Uber Eats Driver Eaten
Washington Post
Uber Eats employee Randall Cooke was making his last stop of the evening, and hoping to be back at his own home soon. But the delivery driver never returned to his family — instead, he was killed and dismembered at a house in Pasco County — in what police called “a horrific crime.”
The Pasco Sheriff’s Office described the case as “gruesome” and said they had charged Oscar Solis Jr., 30, with the killing. “This was demonic. What he did was demonic,” Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a news conference Tuesday.
Cooke was last heard from on the evening of April 19 at around 6.43 p.m., police said, when he texted his wife telling her he was nearby and wrapping up his shift. She never heard from him again and reported him missing later that night.
Police said surveillance footage showed Cooke delivering food to Solis’s house shortly after he messaged his wife, while footage from the next day showed Solis and another individual carrying trash bags out of the property and around the side of the house.
Detectives eventually located and searched several of the bags, and found human remains inside.
“It was a horrible scene for them out there for several days,” Nocco said of the investigators confronted with the aftermath of the killing. “It was tough.”
Nocco said he would not divulge all of the grisly details in the case out of respect for the victim’s family.
Police said they had charged Solis with homicide committed during a robbery. Solis is affiliated with the notorious gang MS-13, Nocco said, adding that details from his past paint a picture of a “very violent individual.” Solis moved to Florida in January and was out on parole for charges in Indiana.
The investigation took a few days. Detectives had arrived at Solis’s home on April 20, after Uber provided investigators from the state’s missing person’s unit with the last known GPS coordinates of Cooke, Nocco said. Police did not immediately find anything suspicious, but returned the next day and were given the video footage by Solis’s roommate and located the bags containing the remains.
The remains were identified over the weekend, and the case ruled a homicide.
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There did not appear to be any relationship between Solis and the victim, who also delivered for DoorDash, police said.
“He was a guy just trying to make a living for his family,” Nocco said, adding that Cooke’s wedding ring and car keys had been found at the property. “This person killed him for no reason and took him away from his family,” Nocco said. “You can never answer the ‘why.’”
Cooke’s stepdaughter, Brittany Dzoba, told Fox 35 that he and her mother had recently moved to Pasco County to enjoy retirement and be closer to the water. Cooke began work as a delivery driver to help finance the couple’s dream of living by the beach, Dzoba said.
“They shared so many amazing memories together,” Dzoba said of her mother and stepdad. “What is the motive?” she asked through tears.
The case has served to highlight the risks delivery drivers can face when arriving at strangers' properties. Earlier this month, a South Florida man shot the car of a 19-year-old Instacart delivery driver and his girlfriend when they mistakenly drove onto his property, police said. And last year, an Amazon delivery driver was found dead in Missouri after what police called a suspected dog attack.
Uber spokeswoman Sarah Casasnovas said in a statement the company was “heartbroken” at the news of Cooke’s death.
“There is no reason why Mr. Cooke shouldn’t be home with his family today, and we are keeping his loved ones in our thoughts,” the company said in a statement. “We have been in close contact with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office throughout their investigation and thank them for their dedication to this case.”
Every Uber trip is tracked, the company said, noting that users are able to reach 911 directly by using the app’s emergency button, found in the safety tool kit.
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