Man Leaves Car Wash To Later Find Stranger In His Trunk

MONTCLAIR (CBSLA.com) — He went to have his car washed and left with something a lot bigger than one of those little pine tree air fresheners.

Police say this is a first.

Chris Landerous, the man who was driving the car Thursday evening, tells CBS2's Brittney Hopper that he's laughing about it now. But when it was happening, it was pretty frightening.

"It was a trip. I didn't know what was going on," Landerous says.

On his ride home from the car wash, Landerous said he began hearing knocking coming from the trunk of the car.

Landerous got out of the car — and knocked back.

He heard a man's voice coming from the inside his trunk.

"I heard a little voice in there, and wasn't sure what it was, so I opened the trunk real quick and I saw a guy in there and then I just closed it real quick," Landerous says.

He admits he was startled and called 911. He left the stranger inside his trunk.

Landerous took cellphone video of the police showing up with guns drawn.

Police popped open the trunk, and the man came out.

The man told authorities he sneaked into the trunk at the car wash because he was running from someone and decided to hop into the vehicle to hide.

Landerous says he never thought this would happen, but now he will always check his trunk before driving.

"You just never know," he says.

Hopper reported that no charges were filed and no arrests were made.