Video shows Ohio man confront Uber driver before fatal shootinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ut__kV3KEPolice say an Ohio man accused of murdering an Uber driver wrongly believed she was involved in an ongoing phone scam. WDTN's Grace Hewitt reports.
Story:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ohio-man-81-charged-fatal-shooting-uber-driver-mistakenly-thought-was-rcna147827An 81-year-old Ohio man has been charged in the fatal shooting of an Uber driver he believed was working with a scammer, according to officials who said the victim was sent to the home by the same scammer.
William Brock told investigators he shot Loletha Hall, 61, outside his home March 25 because he thought she was working with a man who called him pretending to be an officer at the local court, Lt. Kristopher Shultz of the Clark County Sheriff's Office said.
"Mr. Brock received some scam call by a person purporting to be someone from our courts who informed him a family member was incarcerated and that he had a bond of a significant amount of money," Shultz said. "The calls turned from 'I'm an officer in the court' to 'We have this subject hostage, this is a ransom demand.'"
The person who called Brock, or an accomplice, requested an Uber ride to his South Charleston home to pick up the money, Shultz said.
"Ms. Hall did not have any idea," he added.
This story disturbs me greatly. Both the old man and the Uber driver are victims but he should not have shot her when she was trying to get away from him. That's manslaughter at least, so he's finished.
However, these scam calls are real and terrifying for those who do not know any better. My elderly mom and dad were recipients of such a call last year from a scammer pretending to be my son, who was begging them for money to get out of jail (he wasn't, and was with me at the time), and insisted that they not contact me. My mom did, fortunately, but her panic was real, and she was more than ready to fork over a large amount of money to supposedly help her grandson. I told her to immediately report the call to the county sheriff, which she did. Naturally, the number was from overseas.
Another elderly friend of mine got taken by the same scam, when someone pretending to be his grandson called him and made the same claim. A courier actually came by his house to pick up the money but was long gone when he finally wised up and called the police. He lost several thousand dollars because he was not privy to any of these frauds and scams out there, not being a news junkie like us.
Now, with this story, somebody has finally been killed. I hope that they can catch the scammer who sent that Uber driver to her death and that old man to jail.
