O’FALLON, Ill. – Vandals in O’Fallon, Illinois turned a crystal-clear swimming pool into a dark, oily mess.
Police said the damage is in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The victims are terrorized, saying there’s something even scarier than the oily pool.
It happened at about 4:30 a.m. Sunday. The Gibson family was sleeping and then startled by the sound of breaking glass. After quietly dousing the pool with used motor oil, vandals picked up landscaping bricks from Gibson’s yard and chucked at the windows of their house.
“It sounded honestly like a gunshot coming through the windows,” said Suzanne Gibson.
She has a 13-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter with her husband.
One of the large bricks crashed through a bedroom window. Thankfully, no one was sleeping there at the time. Gibson said they could have killed.
Her husband immediately looked around the house to see what happened and eventually noticed something dark on the concrete deck around the pool.
“It was oil, but at first, he thought it was blood on the concrete outside,” Gibson said. “(He) checked to make sure both kids were still in their beds and fine, then came upstairs, and we called 911.”
The pump on the pool was running at the time. Oil got into everything, and the pool turned dark brown/black.
An environmental contractor has begun a cleanup. The water is beginning to clear, but what remains unclear is if anything from the pool can be saved. The concrete deck appears forever stained. The Gibson’s backyard smells like a quick lube. Given the extent of the damage, this is a felony crime.
“There’s tens of thousands of dollars in damage done most likely to these folks’ homes,” said Lt. Patrick Feldhake for the O’Fallon Police Department. “At this point, we have no explanation for why.”
“My 9-year-old cried herself to sleep,” Gibson said. “She was worried that they were going to come back and light the house on fire.”
Two teenage males doused the pool with oil in five minutes or less and then broke those windows, according to police. Neighborhood surveillance video showed the suspects leaving on a motor scooter.
“It appears to be some type of scooter or mini bike,” Feldhake said. “It doesn’t look like it has a rear taillight. The suspects look adolescent-aged: middle to late teens.”
“From a forgiving heart, coming forward would go a very long way,” Gibson said. “To come forward and apologize, give our kids some peace so they’re not crying themselves to sleep at night in fear of them coming back, those things will go a long way for our family, for sure…my job as a parent is to protect my kids. Right now, I feel very vulnerable. To get that peace back, there’s no dollar amount on that.”
The home is near the O’Fallon High School Milburn Campus. Investigators are asking residents in the five neighborhoods near Milburn School Road to check surveillance cameras for additional video.
A video showed at least two vehicles on the road near the fleeing scooter. Police hope to hear from those drivers, too.