Inset left: Thomas Coy (Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office). Inset right: Jasmine Taylor (Obituary). Background: The rural Lawrence County, Missouri, road where Coy shot and killed Taylor (Google Maps).
A Missouri man could face decades behind bars after admitting he shot and killed an Amazon delivery driver last winter.
Thomas Coy, 65, pleaded guilty this week to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the February 2025 death of 23-year-old Jasmine Taylor.
The killing occurred on Lawrence County Road 2152 in rural Lawrence County, about 40 miles west of Springfield.
At about 4 p.m. on Feb. 5, 2025, an Amazon delivery truck crashed through a fence, according to a probable cause statement from the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office obtained by Springfield CBS affiliate KOLR and Osage Beach Fox affiliate KRBK, which jointly report as Ozarks First.
Taylor was driving the truck. Video Amazon provided to investigators showed her slumped over in the driver’s seat as the vehicle continued toward a driveway.
During questioning, Coy confessed and described additional details about the deadly encounter, investigators said.
“We have determined that, in fact, Mr. Coy saw the Amazon driver going down the road,” Lawrence County Sheriff Chris Berry said. “He then retreated back to his home, got his weapon, came back up and waited for the Amazon driver to come back by. And then that’s when he shot them.”
Coy then pulled Taylor from the delivery vehicle, dragged her down the road and left her in a ditch while she was still alive.
Taylor had been struck in the head by a pellet rifle, though authorities initially did not recognize that she had been shot, according to Joplin radio station KZRG. She was transported to Mercy Hospital Joplin, where doctors later notified law enforcement that they had found a projectile in her head.
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Taylor died on Feb. 9, 2025.
Coy was charged the day after that. He was initially arrested for assault, which was then upgraded to first-degree murder.
“It’s just really sad because there is no sense to what occurred whatsoever,” the sheriff said at the time. “It’s very emotional because of the senselessness of what occurred. It just makes no sense why someone could be so angry to do something like this.”
Authorities, however, speculated about a likely motive — though they kept mum about the specific reason for the violence.
“We have a motive, but we’re not going to talk about it just yet,” Berry told Ozarks First.
Neighbors who spoke with KZRG said Coy had often complained about the speed of delivery vehicles on the county road.
“It’s very scary, certainly,” the sheriff added. “And it’s very, very different. They did not know each other at all. He saw the person going down the road, retreats to his place of residence, retrieved the pellet rifle and then waited for them to come back.”
Coy is slated to be sentenced on Nov. 2.
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