EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. -- Madison County authorities did not believe a Granite City woman's claim that a carjacker bludgeoned her friend to death, and instead charged her with first-degree murder on Friday.
Carol A. Warren, 50, is accused of killing longtime friend Estelle K. Roberts, 72, with a short-handled sledgehammer along a roadside near Madison, just north of East St. Louis, on Thursday afternoon.
Illinois Department of Natural Resources officer David Ray came across the women outside a Plymouth Neon, and found that Roberts was severely injured. Roberts later was pronounced dead at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Granite City, and a Madison County coroner's autopsy found the cause was blunt trauma to the head.
Authorities said the officer noted suspicious behavior by Warren that helped lead to her arrest. They would not release details or a motive.
Police found the alleged weapon nearby, Madison County Sheriff's Capt. Capt. Dennis Fischer said.
"You can call it blind luck," Fischer said, that the officer came across the scene.
Warren's bail was set Friday at $1 million.
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