Uber Eats driver Randall Cooke was simply delivering an order. He was even at the proper address. Cooke never made it home to his family that night because he was brutally dismembered by a recently released prisoner. The only motive Pasco Sheriff’s Office can come up with for his “gruesome” murder is that Oscar Solis Jr. killed Cooke for the fun of it.
Food driver dismembered
As Washington Post reports, Uber Eats driver Randall Cooke was “making his last stop of the evening, and hoping to be back at his own home soon.” He never returned home at all. Instead, “he was killed and dismembered at a house in Pasco County.”
Police don’t have much to say about the crime other than that it was “horrific.” This remains a developing story and it still has some gaps.
A statement released by the Pasco Sheriff’s Office notes that they charged 30-year-old Oscar Solis Jr. with the “gruesome” murder of Randall Cooke, age 59. Reports suggest the delivery driver was “yanked” into “the Holiday home of parolee Oscar Solis while completing his last food delivery, on the night of April 19.”
Dear Joe 'crime family' Biden,
I was trying to make a living, working for Uber Eats, life was good. Until I delivered food to one of your 'foot soldiers'
Now I'm dead, dismembered/thrown in the trash by MS-13 gang member, Oscar Solis Jr. Thanks for having my six!
-Randall Cooke pic.twitter.com/ZF7cDxWFFP— TruthInBytes (@bytesintruth) April 26, 2023
This crime, sheriff Chris Nocco declared at a Tuesday news conference, “was demonic. What he did was demonic.” The suspect, a known MS-13 gang member, was fully tattooed up to properly fit that description.
Investigators determined that Cooke texted his wife at 6:43 p.m., “telling her he was nearby and wrapping up his shift. She never heard from him again, and reported him missing later that night.”
They were able to get their hands on surveillance footage. It clearly showed “Cooke delivering food to Solis’s house shortly after he messaged his wife.” The next day, “Solis and another individual” appear on the video “carrying trash bags out of the property and around the side of the house.” Detectives found the missing driver in those bags.
A horrible scene
Sheriff Nocco relates that “it was a horrible scene for them out there for several days. It was tough.” He wasn’t about to divulge “all of the grisly details in the case out of respect for the victim’s family.” Solis is definitely charged with “homicide committed during a robbery.” The sheriff also notes that “Solis is affiliated with notorious gang MS-13.”
What they learned of his past indicate he’s a “very violent individual.” He was Indiana’s problem until January. That’s when Indiana let him out on parole and he relocated to sunny Florida. It actually took a few days for police to find remains of the missing driver.
Uber gave the Florida missing person’s unit Mr. Cooke’s last known GPS coordinates April 20 and they banged on the door. “Police did not immediately find anything suspicious.” They “returned the next day and were given the video footage by Solis’s roommate.”
Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco did not name the Uber Eats driver who was killed, but Brittany Dzoba told the Tampa Bay Times that detectives told her it was her stepfather, Randall Cooke. https://t.co/KHM20UvFrq
— Tampa Bay Times (@TB_Times) April 25, 2023
After they watched the movie, they came back to check out the bags and found remains of the driver. Those were positively identified over the weekend. There was no connection at all between Solis and his victim beyond random chance.
“He was a guy just trying to make a living for his family,” the sheriff relates. “This person killed him for no reason and took him away from his family. You can never answer the ‘why.’”
When Uber heard of the tragedy they issued a statement noting they “have been in close contact with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office throughout their investigation and thank them for their dedication to this case.” They also note that every Uber trip is tracked. Users and their driver can also call “911 directly by using the app’s emergency button, found in the safety tool kit.” That didn’t help much, this time.
