EL PASO, Texas (NewsNation) — A Kentucky woman accused of fatally shooting her West Texas Uber driver was charged with murder last week after the victim succumbed to his injuries, according to police.
Phoebe Copas, 48, remained jailed Sunday in El Paso, Texas, after being charged with murder last week in the death of 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia.
The shooting took place on June 16 as Piedra was driving Copas to a location in far southeast El Paso.
Piedra picked up Copas, who is from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, in a gray Nissan Maxima around 2 p.m., and was driving her to a location where she would meet up with her boyfriend who lived in El Paso, USA Today reported.
Copas claimed she believed she was being kidnapped by Garcia and taken to Mexico after she saw various traffic signs that read “Juarez, Mexico,” police said. El Paso is located on the U.S.-Mexico border across from Juarez.
Copas is accused of grabbing a handgun from her purse and shooting Piedra in the head, according to the affidavit. The vehicle crashed into barriers before coming to a stop on a 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,” according to the affidavit.
“The investigation does not support that a kidnapping took place or that Piedra was veering from Copas’ destination,” police said in a news release.
Police allege that before she called 911, Copas took a photo of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend.
As officers arrived at the scene around 2:20 p.m., police said they saw Copas’s boyfriend helping her out of the car, USA Today reported.
After getting out of the car, Copas dropped everything in her hands, including the brown and silver handgun, according to the affidavit reported by USA Today.
The report said officers discovered Piedras slumped over in the driver’s seat of the car.
Piedra was hospitalized for several days before his family took him off life support after doctors told them he would not recover.
“He was a hardworking man and really funny,” Piedra’s niece, Didi Lopez, told the El Paso Times. “He was never in a bad mood. He was always the one that, if he saw you in a bad mood, he’d come over and try to lift you up.”
Copas, who is being held on a $1.5 million bond, was originally charged with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. The charge was upgraded to murder after Piedra died.
A GoFundMe campaign set up by Piedra’s family said he was their sole provider and had only recently started working again after being injured in his previous job.
“I wish she would’ve spoken up, asked questions, not acted on impulse and made a reckless decision, because not only did she ruin our lives, but she ruined her life, too,” Lopez said. “We just want justice for him. That’s all we’re asking.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
