Fourth episode of podcast series on Christina Grimmie released
After a hiatus from journalism, Janet Brindle Reddick made her return to the news business June 7, 2016. As the new breaking news editor for the Orlando Sentinel, she would oversee the reporters who cover cops, crashes and crime — the mayhem of a metropolitan community.
She started on a Tuesday. Over the two days that followed, there were a pair of SWAT standoffs. The second involved an armed man who barricaded himself inside a unit at the Cornerstone Apartments with two toddlers. After several hours, police rescued the kids and arrested the suspect. A potential tragedy was averted. It was already a busy first week, and Reddick — while enjoying being back in a newsroom — was ready for a break in the action. “It felt good to be around other journalists,” she said. “I was looking forward to the weekend, though … hoping to maybe catch my breath.”
But what she couldn’t know was that, as the second standoff was concluding, a 27-year-old man was quietly arriving in a cab from St. Petersburg
and checking into a hotel less than half a mile from the Orlando Sentinel’s newsroom.
The following day, Kevin James Loibl would open fire during a meet-and-greet after a concert at The Plaza LIVE, killing singer Christina Grimmie, with whom he was obsessed. His actions ensured the weekend of June 10 would be remembered in Orlando as one of infamy and heartbreak. But it wasn’t over. Over the course of five days in June 2016, Orlando was the scene of three tragic events — Grimmie’s killing, the massacre at Pulse nightclub and the alligator attack that killed 2-year-old Lane Graves — that would attract national headlines and which still linger in the city’s collective psyche to this day.
In Orlando’s Darkest Days, the fourth episode of the Orlando Sentinel’s true-crime podcast “Christina Grimmie: The Murder of a Rising Star,” we tell the story of the bloody weekend that shook Orlando to its core, through the perspectives of journalists who experienced and covered it.
Christal Hayes, now a reporter for USA Today, was a breaking news reporter for the Sentinel in June 2016. On June 10, she was finishing up the night shift when a colleague tipped her off to an incident at The Plaza LIVE. An Orlando police log confirmed that there had been a shooting reported there.
Hayes raced to the venue, arriving to find the controlled chaos of flashing police lights and frightened people. Officers had cordoned off the crime scene, but many who had attended the concert were still there, waiting to learn what had happened. Hoping the rumors that Grimmie had been shot would prove false.
Hayes worked until about 4 a.m. covering Grimmie’s shooting and was back at The Plaza later that day, where fans arranged an impromptu vigil. She left the newsroom about midnight. Roughly two hours later, in the early hours of June 12, another gunman would open fire inside another local venue — Pulse.
Hayes again rushed to the scene.
“I was talking to people who had left the club,” she said. “… There was one man in particular who I talked with that morning, Christopher Hanson. And he gave me I think the most detailed look about what had happened from, you know, seeing a lot of blood. Seeing all these people who’d been shot.”
Officials would later that morning confirm that 49 people had been killed inside Pulse, at the time the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Journalists from across the Sentinel newsroom contributed to coverage as the national media descended on Orlando as the city rallied to honor the lives lost.
But the start of a new week brought no relief from the horror. On Tuesday, another ominous tip came into the newsroom: A small boy had been attacked by an alligator at a Disney resort and dragged away from his family. And a frantic search effort by local authorities had not been able to find him.
On the fifth and final episode of “Christina Grimmie: The Murder of a Rising Star,” Grimmie’s story doesn’t end at the Plaza LIVE. Her family and fans work to keep her memory alive and ensure the talented singer will have a legacy that lives on. But some also struggle with the horror of June 10, 2016.
Episode 5, Never Forgotten, will be released Monday, July 9. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or Spotify or at OrlandoSentinel.com/ ChristinaGrimmie.