An 18-year-old Utah man has charged with murder after he allegedly stabbed a woman to death and pushed her out of a moving car on Interstate 15 on Sunday night.
Oscar Cuevas-Landa, of West Valley City, is being held without bail in the Davis County jail. He was charged in 2nd District Court with murder, a first-degree felony, in the death of Shilo Marie Stewart, 34, of Fruit Heights.
Stewart was driving north on I-15 just south of the 200 West off-ramp in Farmington shortly before 10 p.m. on Sunday when she was killed. According to police, Cuevas-Landa— a passenger in the car — told them that Stewart “looked at him funny” so he “stabbed the victim multiple times, unbuckled her seat belt, reached over and opened the door and then pushed the victim out the driver side door” while the car was traveling at highway speeds.
Cuevas-Landa — who told police he “had been using either acid or LSD and smoking marijuana” — was able to bring the car to a stop and flee the scene. He was apprehended shortly thereafter.
According to charging documents, an autopsy showed that Stewart died from “sharp force trauma caused by the knife and blunt force trauma to her head caused by falling from the moving vehicle.”
In a probable cause statement written shortly after the crime, police wrote that “based on current evidence,” Stewart and Cuevas-Landa “did not know each other,” and the charges provide no additional information about what led to the killing. According to a GoFundMe page posted by Stewart’s family, “All Shilo was trying to do was help a stranger in need.”
As of Thursday morning, the page had raised about $3,000 of its $7,500 goal.
