Suspect in bank robbery attempts suicide on WKAN

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: Suspect in bank robbery attempts suicide after calls to local radio station : 05/17/2008, 9:25 pm : By Jon Krenek : The last telephone call the alleged Centrue Bank robber made before attempting suicide Friday was to WKAN radio. : He hoped Rob West, WKAN news director, would share his story with listeners. : The phone call came a few minutes before Bradley resident Rick James Pierce, 49, who has not been formally charged with the robbery, deliberately slammed his car into several large blocks of concrete at Ozinga Brothers Inc. on Illinois Route 50 and 6000N Road in Bourbonnais. : The suicide attempt followed two days of telephone conversations between West, Pierce and Bourbonnais Police Chief Joseph Beard, to whom Pierce confessed the Wednesday afternoon bank robbery. He wanted West to tell the world about it. : "He didn't want anyone else to get in trouble for what he'd done," said West, who shared parts of those conversations with WKAN listeners on Friday. "He said he didn't have a gun and would never hurt anybody." : Pierce remained hospitalized at Riverside Medical Center on Saturday. Beard said Pierce will face formal charges for the robbery at the Centrue Bank branch on North Avenue and U.S. Route 45 in Bourbonnais. : "Once he's released, he will be going to jail," Beard said. : Talking robbery : Pierce remained at large for two days following the 1:15 p.m. robbery, where he allegedly walked into the bank, gave the teller a note stating he had a gun, took the money, and then left on foot. His apartment at 503 N. Forest, Apt. 3 is located directly behind the Centrue branch, which is how he was able to disappear before police arrived, according to Beard. : But Pierce was apparently unable to hide from his conscious. He called West on Thursday to inquire if the radio station had reported any news about the heist, and whether West would be willing to deliver a message. : "Basically, this was a cry for help," Beard said. "He told West he didn't have a gun at the time of the robbery. He also told West he was battling financial problems along with a gambling problem." : West said the robbery suspect was uncertain about what he should do next, and that he considered killing himself as an option. West talked him into sharing the story with Beard, knowing the chief is trained to deal with suicidal people. Pierce agreed. The three-way conversation later than afternoon was going well until West's cell phone battery died. : "It sounded like we convinced him to turn himself in," said West, who did not hear from Pierce again until Friday. : Talking news : The situation placed West caught between trying to save a life, helping police solve a crime, and remaining loyal to his listeners. : "I talked to my wife about it and told her 'I'm sitting on the biggest story in Kankakee County right now,'" West said. "It puts you in a strange position from being a news reporter to the news maker." : The first contact on Thursday afternoon and subsequent negotiations with Beard came after West's morning news show. On Friday morning, West shared what he knew with his listeners, knowing police were still searching for Pierce, and he could eventually be called as a witness in court. : "I told my listeners what I told him I would tell them," West said. "Obviously, I couldn't say things that would mess up their investigation." : Final call : Pierce made the last telephone call to West at about 1 p.m. on Friday from his vehicle as he headed toward the concrete plant. The robbery suspect had spent the past evening looking for the best location. : "He was on his way to do what he wanted to do," West said. "He just kept saying he just wanted to end this. Then he told us where and when he was going to end this." : That's how officers from the Bourbonnais Police Department and the Kankakee County Sheriff's Department knew to position themselves on Route 50. They were waiting when they saw Pierce driving at a high rate of speed and lose control of his vehicle before it rolled into the cement wall -- the exact location he told West. : Two Bourbonnais officers and one from the Kankakee Sheriff's Department witnessed the crash from where they were parked. : "There was no pursuit," Lt. Bill Carnahan of the Kankakee County Sheriff's Department said at the scene. "The cars remained stationary as the accident occurred." : Pierce reportedly swerved his car, losing control and running off the road. The vehicle then struck the cement blocks. The impact whipped it 180 degrees and sent it through the large Ozinga billboard. The car rolled three times, coming to rest on its top. : Firemen had to extricate Pierce from his mangled car before he was transported to Riverside Medical Center where he remained hospitalized on Saturday, although his condition is confidential, according to Riverside spokesman Carl Maronich. : Beard said Pierce will likely be admitted to the Riverside's mental health unit before being arrested and booked for the crime. : West said although he's not completely sympathetic to Pierce, he would have preferred a happier ending. : "I would have like to end with him turning himself in," West said. "He seemed like a guy who just got in over his head; but if you look at it, he's a guy who robbed bank."

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