Residents of a Queens street where a man was found shot to death in a car said they noticed something wrong when they saw the vehicle parked strangely.
Police responding to a 911 call early Sunday morning found Mujibullah Ghulamhazrat, 32, slumped over in a Buick with California license plates along a street in Ozone Park.
Neighbors who lived nearby said the car was parked on 97th St. and 135th Rd., where it was seen sticking out into the intersection.
Residents said a man who lives in a house across the street walked over to check the car, and found the victim dead inside with a gunshot wound to the head.
The man also saw a bunch of envelopes strewn throughout the car, the neighbors said.
“There was a party. They were blowing fire crackers. You couldn’t tell the difference,” said neighbor Mildred Szarek, explaining how a gunshot’s sound could have been missed.
“My neighbor was the one that saw the car,” she said. “When he approached, that’s when he saw the guy and he called the cops. He said the guy was dead and just slouched to the side. Supposedly, he was shot in the back of the head.”
A resident who checked a doorbell camera said the car had only been parked there about 10 minutes before a shot was heard.
“It was parked, but it wasn’t pulled in all the way, and we all noticed,” another neighbor said of the Buick. “My neighbor walked over there and saw the guy in there. We figured it out with the cameras. At 12:53 the car wasn’t there and at 1:03 the car was there. So it happened between that time.”
Residents said the vehicle didn’t have any bullet holes in it or shattered windows.
“The car was pristine,” the woman said, “like a rental.”
Neighbors said cops were seen looking for a murder weapon. Residents said they saw police cutting open a grease trap outside a Chinese food restaurant located nearby on Linden Blvd.
“He wouldn’t open the lock for him, so they cut the grease trap open,” another neighbor said. “They got the bolt cutters. He just watched them. Why would you want your lock cut? Just open it for them.”
A friend of the victim said Ghulamhazrat worked in real estate in California.
“We don’t know what he was doing there. We heard about it,” the friend said. “I really got upset. I don’t know what he was doing there or how he died.
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