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 is behind bars after she intentionally ran over and killed a man she met on a dating app, according to law enforcement in the Grand Canyon State.
Mikela Antresa Bahe, 30, stands accused of murder in the second degree, theft of means of transportation, and failure to remain at the scene of a fatal accident, the Phoenix Police Department says.
The underlying incident occurred around 4 p.m. on the afternoon of May 3, in the parking lot of an apartment complex located near the intersection of 16th Street and Maryland Avenue in Phoenix.
There, a 911 caller reported a man being struck by a dark-colored SUV, according to court documents obtained by Phoenix-based ABC affiliate KNXV and Mesa-based NBC affiliate KPNX. First responders found 52-year-old Norris L Taft seriously wounded. The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital where he quickly succumbed to his injuries. Meanwhile, the driver of the vehicle was nowhere to be found.
Investigators then obtained surveillance footage from the apartment complex which showed a woman emerged from the building and got into an SUV, police said. At roughly the same time, the victim was seen walking through the parking lot and stopping in front of the SUV as it began to move while holding his hands out in an apparent effort to try and signal the driver of the vehicle to stop.
But the SUV did not stop.
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.
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