A New Orleans Police Department employee is stabbed to death while driving for Uber
By Amanda Watts and Jason Hanna, CNN
A New Orleans Police Department employee who was driving for Uber in her time off was stabbed to death by a passenger on Thursday, and a suspect has been arrested, authorities said.
Yolanda Dillion, 54, picked up an Uber passenger in New Orleans and drove to the adjacent Jefferson Parish, according to parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto.
When the ride ended, the passenger “stabbed (Dillion) repeatedly before leaving the vehicle,” Lopinto’s office said Friday.
Someone reported the stabbing to authorities just before 3 p.m. Thursday, and sheriff’s deputies found Dillion wounded in the vehicle in a hotel’s parking lot. She was taken to a hospital, where she died, the sheriff’s office said.
A suspect was arrested at the hotel within hours of the stabbing, according to the sheriff’s office. The suspect admitted to stabbing Dillion, and has been charged with second-degree murder, the sheriff’s office said.
Dillion was a financial budget analyst for the New Orleans Police Department, and worked as an Uber driver in her time off, Lopinto said.
The police department’s fiscal unit is “taking it (Dillion’s killing) pretty hard,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said at a news conference with Lopinto on Friday.
“She will be dearly missed,” Ferguson said.
Uber is “extremely disturbed by this senseless attack,” a company spokesperson told CNN in an email Friday.
“Our thoughts are with Yolanda’s family, and we are reaching out to them to offer condolences and support. We are actively working with the police on their investigation,” the email reads.
The suspect was being held Friday without opportunity for bail, online Jefferson Parish jail records show.
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