Store owner recounts terror during robbery

An Arlington Heights store owner and his wife feel lucky to be alive after being tied up at gunpoint as burglars ransacked their shop over the weekend.

Manuel Parada and his wife, Yanira Parada, opened Bazar Salvadoreno four years ago, but on Saturday their Salvadoran general store was taken over by three strangers armed with a knife and handgun.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” 48-year-old Manuel Parada said. “They said, ‘If you move from here we will shoot you.'”

Manuel was working the register at 9 North Wilke Road Saturday when a man came in looking for a Mexican soccer jersey around 6 p.m. He saw the man make a phone call, presumably to tell the others the store was empty, before two accomplices walked into the store.

Immediately one man pressed a black semiautomatic handgun to Manuel's neck and walked him to a small closet in the back of the store.

“I got so scared I didn't know what to do or what to say to this guy,” Manuel said.

A second man armed with a large silver hunting knife forced Yanira Parada into the closet and tied both the owners' hands together with laces from their own shoes.

Manuel feared more for his wife's life than his own as they sat tied in the closet.

“I don't care about me too much, I care because my wife had a heart surgery,” Manuel said. “If they hit me, maybe no problem, but if they hit my wife she may die.”

Manuel told the men to take whatever they wanted from the shop, including a gold necklace they tried to rip straight off his neck.

As the man armed with a knife stood guard over the Paradas in the closet for about seven minutes, he told them he was sorry.

“He said, ‘I don't want to do it, but somebody is telling me I have to do it,” Manuel Paradas said.

Manuel waited about a minute after he heard the men leave, peaked his head around the corner from the closet and dashed across the street to call 911 after he noticed his store's phone lines had been cut.

The thieves made off with $1,800 in wire transfers and phone cards, cleared about 25 boxes of watches and perfume, stole jewelry a wallet and a cell phone from the Paradas and, for a reason Manuel cannot understand, swiped a number of pairs of women's underwear.

All three men were described as Hispanics in their 30s wearing baseball caps, and one was wearing a mask over his face. The case remains under investigation, but police said a gas station attendant saw the three suspects walking south through a Marathon station near the time of the robbery.

A police dog was brought to the scene but was unable to pick up the suspects' scent, according to authorities.