Former deputy accused of stabbing lawyer was cleared in ’88 slaying
Gordon King currently sits in an Orange County jail cell, accused of stabbing his soon-to-be exwife’s attorney in May.
Three decades ago, King spent four months in the same jail after he was accused of murdering his friend’s wife, according to court documents. Paul David Sloan said he and King killed Sloan’s wife for $50,000 in insurance money, the documents say. But in a bizarre twist, Sloan recanted, saying he alone killed his wife. The charges against King were dropped and the arrest expunged from his record. King would later work
as an Orange County deputy sheriff for nearly a decade, before quitting in 2017 while he was under investigation for shoving a motorcyclist during an off-duty confrontation.
King, 58, is now facing charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment. Police said King was at a law office in the 400 block of West Fairbanks Avenue on May 1 when he became angry after his wife’s lawyer told him he was canceling a deposition in his divorce case, according to an arrest affidavit.
After King slammed his head on a table, the lawyer pulled out a knife. King grabbed the knife and stabbed the lawyer’s side, the affidavit said. The lawyer survived the incident.
King’s attorney, Amir Ladan, declined comment.
Arrested, cleared in 1988 killing
On July 25, 1988, Paul Sloan called 911 to say an intruder had shot and killed his wife, Beverly Sloan, in their Orlando home. But after Orlando police detectives found “inconsistencies” in the story, Sloan said it was King who killed his wife so the two friends could go into business together with her insurance money, court records said.
Sloan later testified against King in a preliminary hearing, describing how he said King pretended to be an intruder — knocking him to the ground with a blow to the back of the head, before shooting Beverly Sloan.
“I was scared,” Sloan said in court. “I just laid there. I froze. I couldn’t watch. I heard her come down the hall. I heard the shot. I saw her hit the floor. I looked away.”
But then Sloan changed his story again. In a sworn statement and two lie detector tests, Sloan said King had nothing to do with the slaying.
It’s not clear why Sloan, now 58, recanted or why he implicated King in the first place. Sloan at the time refused to say. King’s relatives said King was Sloan’s only friend.
“I offer my profound apology to the wife and family of Gordon King, and I sincerely apologize to my friend, Gordon King, for being completely untruthful in my statements implicating him in the death of my wife, Beverly Sloan,” he wrote in an affidavit, according to Orlando Sentinel archives.
Prosecutors determined Sloan acted alone when he shot his 28-year-old wife as she lay in bed. He was convicted of second-degree murder and is currently serving a life sentence. Sloan also pleaded guilty to perjury charges and lost a $350,000 civil judgment to King, records show.
“Praise the Lord, I just want to go home,” King said as he walked out of the Orange County courthouse jail, where he was greeted by his thenwife, Anita, and mother.
Resigned as cop under investigation
Twenty years after the ordeal, King landed a job as a deputy at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, where he worked from 2008 to 2017. Recently released records show he resigned during a professional standards investigation stemming from a October 2013 incident in Altamonte Springs.
An arrest affidavit shows a motorcyclist was using an exit ramp on State Road 414 to pass traffic and stopped next to King’s SUV in the same lane. King, who was off-duty but had his badge around his neck, got out of the SUV and started yelling at the motorcyclist, the arrest affidavit said.
The motorcyclist said he wasn’t doing anything wrong and King told him to “shut your mouth” and pushed him to the ground.
King got in his SUV and drove away and the motorcyclist called Altamonte Springs police. Police later arrested King on a battery charge and he pleaded no contest in December 2017.
A professional standards investigation began after the plea and determined that King violated the office’s policies of conformance to laws and unbecoming conduct.
“Deputy King’s actions regarding his interaction with [the motorcyclist] did not reflect favorably on the Orange County Sheriff’s Office or himself,” wrote Sgt. Chris Greenier in the report.
Records show King was arrested in December on burglary and larceny charges after Winter Garden police say he broke into his wife’s car last May. Charges were dropped earlier this month. His wife has also repeatedly sought domestic violence and stalking injunctions against King.
“I fear for my safety as he is extremely mentally unstable and very angry,” she wrote in a July 2018 petition. “He cannot control his anger nor his impulses to act/to know to stop when wrong.”
King was arrested May 16 on the aggravated battery charge stemming from the Winter Park stabbing. He posted bond the same day but had it revoked May 31 because a judge determined he lied to the court in his divorce proceeding when he said he turned all of his guns over to the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office. He actually gave one of them to a friend, court records say.