Barrington Hills home invaders terrorized family for an hour or more

A team of armed robbers held a Barrington Hills family at gunpoint for an hour or more while robbing them, but police still had no description of the assailants to share late Monday.

The gunmen were wearing masks and gloves, Village President Robert Abboud explained, limiting the victims' ability to describe them.

"You have to understand the trauma the family was under," Abboud said. "They were asleep in the middle of the night, they're terrified as, you can imagine, and bound and gagged. It was extremely difficult."

Police responded to an alarm at the house at 2:24 a.m., but it was not clear when the robbers entered or how long it took police to respond.

Police were still processing large sections of the house and property for evidence Monday.

It was early Saturday when three armed men got in through an open basement window of the family's home near Bateman and Lake-Cook roads. They bound and gagged the family and made off with cash, electronics and jewelry.

The family was "roughed up" and terrified, Abboud said, but survived without physical injury.

"I think they were very fortunate," Abboud said. "There were a lot of ways this could have gone badly. We should all be thankful we're not looking at a multiple homicide."

Police were still collecting evidence from the crime scene Monday, because the robbers were at the scene for an hour or an hour and a half.

"There's a lot of evidence," Abboud said. "They were at the scene for a very long time. It's a different kind of a crime scene than when a single person breaks in when no one is home, is there for a few moments and leaves."

Police are withholding basic information about the crime, including exactly where it occurred and who the victims were, because, Abboud said, they want to use the information during interrogations of suspects, to find out who knows details about the crime.

"The village has a long history of hunting down its perpetrators," Abboud said.

While crime is rare in Barrington Hills, the village has been the site of two notorious killings.

In 1972, retired insurance broker Paul Corbett and his wife, sister-in-law and stepdaughter were found shot to death in their home. A band of black Vietnam veterans calling themselves members of the De Mau Mau gang were linked to the murders, as well as several other racially motivated killings in the area.

Three men were convicted of the killings, and a fourth was strangled in his jail cell awaiting trial.

In 1996, a local couple was murdered and their house burned down. Nine years later, Peter Hommerson was tracked down in Mexico through "America's Most Wanted," and this year, he was sentenced to life in prison for the crime.