were already browsing when a customer came in and asked some questions. When another customer asked about some items at the rear of the store, the employee followed him, and the first customer stayed at the front counter. He was still there when the employee returned, asked a few more questions and left the store, leaving $40 “to secure the future purchase.”

At that point, the employee realized that several rings were missing. He said that he didn’t keep a list of every item on sale, but that, based on a recent photo of the display, at least 26 rings were missing, each ranging in value between a few hundred dollars and around $2,000.

The two customers were also spotted at the nearby Forest Park Emporium antique store, 7345 Madison St., around the same time frame. The Emporium employees said the two were likely captured on the store’s security cameras, and that they would turn over any relevant footage to the police.

Customer support fraud

A customer trying to get help with her Amazon order got scammed out of $4,899.

On Dec. 15 at 2:42 pm., the victim called what she thought was the Amazon customer support number. The call-taker claiming to be an Amazon representative said they needed to verify her Venmo online transaction account and asked her to send money to another account using the app’s instant deposit function. The victim didn’t realize anything was amiss until she saw money was missing from her account.

The victim saved the screenshots of her transactions.

These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Forest Park Police Department, Dec. 12-17, and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Unless otherwise indicated, anybody named in these reports has only been charged with a crime. These cases have not been adjudicated.

Compiled by Igor Studenkov

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First United Church of Christ disbands after 167-year run

‘Smalland powerful’ congregation gives way

By TOM HOLMES

Contributing Reporter

Last Sunday Elder Mike Crawford said the words the 35 people assembled in the basement worship area in the building at 1000 Elgin knew were coming for a long time: “We declare that it [our congregation] is no longer the First United Church of Christ of Forest Park and is now disbanded.”

Back on Jan. 16 the congregation which had owned the church building for more than a century, had an average of just 10 members at worship. They gathered for a service to share memories and emotions in anticipation of the closing of their congregation.

The 10, all of whom were eligible to be AARP members, had accepted the reality that the faith community they loved could no longer survive, because their treasurer Lotus Moy had informed them that income had simply decreased to the point where they were unable to pay the bills.

Three days ago, the time had come to make it official. But the service, which could have felt like a funeral, was framed by its planners as a Legacy Worship and had a celebratory tone. One form or another of the words “thank you” were repeated throughout the service. The Legacy Service program packet contains the list of the 21 pastors who have served the church during its 167-year history.

A Litany of Thanksgiving was part of the service which featured 8 petitions including “as the founding congregation prayed its prayers, their children have sung your praises with friends, neighbors and strangers, and your Spirit has blessed countless worshippers,” to which the 35 people responded with “We give you thanks, O God.”

The Rev. Dr. Marietta Hebert-Davis, who had served as the small congregation’s interim pastor for the last two years, said in a written statement, “Thank you to every one of you from the bottom of my heart. I could not have had a better congregation than First United Church of Christ of Forest Park.”

When the time for testimonies came, one person after another recalled good memories. One thanked Rev. Cliff DiMascio, who served as the congregation’s pastor from 1987 till 2007, for his ministry with the young adults.

Another focused on being part of three generations who had been baptized in the church. Others recalled the choir who “sang like angels,” and one person remembered the days when they had to set up folding chairs to accommodate the overflow crowds on Easter Sunday.

The memories shared were all good and often came from the 1950s when congregations throughout the country were booming. In 1957, for example, the congregation’s building of an education wing revealed their belief that the wave of success would continue into the future.

Marty Moy and his wife Lotus recalled that First United was the very first church to host a PADS overnight shelter back in 1992. “We had the recreation room all set up with mattresses and a hot meal prepared,” he remembered with a laugh, “and no one came.”

That, of course, changed and First United continued to be the Friday night site for two years. When that involvement ended, members continued to participate in the shelter program by making and serving meals.

Indeed, the congregation does have a long and storied history. Founded in Chicago in 1865 just three months after the end of the Civil War as the First German Reformed Church of Chicago, the congregation decided to move to the suburbs and in 1915 purchased the property at the corner of Harvard and Elgin.

Rev. Dawayne Choice is the pastor of Engage Church which purchased the building at 1000 Elgin in 2018 at a bargain price and responded by allowing the previous owner to hold services in the basement worship area.

He praised the shrinking congregation saying, “Regarding the closing of First United Church, it has been kind of strange for me. I felt heavy knowing this was their last month as a church. I hate to see any church close. But First United Church is a precious group of people.

“I said it before and I will say it again and again. We couldn’t do the ministry we do without the generosity and forward thinking of First United Church. I’m really go-

ing to miss having them around.”

A banner hanging above the altar in their basement worship space seems to capture how the congregation feels about itself even at its closing—“We are small and powerful in and by faith.”

SARA JANZ/Photographer SAYING GOODBYE: Rev. Marietta Herbert-Davis, pastor, preaches to congregants during the “Legacy Completion of Ministry Worship” Service on Dec. 18.

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Hephzibah is celebrating its 125th anniversary celebration with a series of stories about the children and families whose lives were transformed by our programs and services, as well as some of the “Hephzibah Heroes” who help make our mission possible. We hope you nd these stories as inspiring as we do! Peter Murphy, the subject of this story, talks about his journey from an orphaned ve-year-old in foster care to a beloved residential counselor who has helped more than 2,000 other vulnerable youngsters nd hope and healing at Hephzibah Home.

Peter Murphy’sJourney ofHope and Healing

The year was 1982 and it was shaping up to be the worst year ever for five-year-old Peter and his older siblings John, Marita and Anne Marie, who had just lost their single adoptive mom, Elizabeth, to pneumonia.

Peter, now 46, remembers that loss vividly. He and Anne Marie had been at home watching Bozo’s Circus with Elizabeth when her breathing became labored. After a fierce bout of coughing, she looked over at her youngest child and whispered his name. Peter looked up at her and they locked eyes.

“Then she passed over,” he says quietly more than four decades later. “It was the first time I felt emptiness.”

In the aftermath of their mother’s death, the four orphaned youngsters were placed in temporary foster and group homes. The children were all in good hands, but they were reeling from the death of their mom and the loss of the comforting presence of their siblings. When night fell, they lay alone in unfamiliar beds, wondering if they’d ever be together again.

“I felt so lost at the time,” Peter confides. “My temporary foster family was very kind and loving, but I missed my brother and sisters terribly.”

Meanwhile, Mary Anne Brown, Hephzibah’s executive director at the time, was also lying awake at night worrying about the sibling group’s future. The children had just been referred to Hephzibah for placement through the agency’s newly launched Foster Care and Adoption program and Peter was now living at Hephzibah Home. Would she have to split up the siblings permanently to find them forever families? She had to find a better way.

Brown mentioned the children’s plight to her friends, Dennis and Bunny Murphy, who had already adopted three children. Although Peter, John, Marita and Anne Marie were not related by blood, the Murphys felt that the children should be placed in the same foster/adoptive home because they’d been living together as a family before Elizabeth’s death. When Brown voiced her concern that it would be difficult to find a foster family willing to adopt and raise all four children together, Dennis and Bunny Murphy said quietly, “We will do it.”

FROM HEARTBREAK TO HAPPINESS

Those four simple words changed the lives of four extremely vulnerable youngsters and forged Hephzibah’s first forever family.

“I still remember the day that Mary Anne Brown drove me over to the Murphys’ house in her yellow convertible to introduce me to my new family,” says Peter. “I was the first of the siblings to arrive. When we pulled up in front of the house, a child jumped out of the bushes and ran toward me, screaming ‘I have a new brother! I have a new brother!’ That was Michael, one of the three children who had already been adopted by the Murphys.”

That joyous greeting caused something to shift inside of the five-and-a-half-year-old, dislodging the grief that had blunted his other emotions. Peter describes it as the moment when everything began to change for the better.

“I had always been an active, outgoing kid. But during the six-month period after my mom died and before the Murphys took us in, I had become kind of an ‘inward’ person,” he explains. “I wasn’t able to process what had happened to me or put the hurt into words, so I spent a lot of time alone, throwing a ball up in the air and catching it for hours on end, day after day.”

Michael Murphy’s enthusiastic welcome reawakened Peter’s innate optimism and zest for life.

“I felt that warm, happy feeling again,” he confides. “Those feelings of love and acceptance that I’d felt before my mom died came flooding back when Michael jumped out of the bushes. I leaped out of the back of the convertible and I was just a little boy again, excited and happy and ready to have some fun.”

When Peter’s siblings arrived, his happiness was complete.

“I was thrilled that we were all together again. But I was also excited to be a Murphy because I felt loved and accepted. I had everything I needed and wanted—and I knew that I was home.”

Hephzibah residential counselor Peter Murphy, photographed in front of a viaduct mural featuring his likeness outside of Hephzibah Home.

GIVING BACK

Today, Peter and his siblings see Dennis and Bunny Murphy as the stabilizing force in their lives. So it makes sense that Peter is carrying on their good works by serving as a stabilizing force for other vulnerable youngsters as a residential counselor at Hephzibah Home.

Peter found his way back to Hephzibah at the age of 19—purely by chance.

“I was a Triton College student at the time and I was riding the CTA Green Line train from Ridgeland Avenue to Harlem,” he says. “I was studying for a test later that day and I happened to look up from my textbook just as the train passed a building with a lot of windows. The building looked familiar, but I didn’t know why. So I got off the train to check it out.”

As he climbed the stairs of Hephzibah Home and opened the red brick building’s double white doors, that vague sense of recognition began to coalesce into a memory.

“I was immediately hit by a comforting smell that I remembered from a long time ago—a smell that I associated with homecooked food, happiness and warmth,” says Peter. “I asked the woman at the front desk what kind of a place this was. She told me it was Hephzibah Home, and I said, ‘I think I used to live here.’”

He left his name and phone number with the receptionist, asked if “the boss” could give him a call and headed back out through the double doors.

“I had walked maybe 50 steps when I heard someone calling my name,” he recalls. “When I turned around and saw Mary Anne Brown, the memories came flooding back—and the tears started flowing.

“Mary Anne took me back inside, we chatted for a while in her office and she asked me what I was doing with my life. I told her that I was going to Triton to become a PE teacher or coach and she asked me, ‘Well, do you want to work here instead?’ I began working for Hephzibah two weeks later.”

That was 26 years ago. Today, when Peter talks about his work caring for young survivors of severe neglect and abuse at Hephzibah Home, it’s obvious that he sees his work as a calling.

“Within six months, I knew it wasn’t just a job anymore,” he says. “It was a way to help other children in the same way that Hephzibah and the Murphys had helped me.

“Dennis and Bunny filled the emptiness that I felt after my mom died in so many ways,” he adds. “My mom was always cooking and my dad was always riding bikes and playing sports with us. They taught me to be the person I am today: self-disciplined, gentlemanly and noncombative. Even their discipline was gentle. If I broke a rule or had a bad day, they would say, ‘Tomorrow, make sure you do better’ as they tucked me into bed at night.

“That’s the kind of person I try to be with the children at Hephzibah Home. I have so much empathy for these children. The only thing that I don’t have in common with them is the neglect and abuse. But I remember the feelings of loss and sadness in the months after my first adoptive mom died. That’s what the children at Hephzibah Home go through every single day.” After more than two decades of helping traumatized children heal, Peter allows that the work can be intense. “Once I go through the doors of Hephzibah Home, my own life is no longer important because I have 10 different spirits and identities to listen to, love and support. The minute I arrive, I hear the kids screaming ‘Peter!’ and then they are all jumping on me at once. I’ll have two kids hanging on my ankles and more hanging from my arms and I’ll pretend to be King Kong for a couple of minutes to make them laugh and then say, ‘Okay, guys, I’m happy to see you too.’ Like every member of Hephzibah’s child care staff, I am totally here for the kids, to give them someone to laugh with and learn from and, when necessary, a shoulder to cry on. This is a really emotional job. If you can’t deal with emotions

on an hour-to-hour or sometimes minute-tominute basis, this job isn’t for you.” “Every time Pete comes into work, he changes the mood,” says Program Coordinator Regina Harbor. “His energy is always happy and jolly. He’s a jokester and a fun person to be around. Whenever he’s working with children who are struggling, he goes in with that positive energy and the kids often forget why they were angry or sad. If those feelings persist, they will open up to him and tell him what’s going on.” Peter’s own early hardships—from the loss of his biological parents to the death of his first adoptive mom—also give the children hope. When they hear Peter’s story, they often feel less alone and more optimistic about the future because this cheerful, compassionate, playful adult is evidence that hard times aren’t forever and happy endings are still possible. “I think that being a ‘Hephzibah kid’ has helped Pete learn patience and really get Four lives changed for the better: Peter and his siblings in 2015. down and help these kids on a different level,” notes Harbor. “I’ve seen him share tears and parts of his own story with the children when they are in crisis. This has helped them open up to him so that they can process their feelings. Pete builds relationships with these kids that continue long after they leave Hephzibah Home.” “I’ve been where they are, so I really appreciate and admire these kids for their strength and their ability to keeping moving forward, despite their losses,” Peter confirms. “I was 12 or 13 years old before I began to process my grief about Elizabeth’s passing. The Murphys really shored me up during that time. Just like the Murphys did with me, I try to shore up the A forever family forged children at Hephzibah Home as they grieve their losses and through Hephzibah show them that they, too, can heal and do amazing things with foster care (l-r): Peter, John, Marita and Anne Marie their lives. “Every evening, before I leave to go home, I tell each child, ‘I believe in you. You did a good job today and tomorrow can be even better. Always keep your head up and stay positive and in 1982, when shine bright on your path.’ I’m always trying to think of new they were placed ways to share the love and support I got from Hephzibah and with Hephzibah’s the Murphys with the next generation.” rst foster parents, Dennis and Bunny Murphy.

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For 125 years, Hephzibah Children’s Association has helped children thrive and families ourish. Your donation today will make a di erence in a child’s life and allow us to continue to help children heal and families succeed.