Macon bandit who crammed victim in car trunk before high-speed chase pleads guilty

A 28-year-old Macon man who earlier this year helped rob his girlfriend’s ex-lover, and in the process taped the victim up and forced him into the trunk of a car, pleaded guilty Tuesday.

Raul Sanchez-Gonzalez was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the armed robbery and kidnapping of 21-year-old Cody Berkner of Jones County.

In Bibb County Superior Court on Tuesday, prosecutor Sandra Matson said Sanchez-Gonzalez and his girlfriend, India Summers, lured Berkner to the Rodeway Inn on Romeiser Road in west Macon the night of March 12.

When Berkner showed up at Room 106, Sanchez-Gonzalez emerged from the bathroom, ordered Berkner to the floor, demanded money and tied him up with blue painter’s tape, later forcing him into the trunk of Berkner’s 2001 Toyota Celica.

Bibb sheriff’s deputy Michael Dorough spotted the car and noticed it had a blown taillight, but when he tried to stop the car it sped away with Summers at the wheel, Matson said.

The ensuing chase stretched from the Hartley Bridge Road area up Interstate 475 and back to the Eisenhower Parkway area where deputies found Berkner in the trunk. He said he had been there for more than half an hour.

“The victim ... was scared to death,” Matson said. “He still to this day is scared to death. ... He really thought he was gonna lose his life that night.”

Summers, being held on a $44,200 bond, remains in the Bibb jail on charges similar to those Sanchez Gonzalez faced.

This story was originally published September 4, 2018 at 4:25 PM.