TV journalist killed while covering deadly Florida shooting spree ID’d
A gunman in central Florida killed a woman Wednesday, returned to the scene and killed a TV journalist covering that death, and then fatally shot a 9-year-old girl nearby before he was arrested, authorities said.
Spectrum News 13 in Orlando identified the slain reporter as 24-year-old Dylan Lyons. One of the station’s photographers, Jesse Walden, was “critically injured” in the shooting, the station said.
Authorities have not publicly identified the girl and woman who were killed in the deadly rampage that spanned three locations.
The suspect, 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, has been taken into custody, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said. His arrest ended a spate of violence that stretched several hours in a neighborhood just west of Orlando.
“No one in our community — not a mother, not a 9-year-old, (and) certainly not news professionals — should become the victim of gun violence in our community,” Orange County Sheriff John Mina said.
In addition to the three killings, the suspect is also accused of injuring the girl’s mother.
Investigators are trying to determine the motive behind the attacks.
“We really don’t know what was in the mind of this suspect,” Mina said. “Hopefully at some point that he’ll talk to us about what his motives were.”
How the deadly rampage unfolded
The first shooting was reported around 11 a.m. Wednesday. A woman in her 20s was killed inside a vehicle on Hialeah Street in Orange County. That woman is believed to be an acquaintance of the suspect, Mina said.
Later in the day, after that vehicle had been towed, the gunman returned to the area and shot two Spectrum News 13 journalists who were covering the woman’s killing, Mina said.
The suspect then entered a home on a nearby street and shot a mother and her 9-year-old daughter, the sheriff said. Both were taken to a hospital, where the child died and the mother was in critical condition Wednesday evening, authorities said.
“We don’t know why he entered that home,” the sheriff said.
Investigators also are looking into whether the suspect knew that the Spectrum News 13 employees were journalists.
Authorities said they believe Moses had no connection to the journalists nor the mother and her daughter.