UPDATE: Kidnapped Man Escapes Car Trunk in Tarrytown

This article, originally posted 5 p.m. Sept. 19, contains updates from 11 a.m., Sept. 20:

Tarrytown police charged a 27-year-old Bronx man with kidnapping and other felony offenses after his prisoner freed himself from the car trunk where he was being held captive.

The incident began just before 11 a.m. Thursday in the Bronx and ended around 11:22 a.m. in Tarrytown when a motorist on Neperan Road near the Lakes called local police. The driver told police he had been stopped by a man who said he had been kidnapped and just escaped from his abductor's trunk.

The victim, said Tarrytown Police Lt. William Herguth in a press release issued at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, is a livery car driver operating out of the Bronx. He had been assigned to drive someone from the Bronx to Manhattan.

Shortly into the trip, the man's passenger, Robert T. Mizell, allegedly pulled a revolver out and said he was going to rob the driver. Mizell allegedly demanded the man give him his money and cell phone.

The man then directed the driver to go north on the Saw Mill River Parkway and exit at exit 23.

Here Mizell allegedly stopped the car and at gunpoint ordered his captive to get into the trunk.

He continued driving along Neperan Road into Tarrytown where the victim was able to free himself from the trunk with an emergency release button when the car slowed.

Police said the man sustained minor injuries during his escape.

The car meanwhile had turned around and started heading east into Valhalla when Tarrytown police were able to stop it.

Mizell, of 609 Beach Avenue in the Bronx, was found with a loaded .38 caliber revolver and possessions of the livery car driver.

On Patch's Facebook page, Joanne Estacion said she was stuck in standstill traffic trying to get through the Tarrytown Lakes area, when she saw a white car surrounded by police vehicles near the parking lot at the entrance to the Saw Mill. "Glad they got him," she said.

Tarrytown police charged Mizell with:

• kidnapping in the second, a B-felony,
• criminal use of a firearm in the first, B-felony,
• criminal possession of a weapon in the second, C-felony,
• and, robbery in the first, B-felony.

Mizell was arraigned in Tarrytown on Sept. 19 and is being held without bail in Westchester County Jail in Valhalla with a village court date of Sept. 25.

While there were Greenburgh EMS and police vehicles as well as a Tarrytown Volunteer Ambulance Corps truck parked in front of the the Tarrytown police headquarters this afternoon, this evening there was a news van.