83-Year-Old Man Convicted of Killing Uber Driver Who He Wrongly Believed Was Scamming Him By Charlotte Phillipp

An 83-year-old man in Ohio has been convicted of murder after he fatally shot an Uber driver whom he wrongly thought was trying to scam him.

According to the Associated Press and USA Today, William J. Brock was convicted on Wednesday, Jan. 14, in the murder of 61-year-old Lo-Letha Toland-Hall.

Brock shot Toland-Hall six times after she arrived at his home in the Columbus suburb of South Charleston, Ohio, on March 25, 2024.

Authorities said that Brock incorrectly assumed she was involved in a scam phone call plot, in which he was duped into withdrawing $12,000 bond money for a relative.

Toland-Hall drove to Brock’s home to pick up a package for delivery, investigators said, and he opened fire once she arrived.

According to AP, Brock’s defense attorney said during his trial that the 83-year-old had received a phone call that morning from a person who claimed to be a lawyer for his friend’s grandson, saying that he needed $12,000 cash for bail after he was involved in a crash that killed a pregnant woman.

Brock got the cash, and the scammer instructed him to deliver the money in a package to the driver of the car in his driveway, according to a civil lawsuit filed by Toland-Hall’s estate, which was obtained by USA Today.

During other phone calls with scammers, Brock also spoke with someone claiming to be a judge, as well as a person claiming to be his grandson.

Investigators later found that Toland-Hall was hired via the Uber app by the scammer or an accomplice to pick up a package from Brock, according to the suit.

When Toland-Hall arrived at his property, she exited her car and walked up to the door, attempting to explain to Brock that she was there to pick up a package and that she worked for Uber. Brock then threatened to shoot her in the head and held her at gunpoint as she tried to walk away, footage of the incident captured on Toland-Hall’s car dashcam shows.

Toland-Hall then said she was going to call 911, according to the civil suit, and Brock told her she would not leave before shooting her in the leg. The 83-year-old fired five more times before calling 911 himself to report the shooting.

Toland-Hall was taken to a local hospital, where she died from her wounds while in surgery, USA Today reported.

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“Both families have lost loved ones because of this, and there are no winners here,” Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll said after the verdict, per AP. “The really sad part about this is that we know that the scammers, the folks who started this, haven’t been brought to justice. And hopefully one day the FBI will bring those folks and we’ll be able to prosecute them right here in Clark County for what they did.”

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Brock is set to be sentenced on Jan. 21, according to court records reviewed by PEOPLE.

Toland-Hall’s estate filed the suit in March 2025, alleging that Brock and the unidentified scam callers are liable for her death.

In her obituary, Toland-Hall was remembered as a hard worker who retired from the Regional Income Tax Agency in Ohio, an avid gardener and cook, a faithful churchgoer, and a loving mom to her son Mario.