An MS-13 gang member has been charged with murder in the slaying and dismemberment of an Uber Eats driver who had brought a food order to his house in Pasco County, Florida, police said Tuesday.
On April 19, just before 7 p.m., Uber Eats driver Randall Cooke was making his final delivery of the day when he arrived at the home of Oscar Solis, a convicted MS-13 gang member.
Solis tried to rob Cooke, and then murdered and dismembered the man in an attempt to conceal the victim’s remains, police said.
“I don’t want to get into how gruesome this case was,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said at a press conference, where he described the killer’s actions as “demonic.”
Adding to the horrific nature of the case is the absence of a motive, as the two men appear to not have known each other.
“All it appears to be is that there was a gentleman who was working,” Nocco said, “and this person killed him for no reason. And he took him away from his family.”
While on his way to Solis’s house, Cooke texted his wife to tell her he would be home soon. Cooke never made it, however. When his wife was unable to reach him, she contacted the police, who reported him missing the next day.
Investigators reached out to Uber Eats, who provided Cooke’s last GPS coordinates. A police patrol was sent to Solis’s house, but no one answered the door and nothing seemed suspicious, so they left.
The next day, on April 21, deputies went back to the house where they were able to make contact with a roommate of the suspect, who had been out the night of the murder. The roommate gave police the house’s video surveillance footage from the previous days.
The recordings showed Cooke arriving at the house on April 19, but the video was cut off before the door opened.
Footage of the following day shows two men, one of them Solis, carrying trash bags to the side of the house.
“Unfortunately, what we found inside some of those trash bags were human remains,” Nocco said.
Solis, who was paroled just months ago after serving four years in an Indiana jail for assault and burglary, was immediately arrested for parole violation and failing to register as a felon in Pasco County.
In the meantime, investigators began preparing murder charges in cooperation with the State Attorney’s office.
During the investigation, Cooke’s car was found abandoned nearby. It contained a trash bag filled with blood-soaked rags and towels. The victim’s car keys and wedding ring were found inside Solis’s house.
Solis now faces felony murder charges in conjunction with a robbery.
Solis, whose extensive rap sheet includes battery, resisting arrest, and a charge for stabbing a fellow inmate in prison, moved to Florida in January to live near his father. According to the affidavit, the 6-foot-4, 315-pound gang member was working as a security guard at a strip club.
“You’re talking about a very violent individual that Indiana released and sent down to Florida,” Sheriff Nocco added. “They released him on parole. Unfortunately, now we have a hardworking guy, a loving husband, who is no longer with us because this violent individual killed him.”
The police asked two young people seen leaving the house an hour before the homicide to come forward.
According to a GoFundMe page launched by friends, Cooke had two stepdaughters and was the household’s main breadwinner.
