White Man Who Fatally Shot Black Woman Uber Driver In Ohio Convicted Of Murder
In April 2025, we reported on the tragic and senseless killing of 61-year-old Black woman Lo-Letha Hall, who was shot and killed by then-81-year-old William J. Brock, who held her at gunpoint, took her belongings, shot her when she tried to flee, and then shot her two more times as the two got into a physical struggle — all because he assumed she was part of a telephone scam she had nothing to do with.
On Wednesday, Brock was convicted of murder.
According to the Associated Press, Brock, now 83, was convicted of murder, felonious assault, and kidnapping, and is scheduled to be sentenced next week.
As we previously reported, Brock pleaded not guilty to the charges in 2024, and his attorney reportedly argued he shot Hall in self-defense, and the scammer had made threats against him and his family, which would be irrelevant, considering there was no evidence Hall was a scammer.
Here’s what NBC 4 Ohio reported in April 2024:
The sheriff’s office said when deputies and multiple other agencies arrived, they found Hall on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds, and Brock with injuries to his head and an ear.
Earlier, a male scammer had called Brock and told him one of his relatives was in jail. The scammer then threatened the 81-year-old man and demanded money. Simultaneously, that same scammer or an accomplice placed an order on the Uber app for Hall to pick up a package for delivery from Brock’s property. She wasn’t aware of the calls Brock had received when she arrived at his home, according to investigators.
The Uber driver was unarmed, did not make any threats or demands and did not attack Brock. Hall only approached Brock’s home and asked about the package she was sent to pick up through the app, the sheriff’s office said. In response, Brock pulled out a revolver and held her at gunpoint, demanding to know the identities of the scammers. He also took Hall’s phone to prevent her from making calls, and the sheriff’s office said Brock did not call 911 either.
When Hall tried to get in her car to get away, Brock shot her. During a struggle between the two at the car door, he shot her two more times, investigators noted. After this exchange, Brock called 911.
Even if it never occurred to Brock that maybe a random Uber driver wasn’t in on the alleged extortion call and was just doing her job, there was no reason to shoot an unarmed elderly woman who posed no threat to him, which is what prosecutors argued.
“The really sad part about this is that we know there are still criminals out there,” Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll told reporters after the verdict. “We know that the scammers, the folks who started this, haven’t been brought to justice.”
Still, the real moral of this story is that the white American fantasy of vigilante justice — “the very thing that arguably birthed the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse, George Zimmerman, and the three white men who participated in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery,” as I wrote previously — is getting people, most often Black people, killed, and the killers are far too seldom held accountable.
Fortunately, that appears not to be the case this time. Although we’ll have to wait for sentencing to be sure.
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