Phoebe Copas Kentucky woman charged with murder of El Paso, Texas Uber driver, Daniel Piedra Garcia after his family turn off life machine after passenger ‘impulsively’ fatally shot man after believing she was being kidnapped to Mexico.
A Kentucky woman has been charged with murder after an El Paso, Texas Uber driver who she shot earlier in the month succumbed to gunshot wounds after the woman said she shot the man after believing she was being kidnapped to Mexico.
On June 16, Phoebe Copas, 48, of Tompkinsville, KY, was in an Uber driven by 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia.
At the time the vehicle was making its way along El Paso’s Mission Valley, with the female passenger at some point believing herself being taken into Mexico.
‘Her instinct was to shoot him,’
According to an arrest affidavit, Copas began seeing signs to ‘Juarez, Mexico,’ which is located across the US-Mexico border from El Paso.
Fearing she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, the affidavit notes, Copas allegedly grabbed a handgun from her purse and shot Piedra in the head.
Piedra’s vehicle came to a stop after crashing into barriers on a freeway, though it was not close to a bridge or port of entry into Mexico.
Not immediately clear is what led to the woman believing she was being kidnapped by the Hispanic driver.
‘Her instinct was to shoot him,’ Piedra’s niece, Didi Lopez, told via the El Paso Times.
Adding, ‘What we were told originally was that the lady saw the sign on the freeway that said it was Mexico. So, she panicked and thought that my uncle was kidnapping her. And so her instinct was to shoot him and she shot him multiple times in the head.’
‘We want justice,’ Lopez said. ‘It wasn’t fair that that’s how the situation played out. I wish she would’ve spoken up, asked questions, not acted on impulse and make a reckless decision because not only did she ruin our lives, but she ruined her life, too. We just want justice for him. That’s all we’re asking.’
Family was told driver would never recover and would permanently be on life support
The El Paso Police Department said the investigation does not support that a kidnapping happened or that Piedra went off track from Copas’ destination.
Copas allegedly took a picture of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend, police said.
Copas was visiting her boyfriend in El Paso at the time of the shooting.
Piedra was taken to an area hospital and kept on life support for several days.
His family ultimately decided to take him off life support when doctors told them he would not recover and would have to be on permanent life support. They took the man off life support on Wednesday.
Copas was originally charged with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and held on $1 million bond.
Piedra died after being taken off life support, and Copas’ charges were upgraded to murder with bond set at $1.5 million.
Lopez described her uncle as a ‘hardworking’ and ‘really funny’ man.
‘He was never in a bad mood,’ she told the publication. ‘He was always the one that, if he saw you in a bad mood, he’d come over and try to lift you up.’
Piedra’s family set up a GoFundMe campaign on account of the man being their sole provider who had only recently started working after being injured in a previous job for Uber.
