Woman who shot Uber driver and claimed she thought she was being kidnapped charged with murder

A Kentucky woman accused of shooting an Uber driver in the back of the head on June 16 in El Paso, Texas, claiming that she thought he was kidnapping her to Mexico, has been charged with murder now that the driver has died.

Phoebe Copas, 48, of Tompkinsville, KY was taking an Uber driven by 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia. According to the El Paso PD, a preliminary investigation found that Copas was going to El Paso's Mission Valley, but at some point along the way, she believed she was being taken into Mexico because she allegedly saw signs for "Juarez Mexico, which is across the border from El Paso.

So thinking she was being kidnapped, rather than asking to get out of the vehicle to see whether or not her assumption was correct, she instead retrieved a handgun from her purse and shot Mr. Piedra in the back of the head.

The vehicle then crashed into barriers along a freeway, nowhere near any port of entry into Mexico. 

In a news release, police said the investigation doesn't support a kidnapping was occurring and also showed that the Uber never went off track from the shooter's destination. In other words, it was clearly not an honest mistake.

Copas also shot a photo of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend, police said. She had just visited her boyfriend in El Paso at the time of the alleged execution.

Mr. Piedra was taken to an area hospital and kept on life support for several days but his family finally took him off life support after being told that he would not recover.

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 and bond was set at $1.5 million.

It never made sense to me why attempted murder doesn't carry the same penalties as murder. Just because someone is incompetent, doesn't mean that they should be lucky due to their incompetence.

In a statement to the El Paso Times, Piedra’s niece, Didi 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 because he was their sole provider and recently started working after being injured in a previous job.

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