"I was held up at gunpoint by the Pizza Bandit."

In the summer of 1997, Tom Klonowski was in his mid-twenties and just starting his journey as the owner of Pizza by Marchellonis in Bourbonnais, Illinois. It was a Friday night in August when a routine order for a pepperoni pizza turned into a life-altering encounter with a man the local press dubbed "The Pizza Bandit."

In this episode of This One Time in Kankakee, host Jake LaMore sits down with Tom to recount the details of the robbery and the multi-state investigation that followed. Tom shares the vivid details that remain with him nearly thirty years later—from the specific golf polo the robber wore to the high-stakes "code words" his family used to keep watch over the shop in the weeks that followed.

We also discuss:

• The Investigation: Tom’s experience working with Detective Kunce and the Bourbonnais Police Department during a string of local pizza shop robberies.
• The Ohio Arrest: The strange-but-true story of how the suspect was finally apprehended after trying to blend in as an employee during a robbery in another state.
• Resilience & Recovery: Tom’s honest reflection on the emotional aftermath of the event and the importance of seeking help after a traumatic experience.

A Note on the Research: While Tom's memory of these events is clear, the official paper trail has faded over time. Jake shares his efforts to locate the original police reports and Daily Journal articles, and why those records are no longer available in the public archives.

Episode Highlights:

• [03:38] – Tom’s signature intro: "This one time in Kankakee..."
• [06:10] – The Friday night order that changed everything.
• [14:21] – The "pizza apron" ruse and the eventual arrest in Ohio.
• [29:51] – Tom’s advice on processing trauma and moving forward.

Subscribe & Follow: Hear the full story of the Pizza Bandit by subscribing to This One Time in Kankakee on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Have a story of your own? Reach out to jake@milnermediapartners.com.

Want more from the WVLI Podcast Network? Listen to the WVLI News Update with Rob West every weekday morning! Get the days local news from the greater Kankakee County, IL area in 10 minutes or less. 

Subscribe now on your preferred podcast platform: https://wvlinewsupdate.buzzsprout.com

The Voices You Trust, Beyond The Dial.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

An episode of This One Time in Kankakee from the WVLI Podcast Network will start right after this. Support for this one time in Kankakee comes from Ravenspring Media, where method, media, and mindfulness create impact. From video production, photography, animation, and team building, Ravenspring Media creates compelling content that captures your brand's unique story in a strategic way. With over 20 years of visual storytelling experience, Ravenspring Media brings together creative expertise and a fresh perspective to every project they undertake. Begin your story today at RavenspringMedia.com. Support for this one time in Kankiki comes from the Kankiki Area YMCA. The Kankiki Area YMCA is more than just a gym. It's a movement of thousands of people making positive changes in their lives and their community. The YMCA is Kankiki's premier provider of family health and wellness. Become a Y member today at their location on Kennedy Drive in Kankakee or at K3YMCA.org. For youth development, for healthy living, for social responsibility, the Kankiki Area YMCA.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

This one time in Kankiki, I was held up at gunpoint by the pizza bandit.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Welcome to this one time in Kankiki from the WVI Podcast Network. I'm Jake Clamore. Most people in Bourbonet know Tom Klanowski. For over a decade, he was the guy behind the counter at Tom's Pizza. But before it was Tom's, it was a franchise called Pizza by Marshalloney's. And before Tom was a veteran of the local food scene, he was just a 26-year-old kid trying to make a go of it and a tough business.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

We grew up on River Street back in the day. And my wife and I bought a pizza place, a franchise at the time called Pizzas by Marchalonia, which later became Tom's Pizza, which a lot of people know what asked. When I started at Marshalone's, um, before that, I was I was unemployed looking for work. And they were hiring a manager, and I applied, talked to the owner, and I was hired within probably a week. And I honestly kind of fell in love with the pizza business again. I used to work at Chicago Doe. My restaurant life started at Hardy's way way back in the day, where I met my wife. And you know, we talked about after work there for about a year, and Joe was looking to get out. So we talked to him, negotiated, and we just bought him out. Got approval from the franchise, and the rest was kind of not history, but uh yeah, that's how that all started.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

The first few months were a whirlwind of ribbon cuttings and Chamber of Commerce meetings. But six months in, the new business smell was about to be replaced by something much darker. The kind of nights where you're already thinking about the cleanup and the drive home.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

One Friday night, about 10:30, phone rings, and you're you're getting close to clothes, you're getting everything cleaned up and everything, and the phone rings, and you're just like, ugh, like everything's everything's gonna get dirty again. Everything's just gonna get messed up. So answer the call and simple medium pepperoni pizza.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

The order was routine. The man who came to pick it up, he seemed routine too.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Guy comes in maybe five, ten minutes later. Comes in, had a really nice golf shirt. First thing I noticed. It was like an orange-brown polo shirt with really cool golf design on it. And he didn't look like the stereotypical golfer, like you would, you dad golfer that you would expect, right? He may not have been, I don't know. The shirt was nice. Like if I saw it tomorrow, I would probably buy it. It was a nice shirt. Comes in and he's he's standing at the counter and he goes, turns around, and he tries to open the box, and I open it for him. He looks at it, and he's like, Well, what's this? And we had these little parmesan cheese packets and red pepper packets we'd put in there. I said, This parmesan and red pepper. He goes, I didn't order that. I said, They're free, we'd just toss them in. So he goes, Okay. So he goes, looking at it, he goes, Is this right? And like, it's pepperoni, you know, pepperoni's under the cheese. He's like, okay. Takes that, pays for it.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

The man leaves. But he's not gone for long.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Probably five minutes later, he comes back, puts the pizza on the bottom of the counter. He goes, You made it wrong. I want a new one. I said, How do I make it wrong? He goes, There's no pepperoni on it at all. I said, Alright, fine. So I made him a new one.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Tom turned around to fix the mistake. He's standing at the counter facing the glass. Looking at the parking lot while he preps the new dough. He notices the man isn't moving. He's just watching.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Everything was textbook looking back. Everything was like all the signs were there of something's wrong, that kind of thing. So made the pizza, cut it, hand it to him, and when I hand it to him, he pulls out a gun.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

The gunman leads Tom and his co-worker Brad to the back room. Tom is thinking about his life, his wife, and the teenager standing next to him.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

He goes, get in the office. Well, my driver, who is closing with me, Brad, he's over cleaning up at the prep line. So I told him, I said, get over here and put him behind me. I got him in the office, and I got in the office, and he goes, he goes, turn around, don't look at me. I'm like, okay. So turn around, he puts this against the wall, he puts the gun to the back of my head and starts looking around. He goes, Where's your safe at? And I said, We don't have a safe. I said, all the money's in the drawer. So I hand my apron, had keys in my apron to get in the drawer. I said, here's the keys. He's like, you go get it. I'm gonna just go get it. He goes, you go get it, pushes me out the office, gun to my head, go to the register, and I put my hands up because hopefully, hoping someone's gonna drive by, walk by or something, right? And notice something's wrong. No such luck. He told me to put my hands down. I walk over to the drawer, open it up, take the drawer out, walk back up to him, takes the drawer, he puts it on the desk, takes all the cash out, and he goes, What else you got? Like, that's it, that's all the money we got. Brings us to the back room, lays us down. At that point, I'm like, this is it. This is where we're gonna die. This is gonna be it. So he says, Open empty your pockets. So take out our wallet, hand him the cash in my wallet. Brad took out the uh his bank. There's like probably 10 bucks in it. We already cashed it out. Handed him that. He next thing we had these bells on the front door. Next thing we heard the bells hit the door.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

The robber fled. Tom didn't wait. He crawled through the kitchen, staying low to the floor, reaching for the only lifeline he had.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

I told Brad I said, lock yourself in the bathroom. I went to the other side of the store, crawled up where the dish area was and stuff, crawled up to the counter, took the phone off the hook, and tried to dial and open a line and dial 911, but I was shaking so bad. I'm sure like someone at directory assistance was mad because I'm sure I dialed, you know, dialed wrong multiple times. So dialed 911, crawled to the front door, locked the door, came back, picked up, and um Greg Farrell at the time was dispatched because that was before CanCom. So everything went right to Bourbon A. So Greg's on the phone, and I said, uh Greg, I guess we just got robbed. He goes, Okay, where are you at? Pizza plate, you know, bit. He goes, Alright, we're on our way. And I start describing the guy, like just just word vomiting and panic and adrenaline. He's like, Tom, we'll get that all in a minute, okay? Just be safe right now. I'm like, all right.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Within minutes, the cops showed up. But in the middle of the chaos, Tom's first instinct was to look after the kid who had just stared down a barrel with him.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

So I unlocked the door and they're like, Is what you know what's going on? Who, you know, so start describing him and everything, and talked to Brad, gave him a piece of paper and a pen while we're, you know, we're waiting. I said, Write down what you remember, don't tell me, but write it down. And gave him a pop. And we, you know, I I sat in the inside the store, he was outside. I said, Call your mom and dad, tell them, 'cause he's a kid, 18, 19 years old at the time. Said, call him up, tell him what happened, tell him you're okay. He's like, Alright. That's how I met his parents that night.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

While Brad called home, Tom was taken to the station. He sat down with Detective Koontz for hours, reliving the moment over and over as the detective typed.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

So spent another couple hours there just talking about what happened and just constant, you know, he's he's typing everything as I'm as I'm saying it. And then I would read it after he was done, and he goes, Any typos I need you to point out. Because I guess that's part of the thing. That way we justify that we actually read it or something.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

When Tom finally went back to the shop the next morning, the robbery hadn't been erased. It was written all over the furniture.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

There's like black dust on the counter and some of the tables. And they're like, What is this from? I'm like, oh, that's fingerprint dust from from the cops last night.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

It didn't take long for the police to realize this wasn't an isolated incident. The man in the golf polo was busy.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Fast forward two weeks, he robs, I believe it was uh Johnny's Pizza in Kankiki. Two weeks later, he robs Papa John's and Bradley. Two days later, he robs Domino's and Medavie. So cops are seeing a pattern, obviously, and then the two days happen. Detective Koontz kept us really informed on any leads or updates that they had. I would get a call from them, like the in the next two weeks when another robbery would hit. We'd get a call, hey, this is what we know. We think it's the same guy. And Detective Koontz said right away, he goes, I don't think he's local. It's just there's something about it that he doesn't feel like it's local.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

The local paper dubbed him the pizza bandit. And while the police were looking for him, Tom's family was looking out for Tom. His brother Greg set up a makeshift command center in the parking lot.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

He would bring his van to the pizza place. He would park in the parking lot, and he had a TV and a VCR in his van for the kids. So he would watch, he would have Johnny Carson, the VHS, the old Johnny Carson shows, on there, and he would wait for, you know, he would see if someone would come in. And we had a code. I can't remember exactly what it was, but he would call up and say, um, do you deliver to Kanky Key? Or something like that. Or everything okay. And if it wasn't okay, I'll be like, I would say something like we don't deliver to moments or something, you know, was our code. And the one time these bunch of kids came in, and I've seen them before, and they were they came in, they were they were cool. But he goes, he calls me up, he goes, Everything okay? I'm like, not even thinking, yeah, it's fine. And I hang up and he calls me back, he goes, You really kind of defeat the purpose of the code. I'm like, I was not in the right headspace for it, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

The breakthrough didn't come from a fingerprint or a tip. It came from a 911 call in Ohio. The bandits had moved on. But his signature move, locking employees in the cooler, finally backfired.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

What happened in Ohio was he would rob the pizza place, but he would put it put the manager and the driver, put the people in the cooler. The last place he went to to do this, the driver took his cell phone out, dialed 911, and the cops show up. When the cops showed up and he sees him, he throws on an apron, he starts making pizzas and answering phones, acting like he's an employee. So the cops come in and they're like, We just got a 9-1-1 call that there's a robbery going on. He goes, No, everything's everything's fine here. Someone must be pranking or something. We're just a busy night, you know, he's answering and taking orders.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

The charade didn't last. The police opened the cooler, and the employee was revealed to be a serial robber. When the news reached Kankakee, Tom was called in to look at a lineup.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

We get calls every once in a while from the police department, hey, we want you to check out this lineup, we want you to check out this lineup. So we did that. And the last lineup Detective Coons called me about puts it on the the lineup, the six-pack, whatever they call it, and I see the guy, see the guy in the nice polo shirt. And it was up the lineup was upside down to me, and I put my finger on that one, and I turned it around, and I looked at the other five, and I said, It's that one. And Greg said, Good pick.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

When they searched the guy's car, they found the paper trail he left across the Midwest.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

And they're looking at these receipts, and then they're looking at the Kanky keys. Hey, this robbery happened between this date, this date, this is the description, this is what we have. And they're looking like, oh yeah, we have a McDonald's receipt from this address right there. We have this receipt from here. So he had he had items in his car to link him into Kinky County at the time of the robbery.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

The pizza bandit was facing a mountain of charges. 14 counts of aggravated kidnapping in Ohio alone. But for Tom, the resolution didn't mean the end of the trauma.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

At first, nothing much just besides work, you know, because it was the pizza, but it took a lot of my time to keep it up and running and and be successful when it was. And later, probably like a year later, I just started having like anxiety and just you know dreams re-reenacting the robbery and stuff, and I went to my doctor and I said, I'm I don't want to medicate. I don't want to do that, I want to work through this. So started interviewing some therapists, seeing who I like, finally found one that I liked, and you know, called him Dr. Z, and you know, met with Dr. Z for quite a while and you know, did that. Helped a lot. Gave me some tools to use to kind of can you know control breathing or try to refocus on things. So it, you know, it took some time, but I mean there's there's still times that you know it kind of comes to you.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

With that being said, what would you say to someone who maybe recently had a robbery encounter? What would you share with them?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Don't be afraid to go get help. Don't be afraid to go talk to somebody. Don't keep it inside. I don't care how tough you think you are. It's it might not happen today, it might not happen in six months, it might not happen in a year. Don't be afraid to go get help and talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

After I talked to Tom, I wanted to see the record for myself. I wanted to find the name of the man in the forest brown polo shirt. I wanted to see the mugshot of the pizza bandit. I called the Bourbonet Police Department. I asked them for the reports from late August of '97. They looked but couldn't find anything from that time frame. They told me because the case was so old, the files were more than likely tossed out during a routine purge of old records. So I went to the Daily Journal Archives, did lots of scrolling there through old articles from that time frame, and looking for the name the Pizza Bandit. But even there, I couldn't find anything. I'll just have to keep looking until maybe one day we find out who the Pizza Bandit really is and how things are going for him in Ohio. If he's still around, that is.com and finish this sentence for me. This one time in Kankiki.