Teens jailed in beating, robbery

CHAMPAIGN (AP) – Two Champaign teenagers have been charged in a robbery and attack on an Australian researcher visiting the University of Illinois.

The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports 17-year-olds Ralph Clifford Gray and Dorian Wills were charged Friday with aggravated kidnapping and robbery in the Oct. 21 attack on 33-year-old Clinton Fookes. Bond was set at $750,000. Neither has entered a plea and it wasn’t immediately clear if they had attorneys.

Detective Robb Morris said Fookes was visiting Champaign while in the United States for a conference. Fookes told police he remembered little about what happened to him but woke on the north side of Champaign bleeding and missing a watch and some other items.

Fookes was hospitalized for five days with head injuries.