Dashcam footage shown at hearing
Video connected to Uber driver’s killing
Courtroom spectators watched in rapt silence as prosecutors showed video of Uber driver Christi Spicuzza driving to her death with her alleged killer in the backseat.
The video was played Wednesday as Calvin Crew, 22, of Penn Hills, had his preliminary hearing connected to charges of homicide, robbery and tampering with evidence in the death of Ms. Spicuzza, a 38-year-old who was killed Feb. 11 while
completing a trip. Her body was found in a wooded area in Monroeville.
District Judge Kevin Cooper Jr. held the charges, meaning Mr. Crew will likely face trial.
The video showed how Ms. Spicuzza picked up a male, his face obscured by a hoodie and black ski mask, alleged to be Mr. Crew. The two sat silently for several minutes as she drove him to Penn Hills.
“You have a good day today?” she asked, breaking the silence that had only been occasionally punctuated by directions from Uber’s navigation app.
The response from the passenger couldn’t be heard in the courtroom, but it prompted her to respond, “That’s good.”
The courtroom, filled with loved ones of both Mr. Crew and Ms. Spicuzza, sat staring at the screen as the video played out. Mr. Crew showed little emotion in the courtroom, talking frequently with an attorney in a hushed tone.
The footage showed how for several more minutes they sat silently until the navigation app announced the drop off for “Tanaya.” Prosecutors say that’s because the ride was ordered by 22-year-old Tanaya Mullen, Mr. Crew’s girlfriend, with whom he has a child.
By that point, he had moved from the rear passenger side to the center of the backseat.
Ms. Spicuzza repeatedly
asked him where he wanted to be dropped off before he was seen pulling out a handgun and pointing it at her
head.
“Drive,” he said repeatedly.
She reached back and
touched the gun. “I have a family, man, come on,” she said to him.
“I got a family, too,” the
passenger said. “Now drive.”
“I’m begging you, I have four kids,” she said.
Her voice remained calm, only cracking as she begged him, “Please, stop.”
Moments later, the passenger reached forward and grabbed her camera, apparently disabling it as the video ended.
Police found Ms. Spicuzza, of Turtle Creek, dead with a single gunshot wound to the head in a wooded area near the 500 block of Rosecrest Drive. She was initially reported missing the day before, Feb. 11, when she didn’t return home.
Although the dashcam was removed from the car, police later found it leaning against a fence in Penn Hills near where Mr. Crew requested to be dropped off, an Allegheny County Police detective testified Wednesday.
Mr. Crew told police in an interview in February that he got out at his destination and eventually walked to the busway in Wilkinsburg. Police said there is no video footage confirming that account.
His girlfriend, Ms. Mullen, also told police that her handgun was missing at the time of the killing.
In a text to Mr. Crew on the night of the killing, she wrote, “[I’m] not going to jail if we get caught,” the criminal complaint for Mr. Crew reads.
Police officials have previously refused to comment on the message and said they would not speculate on its meaning, and she has not been charged with a crime.
Mr. Crew remains jailed without bond.