Dead Man Dragged for 20 Miles

Guido Salvador Carabajo-Jara was an Ecuadorian immigrant living in New York City. He had just celebrated his 26th birthday on Tuesday Feb. 10, 2009. He lived with his cousin Felix Jara and his sister Rosa Carabajo.  He had a wife and a 4-year-old daughter back in Ecuador whom he loved very much and would regularly send money to support them. According to another relative, Ignacio Quintero, he was a hard worker whose mission was to provide for his child and save enough money to build a home in Ecuador. Little did anyone know that Wednesday Feb. 11, 2009 would be his last day on earth.

Carabajo-Jara was supposed to meet Felix Jara at 8 a.m. Wednesday to go to work laying tile in Brooklyn. When he didn’t show, his family spent the day looking for him. That very morning about 6:15 a.m. there was a horrible, gruesome accident at the corner of 50th Ave. and 108th Street in the Corona section of Queens in NYC.

[wpvideo pdW19fee]

Guido Salvador Carabajo-Jara was crossing the street against the traffic light when he was hit by a black Ford Expedition driven by Gustavo Acosta who, after realizing that he had hit someone, called 911. When the police arrived there was no victim to be found and the SUV had suffered no damage.

At the time of the accident Lituma Sanchez was traveling about two cars behind Acosta, in his 1998 Chevrolet van. Sanchez said he noticed some cars ahead swerving and he thought they were trying to avoid a pothole. He did not see the initial accident. Without knowing it, Sanchez ran over the body, which was facing head up. Under the van is a steel plate known as the skid plate, used to protect the transmission and undercarriage. It was this skid plate that the man's chest got hooked on, dragging him along underneath the van.

Sanchez was travelling to his job in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn where he works as a delivery man. It is a journey of about 20 miles taking the Grand Central Parkway, the Van Wyck Expressway and the Belt Parkway; it takes around an hour to drive. For the entire journey the dead man's body was dragged underneath the van. Sanchez at one point thought there was something wrong with his van and he stopped to check the oil. He never thought of looking under the van which has a low ridge around the wheels for stepping inside, making it difficult to see underneath anyway.

It wasn't until Sanchez was waved down by a pedestrian, who noticed something under the van, that he actually looked to see what it might be. That's when he discovered the body and called 911. When the police arrived they had to jack up the van to get the body out. There was no ID on the body and the only items found were a business card, a Western Union receipt and a broken iPhone.

"You can't imagine the shock I felt" on seeing the corpse, Lituma Sanchez told reporters. "I'm just so nervous and very sad."

The body, although intact, had taken a lot of punishment after being dragged for almost 20 miles. The back of the head was worn through to the scalp, his heels were shorn off and, along with his clothes, several layers of skin on his legs and buttocks were worn off.

Police retraced the van’s route and recovered a blue jacket believed to have belonged to the victim. Grisly surveillance video showed the body disappearing, swept underneath the van moments after being hit by the SUV.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PKFcfTzeT8&feature=related]

"The van comes and rides right over the body and as it goes by there's no body there," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. "The body was basically fish-hooked by the plate."

It wasn't until around 11 p.m. that night that the police were able to locate the man's family. The next day, Thursday, his sister, Rosa Carabajo, and his cousin Felix Jara went to the hospital morgue to identify the body of Guido Salvador Carabajo-Jara.

"He was an excellent person, very easygoing, very happy," Jara said in Spanish. "I was in shock. We don't know how this could have happened. I didn't believe it until I saw his saw his face."

"Everyone is crying, especially in my country," Jara said. "Everyone is going crazy."

An autopsy found that Carabajo-Jara died from multiple blunt-impact injuries, medical examiner spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said Thursday. It hadn't been determined whether he died before the van started dragging him.

"The family is destroyed," Quintero said in Spanish. "They are in a lot of pain."

Police said the gruesome episode was accidental and they have no plans to charge the drivers at this time. Both men have clean driving records.