BY KEVIN BERSETT - News-Democrat
BELLEVILLE -- Kimberly Wachtel was parked on Eckert's rear lot Wednesday afternoon when a wild-looking shirtless man appeared out of nowhere.
"He told me, 'Lady get out of the car,'" Wachtel, 39, of Freeburg, said.
But Wachtel refused to budge. He told her he had a gun and reached behind his back
Eckert's in Belleville Farm was the location of an attempted carjacking on Wednesday evening. - Zia Nizami/BND
"He said, 'I'm going to shoot you if you don't get out of the car,'" Wachtel said.
She said shoot then.
The man never displayed a gun and eventually fled the scene when some Eckert's employees intervened on Wachtel's behalf.
What was the minivan-driving mother of a 6-year-old son thinking when she was fighting off her attacker?
"I was just freaking out," Wachtel said.
The unidentified man was still on the loose Wednesday night as Belleville police and St. Clair County Sheriff's Department deputies scoured the area south of Illinois 15 near Eckert's, 951 S. Green Mount Road. The suspect was described as an overweight white male, about 6 feet tall, who was wearing a red bandana around the top of his head, dark sweat pants and boots.
"He looked like he was on some kind of drugs," Wachtel said.
The attempted carjacking occurred about 3:50 p.m. just as Wachtel ended a phone call with her mother. She had stopped in Eckert's rear lot along busy Green Mount Road because she figured it was a safe place to make a call before she went to work at Freeburg Terrace.
Two hours after the encounter Wachtel appeared to be in shock.
"It just happened so fast," she said.
After Wachtel refused to get out of her Ford Windstar, the man attempted to pull her out, scratching her neck in the process. But Wachtel continued to resist and eventually managed to grab her phone and call 911.
Wachtel also started screaming and honking her horn. That got the attention of Eckert's employee Larry Roose and his family, who at first thought the struggle was a domestic dispute.
Roose matter-of-factly described what happened.
"An overweight guy tried to take that poor lady's car, and we told him not to do it," Roose, who owns Eckert's animals, said.
When Roose told the man to stop, he jumped into Roose's truck. A relative grabbed the keys before the suspect drove off. They then tried to corner the man with their trucks but he managed to run off, at one point jumping onto the roof of a vehicle and over a 7- to 8-foot high fence that separates Eckert's restaurant from its grocery store. He then ran across Illinois 15 into a patch of woods.
"He absolutely jumped that fence -- I couldn't believe it," Roose said. "I don't know how he didn't get hit on (Illinois) 15."
Belleville Detective Mark Heffernan and Eckert's Vice President Jill Tantillo said nothing like an attempted car-jacking had happened in recent memory at the Belleville landmark.
Wachtel's mother was just happy somebody bothered to help her daughter.
"I'm just so proud of her," Cindy Weber said. "I thank the people that stopped to help her."
Contact reporter Kevin Bersett at kbersett@bnd.com or 239-2535.
Read more: http://www.bnd.com/2011/11/03/1926641/freeburg-mother-fights-off-car.html#ixzz1cePqiZfR
