An elderly Ohio man who was scammed into fatally shooting a female Uber driver at his home is now expected to die in prison.
William Brock, 83, was accused of gunning down Lo-Letha Toland-Hall, 61, in March 2024 in suburban Columbus after mistakenly believing that she was a fraudster attempting to rob him.
Brock was sentenced Monday to 21 years to life by Clark County Common Pleas Judge Douglas M. Rastatter.
A jury convicted him on all charges, including felony murder, felonious assault and kidnapping, according to the Springfield News-Sun.
Toland-Hall was also an unwitting victim when she was dispatched to Brock’s South Charleston home through the Uber app that morning to supposedly ‘pick up a package,’ authorities said.
Dashcam footage from her vehicle showed Brock pointing a pistol at her when she arrived.
A struggle followed, during which Brock shot Toland-Hall at least three times, striking her in the upper left torso, left thigh, inside her left knee and the center of her sternum.
The scammers behind Toland-Hall’s death have still not been found.
In this image taken from dashcam video released by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, William Brock can be seen pointing a pistol at Uber driver Lo-Letha Toland-Hall, 61
Brock, 83, was sentenced Monday to 21 years to life. He had pleaded not guilty to charges, including felony murder, felonious assault and kidnapping
Brock had pleaded not guilty to the charges and previously told police that scammers demanded $12,000 while threatening to kill him and his family.
The senior’s sentencing had been scheduled for last Friday but was delayed after one of his defense attorneys fainted during the hearing.
He was sentenced to 15 years to life for murder, with six additional years for firearms specifications served consecutively.
A haunting 911 call after the fatal shooting captured Brock explaining how he had been flooded with threatening calls before Toland-Hall arrived.
‘He was telling me he was going to kill me, my family and everybody else,’ Brock said about the scammers.
Toland-Hall was unaware the older man was being targeted and believed the Uber job to be legitimate, police said.
When the mother of one arrived to collect the supposed package, Brock pulled out a .22 caliber revolver and demanded that she identify who had sent her.
He allegedly took her phone and prevented her from leaving before an altercation broke out and shots were fired.
Brock told law enforcement that scammers had demanded $12,000 while threatening to kill him and his family
Toland-Hall attempted to flee back to her vehicle as Brock shot at her, with her screams audible as he threatened to ‘shoot the other leg.’
Brock claimed that after he fired the first shot, Toland-Hall attacked him by slamming his head into her car door.
He said he shot her again as she tried to escape because he believed she was about to retrieve a weapon of her own.
Toland-Hall was rushed to hospital, where she later died during surgery.
Brock told deputies – ‘without being asked’ – that Hall was there to ‘take [his] money’ and that ‘he didn’t want to shoot her but he thought she was going to kill him,’ the incident report said.
Body camera footage captured his interaction with police following the fatal shooting.
He said he had been on the phone for ‘a couple of hours’ with a man claiming to have a nephew in jail who needed bond money.
‘I’ve been on the phone for a couple of hours with this guy trying to say I had a nephew in jail, had a wreck in Charleston, and just kept hanging on and needing bond money,’ Brock said.
Brock told officers that ‘he didn’t want to shoot her but he thought she was going to kill him,’ according to the incident report
Toland-Hall did not know that Hall was being scammed and thought the Uber job she accepted before her death was genuine
Brock’s self-defense claim fell apart because Toland-Hall was defenseless, even if both were victims of the scam.
Toland-Hall made no demands and only asked Brock about the package she was supposed to pick up, according to police.
Prosecutors said that the innocent Uber driver was gunned down despite the fact that she ‘presented no harm or immediate danger’ to Brock.
‘Objectively, a reasonable person would not shoot a defenseless woman multiple times to protect themselves from words of a scammer,’ Clark County assistant prosecutor Kadawni Scott told the court.
She added: ‘The act doesn’t justify the act of taking a life of another, because words scared him?’
Clark County prosecutor Daniel Driscoll also said that there were ‘no winners’ in the legal case.
‘The really sad part about this is that we know that the scammers – the folks who started this – haven’t been brought to justice,’ he said. ‘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.’
