Prosecutors used app records, surveillance footage and electronic evidence to reconstruct the deaths of a woman and an 80-year-old Lyft driver.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis man has been sentenced to 150 years in prison for killing a woman and an 80-year-old Lyft driver during a violent sequence that prosecutors said began and ended with ride requests placed through the same app.

Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett imposed the sentence on Joshua Gossett on July 1, nearly four years after Shunish Baggett and Richard Skelskey were killed on Oct. 30, 2022. A Shelby County jury convicted Gossett in April of two counts of first-degree murder and related firearm offenses. Prosecutors said the jury found him guilty on every charge presented at trial. The unusually long sentence followed victim impact statements from relatives of both people who were killed, closing the trial-court phase of a case built around digital records, video evidence and Gossett’s own recorded words.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said prosecutors called 15 witnesses and introduced 57 exhibits. Jurors also viewed numerous surveillance recordings and heard about six hours of Gossett’s recorded statement to police. Chief Prosecutor Carrie Bush and Assistant District Attorney JD Hamblen handled the case. The prosecution’s presentation was designed to establish not only that Gossett was connected to both killings, but also how he traveled to Baggett’s home, left the area and came into contact with Skelskey within the same chain of events.

According to the district attorney’s account, Gossett used the Lyft app on Oct. 30, 2022, to travel to Baggett’s Memphis home. Prosecutors said he shot and killed her after arriving there. Authorities have not publicly explained what relationship, if any, existed between Gossett and Baggett, and the sentencing announcement did not provide a motive. Those unanswered questions did not prevent the state from pursuing the case through the movements, communications and physical evidence that investigators said connected Gossett to the residence and the killing.

After Baggett was killed, prosecutors said, Gossett opened the Lyft app again and requested a ride from the scene. Skelskey accepted the request without knowing what had happened inside the home he was approaching. The 80-year-old driver picked Gossett up as part of what appeared to be an ordinary fare. Prosecutors said Gossett then shot Skelskey in the head, stole his vehicle and drove away. The district attorney’s statement did not identify how long Skelskey had been in the car before he was attacked or specify where the vehicle was later recovered.

Investigators faced two homicide scenes and a stolen car, but prosecutors said the electronic trail helped link them. The district attorney’s office cited Gossett’s digital footprint, surveillance footage and forensic analysis of electronic evidence as key parts of the case. Lyft records could show when rides were requested and accepted, while other digital material and surveillance recordings could help investigators compare times, locations and movements. Authorities said those sources, together with Gossett’s statement to police, established his identity and actions to the satisfaction of the jury.

The account released after sentencing offered a broader view of the evidence than early reports from 2022, when police were still trying to determine what had happened. At that stage, the deaths appeared to involve separate locations and victims with very different circumstances. Baggett was killed in a home. Skelskey was working as a rideshare driver. The prosecution later presented the killings as one continuous course of conduct, connected by the same defendant, the same day and the use of Lyft before and after the first shooting.

Baggett’s death also left a child confronting the immediate aftermath. A fundraiser created for her family after the killing said her then-12-year-old daughter found her on the kitchen floor. That detail was not included in the district attorney’s sentencing announcement, and officials did not release additional information about the child. The fundraiser initially described the attacker as unknown, reflecting the uncertainty that surrounded the case before investigators publicly identified and charged Gossett.

Skelskey had recently begun driving for Lyft and Uber to earn extra money, his sister, Carol Soto, told a Memphis television station after his death. His family said he lived in Walls, Mississippi, with his wife, Yanilda Francisco Skelskey, and maintained ties to his hometown of Bristol, Connecticut. A family obituary said he was survived by his wife, five children, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as siblings and other relatives. His death turned a routine work shift into the second fatal scene investigators had to piece together that day.

In the period before an arrest, Skelskey’s family knew his car and personal belongings were missing and that his phone had been turned off. His sister publicly described the family’s uncertainty while police investigated. After Gossett was taken into custody, she said relatives were relieved that a suspect had been arrested, though she also framed her brother’s death as part of the wider toll of gun violence. Her comments illustrated a gap that often separates an arrest from any lasting sense of resolution: custody answered who police believed was responsible, but it did not undo the loss or explain why her brother became a target.

The trial required prosecutors to convert that early uncertainty into evidence that could meet the criminal standard of proof. The 15 witnesses and 57 exhibits indicate that the state did not rest its case on a single app record or one surveillance clip. Instead, according to the district attorney’s office, prosecutors combined electronic forensics, several videos and Gossett’s lengthy police statement. The office did not provide a witness-by-witness account or identify each exhibit, so the precise role of every item in the jury’s decision has not been publicly detailed.

The verdicts meant jurors accepted the prosecution’s case that Gossett committed both killings. Because the jury convicted him rather than merely hearing allegations at an early stage, the sentencing hearing focused on punishment and the effect of the crimes. Family members from both victims’ families addressed the court before Blackett announced the 150-year term. The district attorney’s office did not release their statements, preserving the substance of their remarks for those who were present in court.

The sentence places Gossett in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Correction. The district attorney’s announcement did not provide a count-by-count breakdown showing how the terms for the two murder convictions and firearm offenses were combined to reach 150 years. It also did not announce whether any post-trial motions had been filed. Those procedural details may appear in the court record, but the public statement made clear that the trial judge imposed a prison term extending far beyond a normal human lifespan.

For the families, the sentence marked the end of a courtroom process that began with two deaths whose connection was not immediately clear. The prosecution’s case ultimately showed how a digital ride record could become part of a murder investigation, how surveillance could help reconstruct movement between locations and how an unsuspecting driver was drawn into the final stage of the crime. Gossett remains under the 150-year sentence following his convictions on all charges.

Author note: Last updated July 30, 2026.