Man arrested in ‘demonic’ murder and dismemberment of missing Uber Eats driver, investigators say

By Amy Simonson and Elizabeth Wolfe | CNN

An accused MS-13 gang member has been arrested in Holiday, Florida, and charged in what the sheriff described as a “demonic” murder of an Uber Eats delivery driver whose remains were found dismembered at the suspect’s home last week, according to investigators.

Oscar Solis, 30, a resident of the home where the driver made his final stop, was arrested and preliminarily charged Monday with murder while engaged in a robbery after investigators uncovered the victim’s remains in trash bags at the home, Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said in a news conference Tuesday.

“I’m not going to get into how gruesome this case was,” Nocco said Tuesday. “This individual is — what he did was demonic,” the sheriff later added.

Investigators believe Solis tried to rob the driver and ultimately killed him, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

CNN was not able to determine through online court records if Solis has legal representation. The sheriff said Solis is affiliated with MS-13, a violent criminal gang with international ties to drug and human trafficking.

The driver was not far from his own house last Wednesday night when he texted his wife to say he was making his final delivery and would be home soon, Nocco said. The sheriff declined to identify the victim, but an affidavit in the case identifies him as Randall William Cooke, 59.

That was the last time the wife would hear from her husband, who she reported missing later that night after he stopped replying to her texts and never came home, the sheriff said.

GPS data provided to detectives by Uber shows the driver’s last known location was Solis’ home in Holiday, Nocco said. Holiday is about 30 miles northwest of Tampa.

Motion-activated surveillance video from the home shows the driver at the door with a delivery bag at 6:56 p.m. — just minutes after he texted his wife — but the video then cuts off, according to a criminal complaint.

The next day, video from an additional home camera shows Solis and another person carrying trash bags around the side of the house, one of which appears heavy and needed to be dragged across the ground, the complaint said.

When investigators opened the trash bags at the home on Friday, they found what appeared to be human remains in two of the bags, the complaint said. A medical examiner later identified the remains as those of the driver, it said.

The bags also contained sweatpants appearing to be Solis’, which had been stuffed with remains, as well as apparently blood-stained clothing and a shirt appearing to be the victim’s which had several puncture marks in it, according to the document.

Investigators later found the victim’s wedding ring and car keys in the home, the sheriff said.

Also in the home, investigators observed what appeared to be blood on the doorway to Solis’ bedroom, as well as on the couch, sink, toilet, shower tiles and a mop, according to the complaint.

The victim’s car was found abandoned about a third of a mile from the suspect’s home, the complaint said. Inside, a detective found a trash bag containing rags and paper towels appearing to be stained with blood, a delivery bag similar to the one the victim was seen carrying in the surveillance footage and a time card with Solis’ name on it, the document said.

There is no known connection between the suspect and victim, Nocco said.

“All it appears is that there was a gentleman who was working, he was doing his last delivery of the night, and this person killed him for no reason, and he took him away from his family,” he said.

Solis had recently moved to Florida after being released from an Indiana prison in January following a more than four-year sentence for assault and burglary charges, the sheriff’s office said in the news release.

Solis was initially arrested Friday for violating his parole out of Indiana and failing to register in Florida as a convicted felon, Nocco said. The felony murder charge was added Monday after detectives gathered more evidence in the case.

“We are heartbroken by the news of this horrific crime,” a spokesperson for Uber said in a statement to CNN.

There is no reason why the victim “shouldn’t be home with his family today, and we are keeping his loved ones in our thoughts. We have been in close contact with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office throughout their investigation and thank them for their dedication to this case,” the statement said.

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