ATLANTA — Taxi cab driver Giles Patrick Manido says he never thought he would be part of a breaking news story, but when he picked up a woman on Monday afternoon, that’s exactly where he found himself.
He told Channel 2′s Ashli Lincoln on Monday afternoon that he thought it was a normal passenger pick-up from a midtown hotel on 14th Street.
“I was the last person with her, and I spoke with her for a long time,” he said.
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That passenger turned out to be Raissa Kengne, who was a regular passenger for Manido.
“This lady, she’s always calm,” he said.
Kengne is accused of killing two people and injuring a third person in two shootings in Midtown Atlanta. Dash cam video obtained by Channel 2 Action News from the Atlanta Checker Cab company shows Kengne getting into Manido’s cab after the shootings.
“I looked again. I knew that was her,” Manido said.
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In exclusive audio clips between Atlanta police officers and the dispatch team for Atlanta Checker Cab, where Manido works, officers are heard asking the driver about his passenger.
The company says police reached out to them asking if any drivers picked up a woman wearing a striped shirt.
The 34-year-old Kengne sparked complete chaos and a shelter in place order in midtown Atlanta after police say she shot the property manager and the building engineer at 1280 West Condos, Michael Shinners and Michael Horne.
Police said she held a person at gunpoint in the management office before shooting a man, later identified as Wesley Freeman, at an office at 110 Peachtree Street.
Shinners and Freeman both died from their injuries. Horne remains hospitalized as of Wednesday morning.
Manido says Kengne is from his hometown in Cameroon. He says after picking her up from that hotel, they went to a home on Robin Hood Road NE in Ansley Park. She told him it was her lawyer’s home. He says no one came to the door and Kengne returned to his cab.
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From there, they went to the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. When they arrived, he says she paid the $48 fare with a $100 bill.
Police arrested Kengne at the international terminal at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
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