Man Found Dead From Gunshot In Burning Car Identified
(CBS) --A man whose body was found in a burning car in Chicago last week has been identified.
28-year-old Laprentis Cudjo died of a gunshot to the head, and as CBS 2's Mai Martinez reports, another man might have faced the same fate, if he hadn't made a daring escape--that was caught on camera.
Two cars, two kidnapped men locked in the trunks, and two very different endings.
One man escaped by pulling the trunk release from inside and ran away, but Dolton police say the other man remained bound and gagged in the trunk of a car. That man was Cudjo.
Investigators say hours earlier both men went to a house on University Avenue near 144th Street to meet a woman Wednesday, but it was a set up.
"They were robbed, kidnapped, held against their will…bound and gagged and placed in separate vehicles and taken from the location," said Dolton police Commander Darryl Hope. "They were in route to wherever they were going when that person escaped."
The victim--bloodied and with duct tape still on his wrists--ran into a Riverdale store yelling "Help me. Help me. People are trying to kidnap me!"
The clerk called police as the kidnappers abandoned the car in the alley.
The occupants of the car then jumped into a second car that had the other victim. That car was found a short time later, on fire in Chicago. Cudjo's body was inside. He was shot in the head.
"That is brazen and it's a serious crime the people should be taken seriously that they are armed and they're a threat to everyone," said Hope.
Dolton police are following up on several promising leads in this case, and expect to make arrests soon.
Surveillance video has been very helpful to investigators and the surviving victim is also helping them.