NEW YORK – The hapless hijackers who stole a loaded FedEx truck and kidnapped its driver — only to abandon both after they were unable to get at the locked-up loot — told their captive stories about their supposed lives in Albania and stopped for pizza during an odd five-hour odyssey, the driver said.
Forced to ride face-down and handcuffed in a sport utility vehicle with a gun to the back of his head, "I kept saying to myself, 'If they're going to kill me, I hope it's fast and doesn't hurt," Robert McGarry said Saturday, a day after he was released on a Brooklyn street. "It was a nightmare."
Police said Sunday no arrests had been made in the case.
McGarry, 47, said he was ambushed shortly after driving out of a FedEx facility on Manhattan's West Side around 8:30 p.m. Thursday. A swerving SUV cut him off on 11th Avenue, and one of the hijackers leaped out, rammed a gun against the FedEx truck window, flashed a badge and yelled "police," McGarry said.
Two forced him into the SUV while a third drove off in his delivery truck. McGarry's captors drove him through the city, one threatening him while the other struck a more congenial, calming tone, he said.
The 18-wheeler was laden with holiday shipments, but the thieves weren't able to get at them. They let the driver go at about 1:30 a.m. Friday in the Williamsburg neighborhood. He said the robbers gave him $60 so he could get back to Manhattan; instead, he quickly waved down a police car.
The truck was found abandoned, its contents still locked in metal air freight containers, at about 5:30 a.m. in nearby Greenpoint, police said.
Representatives for Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx Corp. said no packages were missing.
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