News Anchor Shot and Killed While Covering Shooting

A 24-year-old Florida journalist and a 9-year-old girl were shot and killed Wednesday afternoon while the journalist was covering a different shooting. Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Lyons, 24, was killed and photojournalist Jesse Walden was critically injured. Nathacha Augustin, 38, and T’yonna Major, 9, were then shot and killed inside a house. The suspect, 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, was taken into custody after the shootings.

During a press conference on Thursday, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said they are not looking for any other suspects. “He’s the guy. He’s our suspect,” Mina said, reports Spectrum News 13. Multiple witnesses identified Moses as the shooter, Mina told reporters.

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Moses allegedly had a Glock 40 semiautomatic weapon on him when he was detained, Mina said. The weapon was warm, which meant it was recently fired. The shootings were reported at about 4:05 p.m. ET. The two journalists were in the area to report on the sheriff’s investigation into a Pine Hills, Florida homicide that happened hours earlier.

The motives for the shooting remain unclear because Moses is not talking with authorities, Mina said. The 19-year-old suspect “has a lengthy criminal history, including gun charges, aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, and grand theft charges,” Mina said in a Wednesday press conference. It is also unclear if Moses knew Lyons and Walden were journalists. They believe Moses is an “acquaintance” of the victim of the earlier shooting but has no connection to the victims of the afternoon shooting.

“It’s unclear why exactly they were targeted, and certainly we’re going to look into that,” Mina said Wednesday evening. “(Moses) was an acquaintance of the woman this morning, but as far as we know, (he) had no connection to the reporters and no connection to the mother and the 9-year-old.”

Lyons was born in Philadelphia but moved to Central Florida for college. After graduating from UCF, he started his career in local journalism. “He took his job very seriously. He loved his career. He loved what he did,” Spectrum Sports 360 reporter and friend Josh Miller told Spectrum News 13. “He loved the community, telling the stories of people, reporting on the news, and he was just passionate about what he did.”

Lyons’ sister Rachel Lyons launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds for his funeral. The fund has already raised over $35,000. “He loved his fiancé and… was a devoted son to his mother and father,” Rachel wrote. “Dylan would have been 25 years old in March. He was a happy soul and a wonderful person in life. My brother was our baby. He was taken too early from us.”

“Our hearts go out to the family of the journalist killed today and the crew member injured in Orange County, Florida, as well as the whole Spectrum News team,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote late Wednesday. “Our hearts are also with the other shooting victims today, their families, and the entire community. Too many lives are being ripped apart by gun violence.”