PHOENIX

State Route 51 chase, shooting in Phoenix stuns victim’s family

Megan Cassidy and Robert Anglen
The Republic | azcentral.com
Dinya Farmer.

Her murder had all the trappings of road rage. On Wednesday night, the 49-year-old divorced mother of three was gunned down while driving home northbound on State Route 51.

But police say Dinya Farmer’s final words may indicate she wasn’t just a victim of opportunity.

She was being followed, Farmer told 911 moments before bullets would shatter the windows of her Honda Accord.

A white pickup truck with ladders had trailed her all the way from Seventh Avenue and Broadway Road, she said. It was 8 miles from where her car would ultimately crash, into a median on SR 51 between McDowell and Thomas roads.

This fact alone signaled to investigators that Farmer was targeted, Phoenix police Sgt. Jonathan Howard said Thursday.

“This decreases the likelihood that it was a random act,” he said. “There was some sort of pre-incident contact that led to the shooting, but we have yet to determine what that was.”

Whether this contact came minutes — or years — before Farmer’s murder, detectives were unsure.

Officials have not specified whether they have any persons of interest, and Howard said police were open to “endless possibilities.”

'It is just devastating for me'

Farmer’s family members on Thursday said they couldn’t conceive of anything she would have done to precipitate such an action.

They said Farmer had been diagnosed with cancer years ago and was preparing to undergo her second round of chemotherapy. The cancer had started in her breast but had spread to her bones, said Veronica Gonzalez, who is engaged to Farmer’s cousin.

“She’s very loving,” Gonzalez said in a phone interview. “She’s got three daughters, she’s very family-oriented. It’s just unfortunate that it would pan out this way.”

Gonzalez said she remembers “laughing, joking and having a good time” together at family functions.

“I still can’t really believe it, you know?” she said.

Farmer’s ex-husband and the father to the couple’s three daughters said Thursday they learned of her violent death when police woke them just after 1 a.m.

“It is just devastating for me to think that her last moments were in fear,” Lee Farmer, a Phoenix physician, said while choking back sobs. “Certainly, I wonder what the hell happened.”

911 call indicated miles-long chase

Dinya Farmer was driving north on SR 51 approaching Thomas Road when she was shot in the head by someone in another vehicle, according to police and fire reports.

Farmer was on the phone with 911 and told the dispatcher that she was being chased by three men in a white work-style truck with a ladder rack and toolbox in the back.

Phoenix police seek work truck after woman fatally shot on SR 51

“She believed these people were following her specifically, but she didn’t offer any information as to why they may be following her,” Howard said.

Soon thereafter, the dispatcher heard about three gunshots before the call ended.

After the shooting, the woman’s car crashed into a concrete median. Police believe the truck exited at Thomas Road.

Phoenix fire crews took Farmer and two other people to hospitals, according to fire Capt. Rob McDade. The other people suffered minor injuries in collisions that resulted either from the shooting or the truck driver’s aggressive behavior, Howard said.

Officials said the Arizona Department of Public Safety received five or six 911 calls about 7:20 p.m. about a white work-type truck that was driving aggressively.

‘A woman who loved her kids’

Lee Farmer, Dinya’s ex-husband, said Dinya had slowly been losing her years-long fight against cancer and likely would have died from the disease in the near future. But the shooting has left the family struggling with grief and coming to terms with their estrangement with Dinya.

Phoenix police: SR 51 shooting was not likely the result of random violence

Lee Farmer said that’s particularly true of his daughters, aged 16, 17 and 25, who now have to grapple with the fact that they weren’t able to restore their relationships before their mother died. He said his middle daughter tried to go to school today to attempt a test but broke down in the classroom and came home early. Farmer said he wants his daughters to be able to grieve in private and remember the good things about their mother.

“I want her to be remembered as a woman who loved her kids,” Farmer said. “She was a wonderful, happy, good woman when I met her … And the kids loved their mom.”

Court records paint a combative relationship between Dinya and Lee, with Dinya playing the role as aggressor.

Lee Farmer acknowledged their relationship was tumultuous, but said those fights were purely family affairs and not a reflection of her personality.

Dinya was not the kind of person who would spark a fight on the freeway or get into a shouting match from a car that would lead to violence, Lee said.

“She tried her best in life,” Lee said, trying to put Dinya’s recent Facebook posts complaining about being able to see her kids and domestic upheaval in context. “We went to three different counselors for reunification (of the family). It didn’t work out.”

He said he met Dinya during his medical internship in Phoenix. Lee said Dinya grew up in Phoenix and graduated from Central High School. Members of her family, including her sister, still live in the Valley, he said.

Lee Farmer said as a doctor he is often confronted with death and interrupted lives. But nothing prepared the family for the early-morning knock on the door.

“It’s definitely different from this end of the aisle,” he said. “It’s just not … not fair.”

Republic reporters Garrett Mitchell and Yihyun Jeong contributed to this article.

Emergency personnel work a scene at State Route 51 and Thomas Road in Phoenix on Sept. 7, 2016. A woman was shot in the head earlier in the evening going northbound on the 51.