PONTIAC, Mich. – A man has been sentenced in the murder of a Lyft driver who was shot in the back of the head in Oakland County by a passenger riding in the back seat of her car, officials said.
What happened
Deputies were called around 5:15 a.m. Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, 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.
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.
19-year-old arrested
During a search near South Merrimac Street and Hollywood Avenue, officials said they found evidence that linked Kemarrie Davion Phillips, then 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 originally charged with open murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Sentencing
On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, Phillips, was sentenced as part of a plea deal in the case.
Phillips pleaded no contest to one count of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16-60 years in prison.
He will turn 21 years old on June 27, 2024.
‘She was a mother’
May-Terrell’s ex-husband, Johnny Terrell Jr., spoke in October 2022 about the mother of three and a grandmother of three.
“She wasn’t just a Lyft driver,” he said. “She was a mother. She was a grandmother. She was an aunt. She was a sister.
“Right now, my sons are inconsolable. 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.”