Duo Caught With Burglary Tools After Hopping Fence Into Balmoral, Both Arrested There Before: Sheriff

CRETE, IL — Two people have been charged after found with burglary tools on the property of Balmoral Park in Crete, the Will County Sheriff's Office said Monday.

On Jan. 24, just after 8 p.m., Will County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call of a suspicious person at the horse racing track property. A witness there told deputies that while viewing surveillance footage, they spotted two people jumping over a fence to get on the property.

Deputies began searching the area and found fresh footprints in the snow. Police said they followed the tracks to a tree line where two people were found hiding under a tree with burglary tools including a pry bar, wire cutters and grinder around them.

Deputies took 43-year-old Robert Willison and Megan Green, 32, both of Bourbonnais, into custody and transported them to the Will County Adult Detention Facility.

Both were charged with criminal trespass to property and possession of burglary tools, with a court date set for 9 a.m. Feb. 9.

Willison and Green, the Will County Sheriff's Office said, had also both been previously arrested on at 4:30 a.m. Jan. 11, for a separate incident at the same location.

In that incident, a Will County Sheriff’s deputy saw a white moving van possibly linked to a previous burglary driving around the racetrack, police said. The deputy conducted a traffic stop, and copper wire and computer parts previously reported missing from Balmoral were spotted inside the van.

Green was charged in that incident with driving with suspended license, operation of uninsured motor vehicle, theft and had an active warrant out for her arrest in Cook County for Federal Transit Authority trespassing.

Willison was charged with burglary, criminal trespass, criminal damage and possession of burglary tools.

A third person, 31-year-old Elijah Campbell of Kankakee, was also charged with burglary, criminal trespass, criminal damage and possession of burglary tools.