O'FALLON, Ill. — O'Fallon Illinois police are looking for suspects who vandalized a home near O'Fallon High School’s Milburn Campus.
Police say the vandals threw bricks through the windows and poured motor oil into the pool at the home on Longfellow Drive.
Just two hours before the Gibson family was supposed to leave for vacation they got a terrifying 4:30 a.m. wake-up call Sunday.
“My husband and I were woken by the sound of bricks crashing through our front windows. Pretty traumatizing. We right away either thought someone was in the house or threw something through the window. So he kind of dashed out of the room to go make sure the children were okay,” Suzanne Gibson said.
Gibson says the living nightmare didn't stop there.
“He came outside, actually, and thought he saw blood on the concrete. It wasn't lit up. So when we turn on the lights, that's when he saw that there was used motor oil all over the pool deck in the pool, everything was completely black out here,” Gibson said.
Tens of thousands of dollars in damage happened in a matter of minutes by what appears to be a couple of teens on a scooter.
“It's hit every single piece of concrete that surrounds the pool,” Gibson said.
The family and O’Fallon Police are still trying to answer the biggest questions.
“We can't figure out what the connection between these folks are here in O'Fallon and the suspects. It seems like it could be targeted just based on the circumstances, but we can't figure out the connection yet,” O’Fallon Police Lieutenant Patrick Feldhake said.
In the meantime, the cleanup hasn't been easy.
“We had a hazmat team come in and remove that used motor oil from the pool. And now there's like an external EPA pump that's removing the remaining oil from the pool,” Gibson said.
But she said these are all just material things.
“The bricks through the windows in the middle of the night when your children are sleeping, into the bedrooms where they're sleeping, that that's what steals your peace. Now, the kids are in tears when it's time to go to bed. They're completely traumatized as well,” Gibson said.
Everyone in the family is hurting after this wake-up call they wish they could forget.
The family only has one message for the people who did this.
“Come forward and try to help us get some closure on this,” Gibson said.
O’Fallon Police are asking anyone who has surveillance video from Sunday morning between 4:40 and 5 a.m. in that area to look it over.
They believe the suspects could have gone through these neighborhoods: Augusta Greens, Far Oaks, Savannah Hills, or The Fountains.