CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A west suburban teacher is hoping for a miracle to find a stolen backpack containing everything that’s meaningful to him in life besides his family.Tony LiFonti, an English teacher at Glenbard North High School, has been working on finishing a book he has written about his grandparents’ World War II love story.
“It’s about my grandfather, a WWII love story, how he gets enlisted in the Army, how he meets her in Italy and how he survives the war to come back to her," LiFonti said. And, because he likes to write every free moment he gets, LiFonti said he had his backpack with him Monday night when he came into the city to meet a college roommate for dinner in the River West neighborhood.
But, since LiFonti was running late, there was no time for writing. He left his Glenbard North wrestling backpack inside his 2019 black Chevy Colorado pick-up truck. He said he covered the backpack with his coat and parked along Union Avenue near Grand Avenue.“When I came out an hour and a half later, at around 9:15, my window was shattered and I didn’t even know it was shattered until I had already driven off a little bit and felt a breeze,” the 44-year-old teacher and author said. “My stomach hollowed out, just hollowed out.”