‘She Asked for Him to Stop the Vehicle’: Kentucky Woman Charged with Fatal Shooting of Texas Uber Driver Out of Fear She Was Being Kidnapped Faints During Hearing, Postponing Trial

She says she was afraid she was being kidnapped. Visiting El Paso from out of state, Phoebe Copas booked an Uber to the Speaking Rock Entertainment Center, a popular South Texas casino. She never got there. Police found her on a well-traveled highway near the U.S.-Mexico border. When she got out of the Nissan Maxima, a brown and silver revolver fell to the pavement. The driver, Daniel Piedra Garcia, was slumped over in the front seat with a gunshot wound in the back of his head that was “bleeding profusely,” police said. He would not survive. Charged with murder, Copas’ much-delayed trial was set to begin with jury selection earlier this week, according to KFox14. She fainted during a pre-trial hearing on Dec. 9, the same day the trial was postponed because of unavailability of defense witnesses. The 50-year-old Kentucky woman has suffered a series of maladies, including heart failure, kidney complications and repeated spells in which she ends up unconscious, says her lawyer, Matthew James Kozik. Phoebe Copas (Photo: El Paso Police Department) The case against her seems improbable. Why would an attractive middle-aged woman in town on vacation shoot a stranger? Police say she acted irrationally. “(Copas) observed...