Police found a dead woman in the trunk of a car during a traffic stop near the Queens-Long Island border early Wednesday — and now four men are in custody, authorities said.
The bizarre series of events unfolded around 1:50 a.m. when police saw the men emerge near an empty, weeded lot on Foam Place near Smith Place in Far Rockaway with something wrapped in a blanket.
A law enforcement source said the area was already under surveillance for possible ties to the MS-13 gang.
The suspects put the parcel in the trunk of a vehicle and drove off toward Long Island, with the cops in close pursuit.
The officers tailed the car for about a mile before pulling it over on Nassau Expressway and Bayview Ave. in Inwood. When they opened the trunk, they found a dead woman wrapped in the blanket, police said. The woman had no identification, a source said.
The four men were taken into custody. No charges have been filed.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the arrests in a statement Wednesday, and noted they were the result of a “long-term investigation into certain acts of violence in the Queens, New York area.”
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, in a separate TV interview Wednesday, called the case “an extremely active investigation” and added that the NYPD was working with “federal partners.”
Neighbors in Far Rockaway said the overgrown lot often drew people who slept in dumpsters, drank and did drugs.
“I called 311 and complained. It’s just middle-aged men, like 45, 50-year-old men. They drink, they play music. Every time I come and lock up the section, they open it with tools,” said Israel Ferrer, 53, the longtime custodian of the strip mall bordering the lot.
“It’s hard to keep control with these guys. They’re a little raggedy. They go around, they make a few bucks, they get free food and they go back there and drink,” Ferrer said.
The custodian recalled that one of the men was found dead in a dumpster over the winter. Last year, Ferrer said he found a machete.
“It was weird, because it was in the corner,” he said. “And I said, ‘This is somebody with bad intentions.'”
Maria Garcia, 62, who lives a few blocks away, said news of the woman’s death was unsettling.
“It’s scary to walk past there at night,” she said in Spanish about the empty lot. “You don’t know if there are people sleeping there or what.”
