ELMHURST, IL – A man developed an elaborate plan to win back his ex-girlfriend in Elmhurst, which involved terrorizing her and her family, police said.
It failed.
Patch obtained the 41-page report on the Elmhurst police’s effort to arrest the man. He was identified as 20-year-old Scott McBlain of Chicago.
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Starting in late April, a family in the 400 block of North Ridgeland Avenue reported incidents of harassment. They involved shattered car windows, fireworks aimed at their property and eggings.
The father in the house told police he had no idea who had anything against them.
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But his 18-year-old daughter suspected someone she had known since the seventh grade.
After one of the incidents, someone with a fake Snapchat account, which McBlain later admitted to creating, sent a photo of the damage to the 18-year-old woman’s friend, police said.
Police found the black BMW that McBlain had been driving in the incidents. Officers started conducting surveillance, seeing the car repeatedly go by the family’s house on Ridgeland in mid-May, according to the report.
After a fireworks incident at the family’s home on May 19, officers stopped a car with McBlain and three other men.
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McBlain admitted he put a garbage bag around the license plate to elude detection, saying it was a hassle removing the plate each time, police said.
The other men were not believed to have been involved in the crimes.
In an interview, McBlain told officers the 18-year-old girl had broken up with him after a year, which made him angry, according to the report.
For revenge, he told officers, he undertook a campaign of vandalism, police said.
Asked about his hoped-for outcome, McBlain said he wanted to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, police said.
McBlain said he planned to communicate with her through a fake Snapchat account to give her a fake name of the person doing the damage, police said.
He said that would show he cared for her and that she would want to date him again, the report said.
After getting a search warrant, officers said they found firework mortar shells and other fireworks-related items in the BMW.
McBlain was charged with felony criminal damage to property and possession, sale or use of fireworks, police said.
Two other men – an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old – were listed as suspects in the report. They were connected to the previous incidents, police said.
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