Loletha Hall, 61, an Uber driver, is dead after William Brock, 81, an Ohio citizen, is accused of shooting her three times in front of his house. Both of them were the victims of a hoax call, which authorities claim sent Hall unintentionally to her death and resulted in a murder case for Brock.
Following an investigation into the incident that had happened a little more than a week earlier, Brock turned himself in to the police on April 10 and was charged with felony murder in the first degree, according to a statement.
Police said Brock might still be charged with further offenses.
The tragedy started on March 25 at approximately 11:18 a.m., when Hall—whose son claims she has driven for Uber for almost ten years—arrived at Brock’s South Charleston residence. According to the police, the woman was unarmed and posed “no threats or assault.”
A dashcam inside Hall’s Acura captures her driving up to Brock’s house, stepping out, interacting with him, and then making an attempt to flee. But Brock was there behind her, aiming his.22 pistol at her and, at one point, removing her phone so she was unable to make any outgoing calls.
According to the police and prosecutors, Hall had simply been at Brock’s residence in response to an Uber assignment to pick up a box.
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Hall believed the assignment to be valid, but the police disagreed. Officers would subsequently ascertain that the same caller, or their accomplice, had called Brock earlier that morning and had begun pushing him fraudulently for money in an attempt to swindle him about an already-incarcerated relative.
“Ms. Hall, unfamiliar with the circumstances which had occurred, arrived and made contact with Mr. Brock,” as per an incident report.
Police said that Hall inquired Brock about the goods she was supposed to pick up, but she did not make any demands of him. At that point, Brock grabbed her phone and wouldn’t let her go, demanding to know who she was.
According to a statement from the sheriff’s office, Brock “made no attempts to summon help or call 911 for assistance” during the incident.
“Ms. Hall attempted to re-enter her vehicle to leave the property and escape, during which time she was shot by Mr. Brock, and Mr. Brock was injured in the subsequent scuffle at the door of Ms. Hall’s vehicle. Further exchange took place between them, after which Mr. Brock shot Ms. Hall again, and after further exchange, shot her again a third, separate, time,” as incident report stated.
Only then did Brock make the 911 call.
According to a police description of that 911 call, Brock informed the authorities that “some Black woman” had approached his home and that he had been the target of “threatening phone calls all morning.”
Clutching at the revolver still in his hand, Brock told dispatch that just as the man on the phone was threatening to kill him, Hall knocked on his door.
Brock informed the dispatcher that he didn’t think the man on the phone had a “drone” on him or was planning to kill his family.
However, the police claimed that Brock acknowledged shooting Hall that day when dispatch questioned. Brock then claimed to have shot the woman twice, once in the shoulder and once in her leg. Afterwards, the police found that she had been shot three times in total.
Additionally, according to investigators, he had head and ear injuries.
The Clark County Sheriff’s office is currently looking into the scam calls that are bothering citizens of Ohio, and they want to make it clear that no government or law enforcement organization will ever try to get money from someone in this way or collect bail. Senior citizens in Ohio are especially advised to exercise extreme caution, they said.
