Aissatou Diallo, left, widow of Tahirou Diallo, reacts while her statement is read in 432nd District Court following a guilty plea by Kane Roden on Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Fort Worth. Roden shot and killed Tahirou Diallo, who was his Uber driver, in May of 2025.
Amanda McCoy
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
They were strangers. An Uber driver and his passenger.
Tahirou Diallo, 60, was trying to make an honest living. Kane Roden, then 30, was highly intoxicated.
On May 7, 2025, while on felony probation and on bond for a violent crime, Kane Roden shot Diallo dead on a street in North Richland Hills.
On Monday morning, in a state district courtroom packed with relatives and friends of Diallo, who was an anchor in the community in Guinea where he grew up, Roden pleaded guilty to murder.
Under an agreement reached by prosecutor Bill Vassar and defense attorney Gary Smart, Judge Ruben Gonzalez sentenced Roden to 40 years in prison. Roden, 31, will become eligible for parole after he serves 20 years.
Kane Roden enters the 432nd District Court on Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Fort Worth. Roden pleaded guilty to the May 2025 murder of Tahirou Diallo. Amanda McCoy FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Had Roden been found guilty of murder at trial, a jury or judge would have considered a prison term of five to 99 years, or life.
“What hurts the most is knowing this isn’t supposed to be our story,” Aissatou Diallo wrote of her husband in a statement read aloud in the courtroom by a cousin of Tahirou Diallo.
The family of Tahirou Diallo called for Uber to institute more safety measures for drivers after the 60-year-old North Texas resident was shot and killed by his passenger on May 7, 2025. Family photo
They planned to grow old together.
Now widowed, Aissatou is left to raise a 4-year-old alone.
“To you, he was just some Uber driver you killed,” Aissatou wrote for the allocution, a one-way, off-the-court-record opportunity for victims, or in the case of criminal deaths, their relatives, to address defendants.
To his widow, Tahirou was a pillar.
“That’s the person you took from us,” Aissatou wrote.
Later in the statement, the widow referred to Roden as a “useless individual.”
Tahirou Diallo was shot in the 8000 block of Mickey Street. Police officers found a sport utility vehicle parked in the road and the two men nearby, North Richland Hills police have said.
Diallo died at the scene.
Police found a gun next to Roden.
This story was originally published August 31, 2026 at 1:25 PM.
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Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.