An Arizona man has been detained on suspicion of killing a female UberEats driver after police discovered a photo of him on the victim’s cellphone that was apparently taken just seconds before she was killed.
On June 11 in Glendale, Arizona, Rusty French, 62, is said to have killed retired teacher Pamela Rae Martinez, 60, in a road rage incident.
Martinez, a beloved mother and grandmother, had just completed her last UberEats delivery and was heading home when French halted his car in front of hers.
He was acting so strangely while in a van that Martinez, a mother and grandma, snapped a picture of him with her phone.
Later, he shot her and fled in his car.
Police have made assumptions about the killing’s potential connection to road rage, but they are unsure of its exact cause. They claim that Martinez had not been bringing French food and that French had no acquaintance with her.
Martinez was shot, and as her automobile went off the road to the side, paramedics had to get Martinez out of the driver’s seat.
Investigators discovered that the 60-year-old lady had been shot before she was subsequently declared dead in the hospital, and that the injuries she had had nothing to do with the minor vehicle accident.
The victim’s relatives expressed gratitude that she had the foresight to photograph her assailant before being shot.
Investigators later searched through her cell phone and discovered French’s picture, along with information on his car.
After being questioned, he admitted to being the man in the picture but said he had “blacked out” just before the picture was taken and had no memory of what happened afterwards.
After that, police discovered a pistol at his house that was identical to the murder weapon.
French is currently in jail and has been charged with murder.
Martinez’s family are grateful that she had the wherewithal to take a photo of the man before her death.
‘She solved her own homicide. I’m blessed that she did that.
If not, this would be even harder,’ her daughter Monique Daniels told local station 12 News.
Daniels told of how her mother was a health-and-fitness fanatic who’d only recently given up bodybuilding.
The grieving woman says her late mother was so healthy that she fully expected her to live well-past the age of 100.
