A woman charged with murder after shooting her Uber driver in the head mistakenly believed she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, police say.

Phoebe Copas, who is from Kentucky, was travelling to El Paso, Texas, to see her boyfriend when she saw signs for Juarez.

The Mexican city is located just across the US border from El Paso – with the two cities connected by bridges across the Rio Grande.

Believing she was being kidnapped, Copas, 48, is accused of grabbing a handgun from her purse and shooting her Uber driver, Daniel Piedra Garcia, in the head.

The car crashed shortly after and Mr Piedra was rushed to hospital.

The 52-year-old was put on life support for several days, but it was turned off after his family was told by doctors that he would not recover.

According to a police witness statement, the area where the car crashed was “not in close proximity of a bridge, port of entry or other area with immediate access to travel into Mexico”.

“The investigation does not support that a kidnapping took place or that Mr Piedra was veering from Copas’ destination,” police said in a statement.

Copas, who is from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, has been charged with murder over the 12 June incident.

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Court records did not list a lawyer who could speak for Copas. She remains in custody in El Paso.

Mr Piedra’s niece, Didi Lopez, paid tribute to her uncle, who she described as a “hardworking man” and “really funny”.

“He was never in a bad mood. He was always the one that, if he saw you in a bad mood, he’d come over and try to lift you up,” she told the El Paso Times.

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