Posted on 04/14/2024 9:25:16 AM PDT by Round Earther
SOUTH CHARLESTON, Ohio (WCMH) — Deputies in Clark County have arrested a man in his 80s accused of murdering an Uber driver while both were being targeted by a “scam call.”
William Brock, 81, faces a felony charge of murder with additional counts possible, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators accused him of shooting Lo-Letha Hall multiple times on March 25 after she went to his house on an Uber assignment.
Investigators first came to Brock’s property, about four miles west of South Charleston in Clark County, when he called them and said he shot someone attempting a robbery. The sheriff’s office said when deputies and multiple other agencies arrived, they found Hall on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds, and Brock with injuries to his head and an ear.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbc4i.com ...
Since this is an NBC affiliate report, I will reserve judgement until we know all the facts.
What we do know is:
1.Mr Brock behaved recklessly w/a firearm and showed overall poor judgement
2. The ultimate victim appears to be totally innocent
3. The scammer(s) are greatly responsible for this chain of events
What we don’t know:
1. What was/is Brock’s mental state?
2. How did Brock receive the injuries to his head and ear (which are cited but left totally unexplained) and did those injuries occur before or after the first shot was fired?
If he had a Magic Blue Costume, NO charges would be filed.
They should hand that responsibility over to the sleuths on YouTube who routinely hack phone scammers in India and discover their identities. They even hack into the facility cameras and show their reactions when the scammers discover their target knows their names.
Sadly, law enforcement can’t do the same things. Legal boundaries.
Scammers probably told him the driver was their accomplice.
Or he told the scammer he was going to pay in the belief he could trap the scammer, but he, probably not knowing much about today’s services, failed to consider that the scammer could send some unwitting soul to his house instead of showing up in person to get the money.
Like in the SWATting pranks, where the SWAT teams have no idea the call is a hoax, she had no way to know she was sent by a scammer or would receive a hostile reception.
Nor should it. He'll spend the rest of his life in jail, as he should.
The scammer did not pull the trigger of that handgun.
..., and force her to reveal the identity of “her accomplices”. Maybe he’s watched too many old cop movies and wanted to solve this crime himself.
= = =
Maybe he is just fed up with the state of things today, and finally here is a person-person contact to respond to (with way too much force).
Was it SC had the case where a young black man asked/insisted on an old white man giving him a ride in a truck; the old man said no rather strongly; the young man shot him because “he was afraid” and got off for murder, not guilty. SC has a weird murder law.
He was told someone would come to get the money and they sent an Uber driver. He naturally thought she was part of the scam. He is probably guilty. However, part of the problem is they let these people pull these scams from India or Nigeria or whatever.
I hope they extradite the scammers for felony murder from India or where ever, like they did those Nigerians who caused the 17-year-old kid to commit suicide.
First off, the police need to investigate the driver’s past pickups and locations to see if any match other scammer-victim residences. THEN, proceed with the case as “driver-not-part-of-scam.”
“First off, the police need to investigate the driver’s past pickups and locations to see if any match other scammer-victim residences.”
There would be no sure way to get your selected driver to be assigned a pick-up. With Uber, a customer requests a vehicle, and a random driver can select the the trip.
If it were the case that the scammer and driver were working together, why use the Uber platform as a middle-man?
It was just a thought.
“ This will not end well for him.”
***********************************
And it shouldn’t. What the hell was he thinking.
Clearly, with a murder, every angle should be investigated.
With a scam like this, you would want as few people as necessary knowingly involved.
In this case, there are two murderers and the two perps have never met.
I understand. Thanks for the information about Uber’s protocols.... I just thought I remembered a youtube video from a famous scammer-scammer who’d run across a fishy Uber connection. But thinking back on it, the Uber driver wasn’t a normally-dispatched driver.... Hell, I’m old and forgetful now - who knows?
If she’d been a scammer with a gun, she would’ve had it on her person, not in her car. That was a huge clue, if only he had taken it, that she was just trying to leave. Now he’s a second-degree murderer. All he had to do was call the police and not open the door since he knew a scammer was involved. Better still, he didn’t even have to answer the phone call. The guy on the other end would’ve just called someone else. I don’t answer my phone without checking the caller’s ID.
The package app needs to add some sort of double-check on pickups, if scammers are using innocent people for their crimes.
At age 81, that could be a factor for the shooting.
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