In May 1979, a strange police radio call about a hand sticking out of the trunk of a car led two journalists on an unexpected chase through Birmingham, Alabama. Inside the trunk was Gary Collier — kidnapped, stabbed, and still alive. What began as a tip-off became a race to save a man’s life.

Strange Reports

On Saturday, May 5th, 1979, news editor Garland Reeves was listening intently to the police scanner at the Birmingham News offices in Alabama. Reports of a brown car with a hand protruding from the trunk were coming through, but Reeves wasn’t sure if they were genuine or part of a hoax. Police were struggling to locate the vehicle due to delays between witnesses spotting it and finding a payphone to report what they’d seen.

Curious, Reeves dispatched intern reporter Mark Winne and veteran photographer Jerry Ayres to see if they could track down the car themselves. With any luck, they might catch up with the police and capture a photograph or two along the way.

Little did Winne and Ayres know, they were about to save a man’s life.

The Chase

Winne and Ayres set off, with Winne in the passenger seat and Ayres behind the wheel. Reeves maintained radio contact from the office, relaying updates on the car’s suspected location.

They drove around Birmingham for roughly three hours. Just as they were about to give up hope, Winne spotted a battered beige Dodge Polara with the number plate EDX 003 heading northbound on Interstate 20/59 in Ensley. Inside were a female driver and two male passengers — and there, poking through a small gap in the trunk seal, was a hand. Its fingers were wiggling, clearly trying to attract attention. This was no hoax.

The journalists pursued the Dodge for thirty minutes through traffic, moving northeast on the interstate. Winne kept Reeves updated via radio, and Reeves relayed the car’s location to police as the chase continued. At one point, Winne took the wheel so Ayres could lean out of the window and photograph the Dodge and the hand protruding from its trunk.

By now, the female driver had realised she was being followed and exited the interstate at Airport Boulevard. She drove erratically through residential streets, attempting to lose her pursuers, but Winne and Ayres stayed close behind. They were fully aware the occupants could be dangerous, but as Winne later explained, “I mean, we had a responsibility, a moral responsibility, a journalistic responsibility to stay with that car. It just had to work out that way.”

Eventually, Winne and Ayres managed to stall the Dodge just long enough for police to box it in and arrest its occupants. The driver was 24-year-old Robin Green of Birmingham. Her passengers were 27-year-old Joseph Fendley of Morris and his uncle, 49-year-old Wilburn Fendley of Bessemer.

The police then rushed to open the trunk and free the man inside.

The victim

The man who climbed barefoot from the trunk was 35-year-old Gary Collier. Groggy and injured, the first thing he asked for was a cigarette.

Collier told Sgt Howard Felts that he’d been at a bar in Bessemer the night before, where he met Robin Green and Joseph Fendley. He’d never seen them before and assumed they simply wanted to go drinking. But when they began taking drugs, he decided to leave. Around 9 pm, they attacked him in the car park — stabbing him with a screwdriver and beating him unconscious. They stole his disability cheque for $350 before throwing him into the trunk of their Dodge Polara.

As the car drove around, Collier managed to tear a gap in the trunk’s rubber seal and slip his hand through, praying a passing motorist would notice. He drifted in and out of consciousness, fighting the fumes from carbon monoxide leaking into the trunk. He wasn’t sure when the car stopped to pick up Wilburn Fendley, but he could hear his kidnappers discussing where to dump his body.

Collier had been trapped in the trunk for fourteen hours before his rescue. He’d been driven around for so long he believed they’d left the state. In reality, when police intercepted the car, it was just ten miles from the bar where he’d been attacked. Strangely, his kidnappers appeared to have been driving in circles.

After his rescue, Collier thanked Winne and Ayres, telling Ayres, “I’d done made my peace, or was trying to.”

Conclusion

The fate of Joseph Fendley and Robin Green (also known as Robin Lowery) remains unclear. There is no public record of any charges brought against them.

The judge dropped the charges against Wilburn Fendley, as he had joined Green and Fendley after Collier had already been robbed and placed in the trunk. Why he was in the car at all, however, remains a mystery.

Mark Winne went on to have a long career in journalism and is now a veteran investigative reporter at WSB-TV in Atlanta. Jerry Ayres and Garland Reeves have both retired from The Birmingham News.

It is believed that Gary Collier died in 1989.

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Sources

AL.Com. Hand in Trunk; Incredible Story of 1979 Kidnapping and Rescue Caught on Camera. March 30, 2016. Updated May 06, 2019.

New York Times. Waggling Hand in a Car Leads to Arrest of Three. May 7, 1979.