A woman has been charged with murder after shooting her Uber driver in West Texas, after mistakenly believing she was being kidnapped into Mexico, authorities said.
Phoebe Copas, 48, who is from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, was visiting her boyfriend in El Paso, Texas, when the driver was shot June 16. The El Paso Police Department said Copas shot 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia in the head while he was driving her to a location in far southeast El Paso.
According to a complaint affidavit, Copas saw traffic signs that read “Juarez, Mexico,” during her ride and falsely believed she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico. El Paso is on the U.S.-Mexico border across from Juarez.
El Paso Police officers initially arrested and charged Copas on suspicion of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. Copas was booked into the El Paso County Jail and remained jailed Sunday.
With Piedra’s death, the charge has been upgraded to murder, El Paso Police Department officials said. Copas’ bond is now set at $1.5 million.
Piedra picked up Copas at about 2 p.m. in a gray Nissan Maxima and was driving her to meet with her boyfriend, the affidavit says.
As they drove on U.S. 54 southbound in South-Central El Paso, Copas saw traffic signs that showed the words “Juarez, Mexico.” That led her to believe Piedra was trying to kidnap her and take her across the border, the affidavit says.
Copas is accused of grabbing a silver and brown handgun from her purse and shooting Piedra in the back right side of his head, according to the affidavit. The vehicle crashed into roadway barriers before coming to a stop on the freeway.
The area where the car crashed was “not in close proximity of a bridge, port of entry or other area with immediate access to travel into Mexico,” the affidavit says. “The roadway (Copas) was traveling on is a normal route to drive to the destination requested.”
Before calling 911, police say, Copas took a photo of Piedra after he was shot and sent it to her boyfriend via text message. Officers arrived at the scene and saw Copas being helped out of the car by her boyfriend.
Copas then dropped everything she was holding in her hands to the ground, including a brown and silver handgun, the affidavit says. Officers found Piedra slumped in the driver’s seat.
Copas was detained as police investigated the shooting. Piedra was taken to the University Medical Centre of El Paso for treatment.
Piedra was hospitalized for several days before his family took him off life support after doctors told them he would not recover. The decision devastated the family, Piedra’s niece Didi Lopez said.
“His status was not going to change if we did not disconnect him,” Lopez said. “It was basically just going to be like in a vegetative state. We didn’t want to see him suffering. We didn’t want him to live out his life like that.
“It was hard because we wanted him to, of course, wake up and continue living his life, but we basically didn’t make the decision. The decision was made for us and for him the second that those bullets went inside of his head.”
