Footage has emerged showing the final moments before a student got into a stranger's car thinking it was an Uber.
She was later found dead, allegedly murdered.
Security video shows South Carolina student Samantha Josephson, 21, waiting outside a bar in Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, in the early hours of Friday morning.
She's wearing an orange shirt, black pants and white shoes and looking at her phone.
She was then filmed getting into a black vehicle at around 2am on Friday. Friend Ashlynn Steele told her university newspaper, The Daily Gamecock, that Josephson mistook the car for an Uber.
Her real Uber driver arrived just afterwards, but by then it was too late. Witnesses say the driver waited then cancelled the ride when she didn't arrive to be picked-up.
"She had, in fact, summoned an Uber ride. She was waiting for that Uber ride to come, we believe," Columbia Police Department Chief Skip Holbrook said in a press conference on Saturday.
"She simply mistakenly got into this car thinking it was an Uber ride."
After not being seen by friends until the afternoon of the following day, police were called and began a search for the car seen in the footage.
Her body was soon found in a rural area by local hunters, and a suspect was arrested in the city after he tried to flee the officer who pulled him over.
His car was found to have a large amount of blood inside the passenger and boot compartments, along with Josephson's cellphone, a container of liquid bleach, germicidal wipes and window cleaner.
The child safety locks on the passenger doors were also activated, meaning Josephson could not have escaped by opening them.
Nathaniel David Rowland, 24, has been charged with murder and kidnapping.
"Our hearts are broken, they're broken. There is nothing tougher than to stand before a family and explain how a loved one was murdered," Chief Holbrook said.
"It was gut wrenching, words really can't describe what they're going through."
Newshub.
