An Uber driver admitted to murdering six strangers over the course of one day between rides. In a Kalamazoo, Michigan courtroom Monday, Jason Dalton, 48, told a judge: ‘I’ve wanted to do this for quite a while.’ Dalton admitted to shooting Tiana Carruthers, 25, in a parking lot on February 20, 2016 – then admitted to gunning down father and son Rich, 53, and Tyler Smith, 17, later that night in a different parking lot.
He then gunned down Mary Lou Nye, 62, Mary Jo Nye, 60, Dorothy “Judy” Brown, 74, and Barbara Hawthorne, 68, in a restaurant parking lot – where he also shot a 14-year-old girl who survived. In between killings, Dalton picked up other Uber fares who he did not kill.
Upon Dalton’s arrest, police quoted him saying a ‘devil figure’ on Uber’s app was controlling him the day of the shootings. In an interview with detectives, Dalton said the Uber app ‘literally took over his mind and body’ on February 20 when the color of the app’s symbol changed from red to black. He said the apps symbol changed colors when he spoke the name of the Eastern Star symbol – which is a symbol female Masonic organization that represents God on earth.
In court, Dalton answered ‘yes’ to a series of questions, admitting that he shot eight people, six of which died, at three locations in February 2016. Dalton used a 9mm handgun in she shootings, according to Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Getting. Authorities later searched Dalton’s home and found a cache of long guns and hand guns