As Wife Texted Him, Pasco Uber Eats Driver Was Knocking On Killer's Door With Delivery

Editor's note: After obtaining the permission of and speaking to his wife, Kathy Cooke, Patch is now naming Randall Cooke as the victim of the gruesome homicide in Holiday.

HOLIDAY, FL — More than $57,000 has been raised for the family of an Uber Eats driver who was brutally killed after making a delivery to a home just around the corner from his own house in Holiday.

Family friend Kiley Walters has established a GoFundMe campaign to help the family of Randall Cooke with funeral and family expenses.

"My heart and soul is gone," his wife, Kathy, told Patch. "As you can imagine, the devastation not only myself but my family is facing right now is unfathomable. Randy was a hardworking, loving, kind and caring man who cared deeply about his family and friends. The thought of him not being in our lives is something that I cannot imagine."

Second marriages for both, Kathy Cooke said she and her husband were soulmates who married less than three years ago after spending 11 years as a couple.

Ever the romantic, Randall Cooke even got down on one knee to propose.

"No one understands the love we had," said Kathy Cooke. "We laughed every day for 11 years. Never fought. We respected each other, comforted each other, supported each other, loved each other."

Walters said Cooke was a man with "a heart of gold," the kind of man who wouldn't hesitate to step up to help a friend or neighbor in need.

Cooke worked two jobs as a food delivery driver for Uber Eats and DoorDash to support his family,

On April 19 at 2:30 p.m., Cooke dropped his wife off at their home in Holiday and then began his deliveries for Uber Eats. His final delivery shortly before 7 p.m. was to a house at 3438 Moog Road in Holiday, where Oscar Solis Jr. lived just around the corner from the Cookes' home.

Randall Cooke had no way of knowing that he was about to meet a man that Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco described as "demonic." A murder suspect accused of killing Randall Cooke and dismembering his body, for reasons authorities are still trying to work out.

"The issue is, we've just got horrible people out there," Nocco said at a news conference Tuesday. "Always remember that. There are just horrible people in the world, people who are hellbent to do evil."

When Randall Cooke hadn't returned home by 7:13 p.m., Kathy Cooke became concerned and texted him again, wondering what was keeping him.

"There was no response back," the sheriff said.

It wasn't like him not to return a text, said Kathy Cooke.

"This was something Randy always did to let me know he was safe and on his way home," she said. "I was waiting for him to get home as I always did, but as the time passed and my husband did not return home, I realized that something was wrong. I called both of his cell phones multiple times in order to get in contact with him, but they both were turned off, and I never heard back from him."

After waiting hours, she finally called the sheriff's office, knowing that something had to be terribly wrong.

A patrol unit was sent to the address of Randall Cooke's last delivery, the home where Oscar Solis Jr., 30, lived. Solis' father and Solis' roommate own the house. His father helped move Solis from Indiana to Florida in January and let him live in the house. He even hired someone to do chores for Solis and, on that night, Solis' father ordered the Uber Eats delivery that brought Randall Cooke to Oscar Solis' front door.

Related: Uber Eats Driver Dismembered, Concealed In Trash Bags At Holiday Home

In Indiana, Solis had been a member of the violent bike gang MS-13 gang, and spent time in prison for a number of violent crimes. While in prison, he stabbed another inmate multiple times, said Nocco.

"So you're talking about a very violent individual that Indiana released on parole and sent down to Florida, so now we have a hardworking guy, a loving husband who's no longer with us.," Nocco said.

No one came to the door when the deputies went to Solis' home to look for Cooke, so the deputies took a look around the outside of the home as well as a nearby pond, but found nothing to indicate what might have happened to Cooke.

They turned the case over to the missing persons unit, which was able to get the GPS coordinates for Cooke's last delivery from Uber Eats. Once again, the evidence pointed them to Solis' home on Moog Road.

On April 21, when detectives knocked on the door again, the roommate and co-owner of the home answered. Although he hadn't been home on the night of April 19, the roommate willingly turned over the videos from a surveillance camera attached near the front door of the home to detectives.

The videos presented a chilling scenario, said Nocco.

"You can see the victim walk up to deliver food at 6:55 and then the video cuts off," Nocco said. "The following day, on the 20th, you see the suspect, Oscar Solis, carrying trash bags out of the house with another individual and taking them around the side of the house."

Detectives got permission from the roommate to examine the trash bags Solis carried out of the home in the video. Inside, they found the remains of Randall Cooke's dismembered body, said Nocco.

Kathy Cooke didn't discuss the gruesome details of her husband's death or the man accused of the crime. The thought that her husband died just 4 miles from their home, just 4 miles from her embrace, is more than she can bear.

"This is something no wife should ever have to go through," she said.

In her grief, she focuses on the love he shared with her and his children, 18-year-old Saige Cooke, who lives in Daytona Beach with her mother, and 26-year-old Sterling, who lived with Randall and Kathy Cooke before moving to Pennsylvania. Randall Cooke's third child, Sierra, died six years ago.

He equally loved Kathy Cooke's three grown children, her daughters, Brittany and Melany Dzoba, ages 30 and 28, and her 28-year-old son.

Kathy Cooke said the children now offer her support and comfort in her grief, as does the dog she and Randall Cooke adopted.

Both dog lovers, the Cookes actively supported animal rescue groups like the nonprofit Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary and its mission to find loving homes for older dogs.

Kathy Cooke expressed her gratitude to all those who have donated to the GoFundMe campaign.

"Randy was a provider for our family," she said. "He was the ideal husband and always made sure that he took care of us. Without Randy, I am not sure where to even start, let alone how I am going to be able to afford our home, car, insurance or even to live."