A woman fatally shot her taxi driver because she thought he had kidnapped her

A Kentucky woman is accused of fatally shot her Uber driver in West Texas, after mistakenly believing that her kidnapped her and was taking her to Mexico, according to police. The 48-year-old Phoebe Copas remained in jail Sunday in El Paso, Texas, after being charged last week in the killing of 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia.

The shootings took place at approximately 14:00 on June 16, as the driver was taking Copas to a location in southeast El Paso. Copas, of Tompkinsville, Kentucky, was in El Paso visiting her boyfriend, authorities said.

During the drive, Copas saw license plates that read “Juarez, Mexico,” according to the arrest affidavit. El Paso is located on the US-Mexico border across from Juarez.

Believing that he had kidnapped her and taken her to Mexico, Copas is accused of she grabbed the pistol from her purse and shot Piedra in the head. The vehicle driven by the unlucky 52-year-old crashed into barriers before coming to a stop on a highway.

The area where the car crashed “was not in close proximity to a bridge, port of entry or other area with direct access to travel to Mexico,” the police affidavit states. “The road Copas was traveling on is a normal route to get to her requested destination».

“The investigation does not suggest that a kidnapping took place or that Piedra deviated from Copas’ destination,” police said, according to the dailymail.co.uk.

The police claim that before calling 100, Copas took a photo of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend. When police arrived at the crime scene at about 2:20 p.m., they found Copas being helped out of the car by her boyfriend.