This story was originally published in 2016. We brought it back for the bizarre event’s 40th anniversary.

A hand sticking from the trunk of an old beat-up car tooling down the interstate turned a routine Saturday shift into a once-in-a-lifetime story for one young reporter and a veteran photographer nearly 37 years ago.

It also turned into a life-saving event for Gary O. Collier, the man attached to the hand.

Recently AL.com video producer Robert Clay contacted the reporter, photographer, and editor to relive the events of that day, which became legendary among journalists at The Birmingham News.

Based on Winne's stories at the time:

It was the morning of May 5, 1979 when the scanner in the newsroom at The Birmingham News began squawking reports from motorists that they had seen a hand sticking from the trunk of a car.

Mark Winne, an intern reporter, and veteran photographer Jerry Ayres set out to see if they could solve the mystery.

After a while, and just as the two had already given up hope of finding it, Winne spotted the beat-up beige Dodge travelling northbound on Interstate 20/59 in Ensley.

Winne was in the front passenger seat and Ayres was driving. They followed the Dodge through traffic moving northeast bound on the interstate. At one point Winne takes the wheel so Ayres can snap some photos of the Dodge and the hand sticking out through a crevice in the trunk.

The Dodge exited at the Airport Boulevard off-ramp as the driver of the Dodge, a woman, apparently realized they were being followed. The driver then began weaving through a neighborhood.

All the while Winne used their radio to tell their ever-changing location to on-duty editor Garland Reeves, who relayed the information to a Birmingham police dispatcher.

Police stopped the car and arrest three people - Joseph Fendley, 27, of Morris, his uncle Wilburn Fendley, 49, of Bessemer, and the driver, Robin Green, 24, of Birmingham. They also freed Collier from the trunk.

Collier said that he had met the three at a bar in Bessemer the night before. He said he was robbed of $350 from a disability check, was beaten, and stabbed with a screwdriver, and forced into the trunk.

As the three were driving around and he tried to fight to stay awake from the carbon monoxide, Collier said he was able to slip his hand through a gap in the rubber seal at the lip of the trunk and wave to motorists. During the 14 hours he was in the trunk Collier said he could hear people inside the car talking about where to dump his body.

"I'd done made my peace," Collier told Winne at the time, "or was trying to."

After his rescue from the trunk Collier thanked Winne and Ayres.

Charges against Wilburn Fendley were dismissed by a judge who found that he had joined the other two after the robbery had occurred and after Collier had been put in the trunk. Court records, however, do not show what happened to the charges against Joseph Findley and Robin Green.

Winne is a long-time investigative reporter at Channel 2 in Atlanta while Ayres and Reeves both have retired from The Birmingham News.

Updated at 7:50 a.m. to correct Winne's current TV station and position

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