Thomas Coy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the 2025 death of 23-year-old Jasmine Taylor.
LAWRENCE COUNTY, Mo. — A Missouri man was sentenced Monday to 40 years in prison for killing a 23-year-old Amazon delivery driver who was shot while traveling a rural delivery route in February 2025.
Thomas Coy received a 30-year sentence for second-degree murder and a consecutive 10-year sentence for armed criminal action. Coy pleaded guilty to both charges in September after originally facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of Jasmine Sky Taylor. His sentencing on Nov. 2 ended the criminal case without a trial.
The shooting occurred Feb. 5, 2025, as Taylor drove an Amazon delivery vehicle along Lawrence County Road 2152, west of Missouri Highway 97. Investigators said Coy saw the delivery vehicle traveling on the road, returned to his home for a pellet rifle and waited for the van to come back. Authorities said Coy and Taylor did not know each other.
Investigators said Taylor was shot as she drove past the area near Coy’s property. Her delivery vehicle then left the roadway and crashed through a fence. A passerby who encountered the wreckage contacted emergency authorities. The incident was initially handled as a traffic crash before investigators learned that Taylor had suffered a gunshot wound.
Video from a camera inside the Amazon delivery vehicle became an important part of the investigation. Authorities said the recording showed the van traveling past the end of Coy’s driveway and Taylor slumping over in the driver’s seat before the vehicle continued off the roadway. Investigators later questioned Coy at his residence.
According to investigators and court records described by local news organizations, Coy admitted firing the pellet rifle and watching the delivery vehicle crash. He also told investigators that he went to the damaged van, removed Taylor from the driver’s seat and left her near the roadside before deputies arrived. Authorities have described the weapon as a high-powered pellet or air rifle.
Taylor was taken to Mercy Hospital Joplin after the crash. Medical personnel determined that she had been struck in the head by a projectile, prompting investigators to treat the case as a shooting. Taylor remained hospitalized and died from her injuries on Feb. 9, 2025. Prosecutors then upgraded the case from an assault investigation to a first-degree murder prosecution.
Lawrence County investigators said during the initial investigation that they had developed information about a possible motive but did not publicly disclose a specific reason for the shooting. Some neighbors told local media that Coy had previously complained about delivery vehicles traveling too fast on the rural road. Authorities did not publicly establish those complaints as the motive for Taylor’s killing.
Coy had been scheduled for trial in late September 2026, but he entered a guilty plea before the trial began. Under the plea, the murder charge was reduced from first-degree murder to second-degree murder, while the armed criminal action charge remained. The plea established Coy’s criminal responsibility for Taylor’s death and moved the case directly toward sentencing.
The judge imposed the two prison terms consecutively, resulting in a total sentence of 40 years. Following sentencing, Coy remained in the Lawrence County Jail awaiting transfer to the Missouri Department of Corrections to begin serving the sentence.
Author note: Last updated November 3, 2026.