PONTIAC, Mich. – A teenager has been charged with killing a Lyft driver in Oakland County by shooting her in the back of the head while riding in her car, officials said.
Deputies were called around 5:15 a.m. Friday (Oct. 21) to the corner of West Rundell Street and Putnam Avenue in Pontiac.
When they arrived, deputies found a gray Nissan on the curb, wedged between a utility pole and a street sign. They said Dina May-Terrell, 49, of Eastpointe, was sitting in the driver’s seat with a gunshot wound to her head.
She was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead.
“She wasn’t just a Lyft driver,” her ex-husband, Johnny Terrell Jr., said. “She was a mother. She was a grandmother. She was an Aunt. She was a sister.”
Detectives found May-Terrell’s cellphone, and the Lyft app was still running. There were directions leading from a Walmart in Rochester Hills to an address on the northeast side of Pontiac, and the ride hadn’t been completed, according to authorities.
During a search near South Merrimac Street and Hollywood Avenue, officials said they found evidence that linked Kemarrie Davion Phillips, 19, of Pontiac, to the crime.
Officials believe May-Terrell had been about seven miles into the drive and nearing the destination when Phillips pulled out a gun and fired it from the back seat, striking May-Terrell in the back of her head. The Nissan crashed into the utility pole, and Phillips fled, according to police.
He was taken into custody without incident and charged with open murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He’s being held without bond at the Oakland County Jail.
If convicted of open murder, Phillips faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
A probable cause conference at 50th District Court is scheduled for Nov. 3, and a preliminary examination is scheduled for Nov. 10.
Terrell Jr. said May-Terrell was a mother of three and a grandmother of three.
“Right now, my sons are inconsolable,” Terrell Jr. said. “They don’t want to speak. They just want to lay their mother to rest with respect, as well as the rest of her family.”