Family Mourns Dragging Victim's Death

Family photograph, at left, of Guido Salvador Carabajo-Jara; photograph, at right, of Carabajo-Jara's sister Rosa Carabajo being escorted into the house by her brother, Alfanso, by Frank Franklin II/AP

Guido Salvador Carabajo-Jara had turned 26 years old on Tuesday, but when he was crossing an Queens street on Wednesday morning, he was struck by a SUV and then dragged 20 miles into Brooklyn by a van. His sister, who lived with him and had seen TV news reports of a man being dragged from their neighborhood but didn't realize her brother was the victim, and cousin went to the morgue. Cousin Felix Jara said, "Then I saw the body; he looked like he was sleeping then I start crying."

His family, still shocked by his grisly death, said that Carabajo-Jara had worked in construction and as a handyman, sending money home to his wife and 4-year-old daughter in his native Ecuador every week. In fact, the police found a Western Union receipt his in pocket, because he had just sent $100, as well as a damaged iPhone. The NY Times reports, "The phone was damaged, so detectives removed its SIM card, which acts as its memory, and placed it into a working phone... Detective Richard Pavese began calling numbers from the victim’s contacts, leaving messages in Spanish and English. A cousin of the victim, Patricia Suarez, was the first to call back, around 9 p.m., the police said. By then, the detectives with the wire transfer receipt had also learned Mr. Carabajo’s name."

It may be impossible to know exactly when Carabajo-Jara died. When the van drove over him, its "skid plate" hooked into his sternum; by the time his body was discovered, the "backside was worn away, and parts of his clothing were missing," according to the Times. So far, the ME's office said he died of "multiple impact injuries." Another relative told Newsday, "This is very painful. The family is destroyed."