High-profile killings marred 2017 even as overall number dropped
The killing of Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton, a mass shooting that killed five people at the Fiamma RV awning company and the gunning down of two police officers in Kissimmee brought attention to Central Florida homicides in 2017. But there were fewer homicides throughout the Orlando area in 2017 than in 2016, records show.
The Orlando Police Department had 25 murder cases, a drop from 37 the previous year — which does not include the 49 lives lost in the Pulse nightclub attack on June 12, 2016. OPD finished 2017 with 21 of those cases solved, though there is an outstanding warrant in one of them. That is a clearance rate of 84 percent, close to 2016’s rate of 86 percent.
Orlando officers also investigated five more deaths classified as manslaughter, or accidental killings — such as that of Myles Hill, the 3-year-old accidentally left in a hot day-care van, or people killed in accidental shootings.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office saw fewer homicides and more solved cases, going from 61 homicides with a 44 percent clearance rate in 2016 to 42 homicides and a 69 percent clearance rate, though two of the cases have outstanding warrants. The drop was especially noticeable in Pine Hills, where deputies investigated 21 homicides in 2016 and nine in 2017.
“One loss is too many, but [it’s] not as many
homicides as we saw last year,” Orange County Sheriff ’s Cpl. Justin Wall said.
Wall attributed part of the drop in homicides to community involvement, which may have seen a boost when law-enforcement officers across the region were looking for Markeith Loyd, accused of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend in December 2016 and then Clayton when she tried to arrest him in January 2017.
“It was definitely a difficult start to the year, but I think the community really rallied around that event,” Wall said.
Fiamma shooting
A week before Orlando marked one year since the Pulse shooting, John Robert Neumann Jr. walked into his former workplace, Fiamma Inc. on Forsyth Road, and killed five people. He then shot and killed himself.
Orange County deputies rushed to the business, which makes RV awnings. Family members and friends of the employees soon followed, anxiously waiting for information.
The victims were Robert Snyder, 69; Brenda Montañez-Crespo, 44; Kevin Clark, 53; Jeffrey Roberts, 57; and Kevin Lawson, 47.
“That was one of the most difficult things I think we’ve seen, simply because these are people who went to work on Monday morning at 8 o’clock … and were gunned down for little to no reason. It’s senseless,” Wall said.
Seeking death penalty
As Gov. Rick Scott and Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala waged high-profile legal and political battles over Ayala’s decision not to seek the death penalty in any murder case, Orange and Osceola counties saw prosecutors asking for capital punishment in nine killings in 2017.
That includes Loyd and Everett Glenn Miller, the former Marine accused of killing Kissimmee Police Officer Matthew Baxter and Sgt. Richard “Sam” Howard in August.
“Before Markeith Loyd, the last time this department had a death-penalty case was Jerry Smith in 2006,” Orlando Police Detective Michael Moreschi said. Smith was a Delaney Park woman with dementia who was stabbed in her home. The death sentence of Lionel Miller, who was convicted of killing her, was vacated because it was not unanimous; he was sentenced to life in prison.
State Attorney Brad King of Ocala, to whom Scott assigned 29 murder cases, also is seeking death for two women accused of killing 3-year-old Xavier MokarzelSatchel in an apartment in July.
“It’s always disheartening whenever we see violence against a child, and there’s really no explaining it,” Wall said. “... Particularly violent scenes are difficult, just because you can see what people can really do to each other.”
2 shell casings and a victim
One case that didn’t get a lot of attention last year was the killing of Robert Payne, 18. He was found dead Nov. 27, lying on a Grand Street sidewalk between Westmoreland Drive and Orange Blossom Trail. There were two shell casings next to his body, and not much else for investigators to go on.
But Orlando Police Detective Toyd Montford found a nearby business with a surveillance camera, which captured footage of four people running away from Payne.
“It appears the victim knew his killer(s),” Montford wrote in his report.
Detectives found a friend of Payne’s, who said Payne planned to rob someone with a gun he coveted: a man named Te’andra Adams. During the next three weeks they found witnesses to the shooting, who described Adams and Payne arguing. Adams pulled out his gun and shot Payne and then stood over him and fired again, Montford wrote in his report. Adams was arrested Dec. 20.
“We know sometimes the odds are against us in solving some of these cases. But the ones that don’t get attention from anyone, that we work, that’s the kind of work that we do every day,” Moreschi said.
Unsolved cases
Dale Floren, 57, was a laborer for a construction company working near the Florida Mall who was found dead at the property’s northeastern edge April 14.
“He was actually an innocent victim, from what we can tell,” said Wall of the Sheriff’s Office. “There’s no connection to drugs or anything like that. And those are some of the most difficult, particularly when you believe there was limited interaction between the suspect and victim.”
In May, deputies released a photo of a man they thought might be involved in the killing, but they eliminated him as a suspect after he came forward and spoke with them, Wall said.
“Now we’re back to the drawing board,” Wall said.
Orlando Police Department officers have four unsolved cases for 2017 and are looking for a “person of interest” in a fifth.
Antwaun Streeter, 31, hasn’t been seen since Halloween night, when Radeya Haughton was shot and killed. Haughton was a mother of three and was killed only a few blocks from her apartment. Streeter is considered a person of interest. Then there was Breanna Walker, the 24-year-old shot after she dropped her child off at day care and before she went to work at the Morgan & Morgan law firm, police said.
Branndon Jones, 23, survived for about a month after being found shot Jan. 23 on Westmoreland Drive before dying from his injuries.
Travis Theophilus Turner, 28, was found dead in his car March 10 at the intersection of Colonial Drive and Orange Blossom Trail. He was coming back from a night out downtown, his family said.
Robert S. Centeno, 18, was found dead Dec. 14 at Venetian Place apartments on Commander Drive.
Anyone with information about a homicide investigation can call Crimeline at 800-423-8477.