Inset: Mikela Bahe (Maricopa County Sheriff”s Office). Background: The apartment complex where Bahe allegedly drove over a man in Phoenix, Ariz. (Google Maps).
An Arizona woman has been arrested after allegedly driving over and killing a man she met through a dating app, according to authorities in the state.
Mikela Antresa Bahe, 30, faces charges of second-degree murder, theft of a vehicle, and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, as reported by the Phoenix Police Department.
The tragic event unfolded around 4 p.m. on May 3 in the parking lot of an apartment complex near 16th Street and Maryland Avenue in Phoenix.
According to court records obtained by ABC affiliate KNXV and NBC affiliate KPNX, a 911 call alerted authorities to a man being hit by a dark-colored SUV. Emergency personnel arrived to find 52-year-old Norris L. Taft gravely injured. He was transported to a nearby hospital but sadly did not survive. The driver, however, had fled the scene.
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the apartment complex, which showed a woman leaving the building and entering an SUV. At the same time, the footage captured Taft walking across the parking lot and attempting to stop the SUV by holding his hands out as it began to move toward him.
Despite his efforts, the SUV did not come to a halt.
Instead, the vehicle is seen accelerating, then striking the man, knocking him to the ground, and dragging him underneath the chassis. As the SUV continued moving, it drives over the man and exits the parking lot, the footage shows, according to the police department.
Additional security footage was obtained and investigators identified the driver as the defendant, police said.
Investigators quickly learned that Taft met Bahe online through the phone application MokoSpace and the pair met at a donut shop on the morning of May 3, according to the court documents.
That meeting apparently did not go as the man planned.
Investigators eventually spoke with the victim’s nephew, who said he spoke to his uncle on the phone while he was on the way to the meetup, police said. A short while later, however, Taft allegedly texted his nephew to say the woman had “catfished” him because the woman he picked up did not resemble the image of the person he matched with on the app. So, the victim said, he was trying to take the woman back to her own residence or otherwise end their date.
Detectives later learned Taft himself was the only person who typically drove the 2010 Cadillac Escalade used in the hit-and-run.
Using social media, police said they were able to ascertain that Bahe had traveled to several different business in the Phoenix area before absconding to Flagstaff – some 150 miles due north.
On Wednesday, the defendant was arrested in Flagstaff by local police and returned to Phoenix. During a custodial interview, she allegedly admitted to being with Taft for part of the weekend, but said she could not recall what happened after the victim took her to a dispensary, according to court documents obtained by Phoenix-based independent TV station KTVK and local CBS affiliate KPHO, which collectively broadcast as “Arizona’s Family.”
After that, Bahe allegedly clammed up and refused to answer detectives’ additional questions, according to the police department.
The defendant, for her part, at some point called a family member and said she “f–ed up” and would be going to prison, police said.
Bahe is being detained in the Maricopa County Jail.
