Woman Charged With Fatally Shooting Uber Driver, Believing She Was Being Kidnapped to Mexico, Say Police
The suspect claims she panicked when she saw signs leading her to believe she was in Mexico
Ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft are generally very safe, with companies thoroughly vetting drivers and setting up rating systems for both drivers and passengers. However, over the years there have been incidents between riders and drivers, including sexual assault, kidnapping, and even murder. On June 16, Daniel Piedra, an Uber driver of just three weeks, was shot while driving a female passenger, who believed she was being kidnapped. This week the woman was charged with murder.
On June 16, Phoebe Copas, 48, of Tompkinsville, Ky booked an Uber ride via the app to a casino, where she was going to meet her boyfriend. Around 2 p.m., Piedra picked Copas up in his gray Nissan Maxima, and started driving toward the destination.
On the drive Copas saw a sign referring to the Mexican city of Juarez, seven miles across the border from El Paso. She reportedly believed that she was in Mexico and had been kidnapped.
Copas drew a "silver and brown handgun" from her purse. She shot the driver multiple times. He lost control of the vehicle and hit barriers before the car came to a stop. Copas then took photos of the driver and texted them to her boyfriend. She didn't call 911 prior to shooting him and waited until after texting the photos.
Authorities arrived at the scene around 2:20 p.m. Copa's boyfriend was there, helping her get out of the crushed car. When she got out, the police saw her "drop everything she was holding in her hands on the ground," including the gun. Piedra was slumped over the seat with multiple gunshot wounds to his head.
Investigators confirm that Piedra never deviated from the assigned route, "a normal route to drive to the destination requested by" the suspect, which is "not in close proximity of a bridge, port of entry or other area with immediate access to travel into Mexico."
When Piedra's family first heard about a driver being shot, "it never crossed our mind that it was going to be him," Didi Lopez, Piedra's niece, told The Washington Post. On Wednesday, after being told by the doctors that Piedra would remain on life support forever, they opted to let him go. "My aunt didn't want to see him suffer," she said. "But, honestly, we don't think that we made the decision to disconnect him. That decision was made for him the second that those bullets went into his head."
Initially, she was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a bail of $1 million. However, Piedra was taken off life support last week and Copas was then charged with murder, her bond increasing to $1.5 million.
