16-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Used A Stolen Machete To Hack An Uber Driver To Death In Chicago

A teenaged girl was charged as an adult with first-degree murder Wednesday for allegedly using a machete to hack an Uber driver to death in a Chicago suburb early Tuesday morning.

According to BuzzFeed News, 16-year-old Eliza Wasni shoplifted a machete and a knife from a Walmart around 3 a.m. Tuesday. She was not stopped by any of the store's employees.

About 20 minutes later, Wasni ordered an Uber a few blocks away from the Walmart. Grant Nelson, 34, of Wilmette, Illinois, was her driver.

Two minutes after Nelson picked Wasni up in his car, she started to "hack and stab at him from the back of the seat," Cook County State's Attorney Michelle Cunningham said at a press conference Wednesday.

Nelson was able to stop his car in the driveway of a condo building and run into the lobby. He was heard "banging and screaming, 'Help me, help me, I'm going to die,' " Cunningham said.

Police arrived at the scene after some of the condo's residents called 911; they found Nelson lying on the grass in a pool of his blood, bleeding from multiple deep stabs wounds in his arms, side, head, and chest.

Nelson later succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital just before 8 a.m. Tuesday, but was able to give police a description of Wasni before he died.

Cunningham said Wasni tried to flee the scene in Nelson's car and then on foot, but was later found crouching by a large air-conditioner generator in a building. She was taken into custody after being tased, having refused to drop her machete and knife.

Police said the attack was random and that the public was not in any danger.

“I want people to know Grant was a good person,” the victim's sister, Alex Nelson, told NBC Chicago. “He was not a vindictive person. He was not a cruel person. He didn't deserve this fate.”