How Deerfield cop found missing Wood Dale couple
Police searching for a missing Wood Dale couple this week kept hitting dead ends.
Donald and Jeanette Warren, who both suffer from severe to mild dementia, weren't carrying cellphones. Police couldn't track their location through an I-PASS device in their van because they stayed off the tollways. And one bona fide tip they had came hours after the husband and wife had left a Dunkin' Donuts and gas station in Chicago.
Family members hadn't seen the couple for more than a day and everyone involved in the search was growing uneasy.
Roughly 20 miles away from the couple's Wood Dale home, Deerfield police officer Rheanna Hall hadn't seen any of the news about the Warrens' disappearance when she began her shift Wednesday. And the search wasn't mentioned during roll call.
In fact, the 13-year veteran didn't learn the Warrens were missing until she logged into a program on her squad car computer. And there was the bulletin sent to law enforcement agencies around the suburbs.
Hall scanned all the key details: The license plate number of the couple's 2006 silver Dodge van and its distinct marking, a logo of the Rosemont-based Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps that 87-year-old Donald Warren founded.
Two hours before the end of her shift, around 9 p.m., Hall was driving her routine patrol route near Deerfield and Waukegan roads.
The van in front of her matched the bulletin's description.
“I knew it had to be them,” Hall said.
She flipped on her lights and pressed on the horn.
The driver finally stopped about 500 feet south, near Deerfield-Bannockburn Fire Protection District's station No. 20 on Waukegan Road.
Hall got out of her car and approached the driver's side.
“Mr. Warren?” she asked.
Donald Warren told her “they were headed to their condo,” but he wasn't able to tell her where that was or where he and his wife had been.
Hall, whose late grandfather had memory issues, was calm and compassionate. She knew calling the husband and wife by name would put them at ease.
“Neither one of them had any kind of coat,” she said.
A family member who lives with the couple had told police they left home Tuesday morning in the van to go to a doctor's appointment scheduled at 11:45 a.m., Wood Dale Deputy Police Chief Mike Rivas said.
The family member, who works off hours, didn't see the couple around dinnertime and thought they had gone out to eat.
After the couple still hadn't returned at 1:20 a.m., the relative called police.
Before that report, a Cary police officer saw the couple around 1 a.m. at a gas station.
The officer reported that Donald Warren asked for directions back to Wood Dale and indicated they were planning to stay at a hotel for the night.
Security camera footage showed the couple in their van leaving the gas station and heading east on Route 14.
“We had an entire detective division that drove to all those locales,” Rivas said.
Early Wednesday night, police would learn that the couple had stayed at the Chicago Dunkin' Donuts and gas station on the corner of Irving Park Road and Western Avenue from 3 to 5 p.m., Rivas said.
About an hour and half after getting that tip, Wood Dale police learned the Warrens were safe.
Hall got to see their reunion with their relieved children at the Deerfield police station.
“I'm glad that I had read that bulletin,” Hall said.