Thomas Coy received consecutive prison terms after pleading guilty in the 2025 killing of 23-year-old delivery driver Jasmine Taylor.

MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — A Missouri man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing a 23-year-old Amazon delivery driver who was shot while working a rural route in Lawrence County and later died from her injuries. Thomas Coy received 30 years for second-degree murder and a consecutive 10-year term for armed criminal action at a Nov. 2 sentencing hearing.

The punishment closes the central criminal case against Coy more than a year and a half after Jasmine Sky Taylor was shot on Lawrence County Road 2152 near Wentworth. Coy pleaded guilty Sept. 14 to second-degree murder and armed criminal action, avoiding a trial that had been scheduled to begin later that month. Prosecutors had previously pursued a first-degree murder charge after Taylor died. The final judgment means the case ended with a guilty plea to a lesser murder count but with prison sentences that were ordered to run one after the other rather than at the same time.

The case began on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2025, not with an immediate report of a shooting but with what appeared to be a vehicle crash. Taylor was driving an Amazon delivery vehicle on County Road 2152, west of Missouri Highway 97, when the van left the roadway and struck a fence. A passerby reported the wreck, according to accounts based on the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office probable cause statement. Taylor was found near the crashed vehicle and taken to Mercy Hospital Joplin. The full nature of what had happened was not immediately apparent to responders at the roadside.

Hospital staff later notified law enforcement that Taylor had suffered a gunshot wound to the head and that a projectile was lodged there. That information shifted the investigation from a traffic crash toward a shooting inquiry. Investigators then reviewed video from inside the Amazon vehicle. Authorities said the recording showed the van traveling near Coy’s driveway and Taylor suddenly slumping over in the driver’s seat before the vehicle continued off the road. The footage helped investigators focus on the area around the driveway and reconstruct what happened before the crash.

Investigators contacted Coy at his residence and questioned him after advising him of his rights. Authorities said he admitted firing a pellet-style air rifle at Taylor as the Amazon vehicle passed his property. He also admitted that after the van crashed, he went to the vehicle, removed Taylor from the driver’s seat and left her in a roadside ditch. Law enforcement accounts said Taylor was still alive after the shooting. She remained hospitalized for several days before dying Feb. 9, 2025. Her death led prosecutors to elevate the case from the assault charge initially filed after Coy’s arrest.

Investigators said the encounter was not the result of a known personal dispute between Coy and Taylor. Sheriff Chris Berry said during the investigation that Coy had seen the Amazon vehicle traveling along the road, returned to his home for the weapon and waited for the vehicle to come back. Authorities described the two as strangers. That sequence became an important part of the case because it showed a period between Coy seeing the delivery vehicle and the shooting rather than an unexpected confrontation at the crashed van.

A publicly confirmed motive has remained less clear. Neighbors told local media after the shooting that Coy had complained about delivery vehicles traveling too fast on the rural road. Investigators also indicated early in the case that they had information about a possible motive, but they did not publicly establish the speeding complaints as the reason Taylor was shot. The distinction is significant: the complaints are part of the reported background surrounding Coy, but available law enforcement accounts do not support stating as fact that they caused the killing.

Taylor, born Dec. 18, 2001, was 23 when she died. Her obituary identified her as a Joplin native and said she died at Mercy Hospital Joplin on Feb. 9 surrounded by family. Other regional reporting identified her as a Northwest Arkansas resident at the time of the shooting. She had been working an ordinary package-delivery route when she encountered Coy’s property. Nothing in the public accounts reviewed for the case indicates that Taylor knew Coy before that afternoon or that investigators found a prior relationship between them.

The charges against Coy changed as the consequences of the shooting became clear. He was first arrested after Taylor was wounded and faced an assault-related case. After Taylor died four days later, prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder along with armed criminal action. That first-degree murder charge remained pending as the case moved through court proceedings in 2025 and 2026. Coy ultimately chose to plead guilty shortly before his scheduled September 2026 trial, admitting to second-degree murder and armed criminal action instead of taking the first-degree murder case before a jury.

The November sentencing defined the legal consequences of that plea. The judge imposed 30 years for second-degree murder and another 10 years for armed criminal action, ordering the terms to be served consecutively for a total of 40 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections. The consecutive structure matters because the armed criminal action sentence was added to, rather than absorbed into, the murder sentence. Local court reporting and subsequent news accounts consistently described the total sentence as four decades.

The weapon was described in law enforcement and court reporting as a pellet rifle or air rifle, including reports identifying it as a .22-caliber air rifle. The case also drew attention because the initial scene did not immediately reveal that Taylor had been shot. Her delivery van had crashed through a fence, and responders were first dealing with what could have appeared to be the aftermath of a roadway accident. Information from the hospital and the vehicle’s onboard camera provided key evidence that allowed deputies to reconstruct the shooting and identify Coy as the person responsible.

Berry described the case at the time as unusually difficult because Taylor and Coy did not know one another and because investigators found no personal connection that could readily explain the attack. Authorities nevertheless developed a sequence through the van video, physical scene and Coy’s statements. Those pieces showed Taylor driving her route, the van passing the area of Coy’s home, Taylor being struck while behind the wheel, the vehicle leaving the road and Coy later approaching the wreck. The guilty plea meant prosecutors did not have to present that evidence to a jury at a trial.

With the sentencing complete, the principal criminal proceedings stemming from Taylor’s death have reached their conclusion. KY3 reported after the Nov. 2 hearing that Coy remained in the Lawrence County Jail awaiting transfer to the Missouri Department of Corrections. The county’s public inmate roster later recorded his release from that jail on Nov. 6, though the material reviewed did not identify the state correctional facility to which he may have been transferred. No further trial is expected following his guilty pleas and sentencing.

Author note: Last updated Nov. 6, 2026.