BLOOMINGTON -- Robert Sylvester, a robbery suspect shot to death Monday by police after a high-speed chase, had a history of financial problems and violence dating back for years. | Old poker friends remember 'Bobby' | Wife: 'Never had a theft problem'
Friends described the same man Tuesday as “a character” known for luck and boldness at the poker table. His family described the longtime ironworker as a good husband and father.
“He was polite, always funny. He was well-liked,” said Dean Derbyshire, who runs a card club Sylvester used to frequent.
Derbyshire and others who knew him had trouble reconciling the man they knew with the man they learned about Monday.
“I don’t know what brought him to do something like this,” said Donnie Bradford, a fellow card player who said he’s known Sylvester for 30 years.
“It looks to me like something fell apart in his life,” said Derbyshire.
Sylvester, 57, of the 1500 block of West Locust Street, Bloomington, died late Monday night after being shot by police on Interstate 55 on Normal’s northwest side.
At the end of a high-speed chase Monday afternoon, he exited his sport utility vehicle and jumped a highway barrier with a handgun drawn. Police shot him in the head and lower extremities, authorities said.
Police started to pursue him because he and his SUV fit the description of a man who robbed the Check ’n Go on Bloomington’s west side — the sixth Twin City holdup since Dec. 3 involving a suspect matching Sylvester’s description. The six cases are still under investigation.
Financial problems
In the years leading up to that first Twin City bank robbery Dec. 3, Sylvester’s financial problems were evident in court records.
In July 2007, National City Bank initiated foreclosure proceedings against Sylvester on his home on Locust Street, which he has owned since at least 1998, court records show. The bank claimed Sylvester had missed at least four monthly payments — each more than $450 — on an initial mortgage worth $74,000.
The bank filed to dismiss the foreclosure in June 2008, presumably due to payment, and Sylvester kept the home.
In 2004, Sylvester filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
In 2005, when facing misdemeanor domestic battery charges, Sylvester wrote on court forms that he was behind on his house payments. In 2006, in a separate case that put him on 24 months of probation for domestic battery, he asked the court to change the payment date for his fines because it conflicted with his utility payments, records show.
In August 2007, Sylvester was arrested after police said he beat a woman outside a bingo hall in Normal. He pleaded guilty to felony domestic battery and was ordered to serve 30 days in jail, which he did on the weekends.
That case violated the terms of his probation on the 2006 domestic battery case, and the judge ordered him to continue recommended alcohol and domestic violence counseling, records show.
The same woman was involved in all three domestic battery cases. In each case, she asked that he be allowed back into the home the couple shared, court records show.
Sylvester’s family life
McLean County Coroner Beth Kimmerling said in a statement Tuesday that Sylvester’s family described him as “a good husband” who “loved his children.”
WEEK-TV reported that Sylvester’s wife, Dee, said she thinks the I-55 shootout with police “could have been avoided or handled in another way” by officers.
“He was a hard worker and made good money and he never had a theft problem,” she reportedly told WEEK-TV. “They keep bringing up all his bad past, but he never had a theft problem.”
Sylvester also had a number of traffic offenses ranging from drunken driving and attempting to flee from an officer to failing to wear a seat belt.
Sylvester was a journeyman ironworker with the East Peoria-based Iron Workers Local 112 since 2003, and he was an active member, said business manager Brian Stanley. He had been working a construction job at Heartland Community College since around September, the union said.
He was with a Chicago-based local from 2000 to 2003. His family said he’d been an ironworker for about 30 years.
