Elijah Newman

Elijah Newman, a 45-year-old Black man, was an immigrant from Ghana working to build a new life for his family. A devoted father to five children, one in the U.S. and four in Ghana, he had become a U.S. citizen in 2020. Newman worked long hours as a Lyft driver, hoping to save enough money to bring all his children to America and provide them with a successful future. In pursuit of this dream, he had moved to the St. Louis area just six weeks before he was killed.

On the night of April 15, 2021, shortly before 11 p.m., police responded to a call in the 1200 block of Peggy Court in the Baden neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. They discovered Newman inside his vehicle with a Lyft light affixed to the dashboard. He had suffered a gunshot wound to his torso and was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident was later described by a detective as a botched carjacking.

The investigation quickly connected the shooting to a series of recent carjackings that had targeted ride-hailing drivers in the surrounding area. Detectives traced a ride request made under a fake name to an email address and then to a cellphone belonging to 17-year-old Torian Wilson. After obtaining a warrant, police tracked the phone, which had pinged near the scene of the homicide.

Authorities located and arrested Wilson, finding him in possession of a handgun. Ballistic tests confirmed that a bullet casing found next to Newman’s body matched the weapon. During questioning, Wilson admitted to having been at the scene of the shooting. He was subsequently charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action.

In October 2023, Torian Wilson, then 19, pleaded guilty to the amended charges of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. He was sentenced to a total of 25 years in prison, receiving 22 years for the murder and a consecutive three-year sentence for the armed criminal action charge.

Following the killing, Lyft issued a statement expressing heartbreak over the incident and confirmed it had permanently removed the rider who requested the trip from its platform. A long-time friend of Newman’s expressed relief at the arrest but was left questioning why a young person would commit such a heinous act.