UPDATED: 01/08/19 1:15PM
A 48-year-old Michigan man who was charged with willing fix strangers in between Uber pick ups pleaded guilty to murder on Monday, January 7th, 2019. Jason Dalton’s decision to plead guilty comes three years after the shooting occured in Kalamazoo, Michigan and just before attorneys were set to interview jurors for his murder trial.
Dalton admitted that he shot eight people in three locations throughout Kalamazoo, killing four women in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel. Abigail Kopf, 14, was also shot in the restaurant’s parking lot, but the teen survived. Two more men who were looking at a pickup truck at a car dealership were also killed. Another woman was injured in a residential area.
Police said that Dalton blamed his actions on a “devil figure” on Uber’s app that was controlling him. Dalton did not say why he randomly shot 8 people when he plead guilty.
Despite his attorney’s objections, Dalton pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder. His attorney said that Dalton allegedly did not want to put his family or the families of the victims through a trial. The plea comes with a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance for parole beginning on February 5th, 2019.
