Car Crash Reveals Man in Trunk, Ear Nearly Cut Off

Jan 27, 2011— -- Cops investigating a minor traffic accident in New York City made a startling discovery when they found the car's owner, beaten and bound in the trunk of his BMW and his ear dangling

NYPD officers looking over the BMW after a fender bender with a livery cab, noticed a bullet hole in the car's trunk. When they opened the trunk, police found the bloodied victim, his wrists and ankles tied. The man's ear was slashed and nearly severed from his head.

Cops believe the victim, a 34-year-old man whose identity was not released, was trying to sell the car to his attacker just before the assault. Rather than buy the car, the assailant assaulted the seller and threw him in the trunk, police said.

Sources said the man was in critical condition and described the assault as a "terrible case." Police said the man was unconcious.

The driver of the BMW fled the scene after the crash, police said.

Snowy streets Wednesday may have saved the man's life. The driver plowed the dark blue BMW M3 into the rear end of a livery cab in Harlem.

"He slammed me in the back, on the ream right side of my car," Muntaro Iddriso, the cab driver told the New York Post.

The cabbie said he heard the BMW's driver say "Are you OK?"

"I thought he was talking to someone in his car," he said.

Iddriso told the paper that he asked the driver for his contact information, but the man just walked away.

Soon after the cops arrived and found the victim in the trunk.

The car's New Jersey license plates had been swapped with plates from a Toyota registered in Queens, N.Y., police said.