Gagandeep Singh, of Washington state, was stabbed by a 19-year-old who thought he was enrolled at Gonzaga.
Â
An Indian American cab driver was stabbed to death by a 19-year-old in Idaho on Monday after the two had an argument over destination.
According to Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, Jacob Coleman, who is from the Washington state, was denied entry at the Gonzaga University after which an altercation broke between him and university authorities.
Coleman reportedly flew from Seattle to Spokane, WA, to start a new semester at Gonzaga, but housing officials sent him back as he was not enrolled as a student.
He hired a cab from the university and reportedly became suicidal during the ride. He asked 22-year-old Indian American Gagandeep Singh to stop near a gas station from where he bought a knife and re-entered the cab.
Coleman wanted Singh to drive him to an imaginary location. After a few minutes into the ride, Singh understood that Coleman was making up the destination. The driver stopped the vehicle and asked the passenger to step out of the car.
Reports said Coleman then stabbed the victim with the knife he purchased earlier.
Singh’s brother Balgit Singh told KREM 2 that the victim had called his mother once he realized that Coleman hysteric. The mother advised him to drop him off after ten miles.
Nobody heard from him after that conversation and the family called 911 to register a complaint.
After not hearing from Singh, his family informed the Bonner County Dispatch to report him missing.
The police found Singh’s body after they traced the location of his phone. They found many unanswered calls and messages in it. The suspect had also sent a message to Singh’s brother “You just f***ing call the cops, it’s not that hard.”
“I think my brother was gone by then, long ways by then,” Balgit Singh told KREM 2.
According to police, Coleman was still in the car as they arrived and even surrendered without hesitation. He has been charged with first-degree murder and is held in Bonner County Jail with no bail.
Gonzaga officials released a statement that said they had no record of an application for admission from Jacob Coleman of Puyallup, Washington.
Mary Joan Hahn, the community and public relations director for Gonzaga, said, “an individual matching his description was reported to have approached housing officials on campus Monday,”
“As Mr. Coleman was not enrolled as a student, he was never assigned to campus housing and was informed of this fact by the Housing and Residence Life Office,” she added.
“He was only 22-year-old. He left us too soon, way too soon. We had a lot of thing planned being in a family. We had a lot of thing planned out. I think God knows best. He left too soon. As of now we know we’ll be in tears for a long long time because that was the only sibling I have,” Balgit said.
“He was developing an app to make it easier for people to get a ride home, or ride from airport or from the bus station. He was writing code to bring us up to the competition,” Brian Campbell a fellow taxi driver and friend of Gagandeep told KREM 2.