Suspect arrested in Fort Worth road rage shooting that killed 62-year-old driver
Fort Worth police have arrested a suspect in connection with the killing of a 62-year-old man in a road rage shooting.
Koby Burkhart, 22, was arrested on Monday, Feb. 3, and faces a murder charge, according to city jail records.
Ricky Langs, of Fort Worth, was killed in the road rage shooting near East Loop 820 on Jan. 27, police said.
Officers were called about 6:45 p.m. to the shooting scene, where a gray Hyundai Elantra had crashed along the Loop 820 service road. They found the driver, Langs, unconscious and bleeding inside his car. Officers saw that he had a gunshot wound to his chest.
Langs was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, where he died in the emergency room.
Burkhart, who is from Fort Worth, was being held in the Tarrant County Jail on Tuesday with bond set at $500,000.
Langs’ cousin Del Williams told Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV that the cousins were talking on the phone when Langs said that a driver was following closely behind his car.
“He said, ‘It’s this dude all the way on my bumper. Every time I move, he comes up.’ He was like, ‘Dude, get back,’” Williams told WFAA. “He’s like, ‘Cousin, I’ll just call you when I get home.’ We hung up the phone, and that’s the last time I talked to him.”
Bobbie Wofford told WFAA that Langs was her oldest child.
“That’s my baby, and I’m going to miss him being around, talking to me, calling me ‘Miss Bobbie,’” Wofford said.
Warrant: Suspect followed and shot victim who honked at him
According to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Star-Telegram, police collected dashboard camera footage from Langs’ car and also reviewed video from license plate readers and surveillance cameras at nearby businesses.
Investigators created a timeline of events that led up to the shooting using the videos. From the footage, detectives determined that at the roundabout at East Rosedale Street and South Ayers Avenue, Langs stopped his car and honked at Burkhart’s white Chevy Equinox, which was in front of him.
After that, the videos showed Burkhart’s Chevy Equinox following Langs’ car, police wrote in the warrant. Both vehicles stopped at the traffic light at 6000 E. Rosedale, with Langs’ car in the left lane and Burkhart’s SUV in the right lane.
Investigators noted that Burkhart left more than an entire car length of space in front of him, in order to stop beside Langs. After the traffic light turned green, as Burkhart slowed down to stay next to Langs’ car, two gunshots can be heard on Langs’ dashcam video, police wrote in the affidavit.
“The victim can be heard in the dash camera yelling that he has been shot,” the warrant states.
Langs lost control of his car and ended up in the median between Loop 820 and its service road, police said. The videos show that Burkhart drove away, according to the warrant.
Investigators used footage from Flock cameras to identify the license plate of the Chevy Equinox and determined that Burkhart was the owner, police said. On Jan. 28, the Equinox was found covered by a blue tarp and parked outside of his Fort Worth home, the warrant states.
During his interview with homicide detectives, Burkhart said that Langs pointed a gun at him when he stopped beside the gray car. He couldn’t describe the gun at all, eventually stating it was “probably black.” Investigators did not find a gun in Langs’ car, according to the warrant.
Burkhart told investigators that he took a AR pistol from the floorboard behind his seat because he was afraid the victim would shoot him, and he fired two shots and drove away, according to the warrant.
Investigators said they found the gun at Burkhart’s house while serving a search warrant.
Burkhart removed the license plate from his SUV and replaced it with an expired temporary tag, police said, and covered it with the tarp after he saw a police helicopter in the area.
According to the arrest warrant, Burkhart’s statement was not consistent with what police saw in the videos.
The footage clearly shows that Burkhart had ample space and opportunity to pull ahead of the victim’s car, police said. Detectives believe that he slowed down intentionally to allow Langs’ car to catch up with him to create an opportunity to shoot, according to the warrant.
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 1:57 PM.