WORCESTER, MASS. (WHDH) - A man is facing criminal charges after police say he strangled a taxi driver in Worcester on Wednesday morning before robbing and carjacking him at knifepoint.
Jeffrey Packard, 32, of Douglas, is slated to be arraigned Wednesday on charges including carjacking, armed assault to rob, armed robbery, assault and battery, larceny of a motor vehicle, and use of a motor vehicle without authority, according to the Worcester Police Department.
Officers responding to a report of an armed carjacking in the area of 383 Shrewsbury St. around 8:30 a.m. spoke with witnesses who said that the cab driver, Naveen Nayyar, had picked up a man on Belmont Street prior to the alleged incident.
While the cab was traveling on Shrewsbury Street, police say Packard strangled Nayyar from behind, punched him in the face, brandished what appeared to be a knife, robbed him, and forced him out of the vehicle in the area of Imperial Place.
“He grabbed my neck and he hit me. He said, ‘Give me all your monies,” Nayyar said.
That is when he says Packard told him to pull over.
“He said, ‘Come out the car. I come out of the car and I hit the guy. He hit me also. He took my car and drove away very fast,” Nayyar explained.
With just one shoe on his foot, Nayyar said he was able to flag down a passerby who helped him call the police.
The taxi was found abandoned a short time later at Honey Farms.
Packard was then taken into custody just before 9 a.m. after officers caught him driving in another stolen vehicle.
An investigation remains ongoing.
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