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Robbers leave man in trunk

A passer-by hears his yells about an hour after the hijacking.

By ROBIN STEIN
Published February 7, 2007

CLEARWATER - A construction worker from St. Petersburg who stopped for a red light at a busy intersection was hijacked, robbed and locked in his trunk by two gun-wielding bandits Monday evening, police said.

Esau N. Monroy-Medina, 26, told Clearwater police that he was driving east on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard at Belcher Road just after 7 p.m. when two men - one with a handgun and the other a shotgun - jumped into his back seat and directed him to drive about a mile to a Motel 6 on U.S. 19.

Wayne Shelor, a police spokesman, said Monroy-Medina was ordered to pull into a rear parking lot and get out of the car as a woman driving a silver Nissan pulled into the lot.

The woman took his cash, jewelry and several other belongings and then the two armed men forced Monroy-Medina into his trunk, the police said.

Monroy-Medina said he was struggling to escape and had managed to cut a hole through to the back seat of his car when a passer-by heard his yelling and called police.

When officers arrived and extricated Monroy-Medina about 8:20 p.m., he told them it had been about an hour since the bandits climbed into his car on Gulf-to-Bay.

Shelor said police have not received other reports about the gun-wielding pair or similar problems from the tens of thousands of drivers who pass through the intersection every day.

Investigators were still piecing together details Tuesday afternoon, and working to hone Monroy-Medina's descriptions of the suspects, Shelor said.

[Last modified February 6, 2007, 22:37:21]