Hostage Situation Foiled by Strange DoorDash Order in Texas

File this one under "dumb criminals." Sometimes DoorDash is just about tacos at midnight. Other times, it’s about delivering a shopping list of doom that looks ripped straight from a horror movie.

That’s exactly what happened in Sweetwater, Texas, where a delivery driver noticed something a little sus about an order that included items like trash bags, zip ties, bleach, and even a hatchet. Spoiler alert: that’s not your average “oops, I forgot toilet paper” run. It's almost like this person has never seen a true crime docu-series! They could have at least tried to disguise by adding something different like maybe like unicorn slime!

The Suspicious Delivery in Sweetwater, Texas

The driver dropped the order at the Sweetwater Inn on Monday morning and trusted their gut instead of brushing it off. They called police, who quickly showed up to check things out. Turns out, that gut feeling was spot-on. Inside the motel room, officers found 42-year-old Neil Cooper barricaded in with another person being held against their will. Cooper claimed he was armed and wasn’t coming out.

Thankfully, the hostage managed to escape before things got worse. Cooper eventually surrendered and was arrested for aggravated kidnapping. In a wild twist, police also arrested the hostage! Why? Because they had an outstanding warrant for drug charges. See, dumb criminals.

Over on social media, Texans were quick to praise the DoorDash driver for noticing the red flags. “That driver probably saved a life,” one person wrote. Others joked about whether delivery drivers should moonlight as detectives. However, not everyone was a fan. One person commented, "I'm glad it worked out for the best this time . . . but do you really want your DoorDash driver deciding your order is suspicious and calling the cops?"

DoorDash may usually be about convenience like burgers, tacos, or emergency snacks, but in this case? It helped crack open a motel hostage situation. Moral of the story: if your delivery list looks like the intro to a slasher flick, maybe rethink hitting “place order.”