A Florida gunman fatally shot a 17-year police veteran in a Walmart parking lot after a shopper spotted him inside the store, police said.
Markeith Loyd, 41, lived in Orlando, Florida.
Police had already been looking for Loyd for 27 days at the time of the parking lot shooting, authorities said.
On December 13, 2016, Loyd shot and killed his ex-girlfriend outside her family’s home, police said.
The victim, 24-year-old Sade Dixon, was three months pregnant with Loyd’s child and had two other kids, according to records.
Dixon had moved back in with her parents just three days earlier, police said. She told family members that Loyd had bitten her hard enough that she needed a tetanus shot, according to records.
On January 9, 2017, Lieutenant Debra Clayton was working an off-duty security shift at a Walmart, police said.
Clayton had served 17 years on the Orlando Police Department, according to authorities.
A shopper recognized Loyd inside the store and flagged down the lieutenant, police said.
Clayton walked up to the gunman in the parking lot to approach him, police said.
Loyd opened fire and killed the lieutenant before she could take him into custody, authorities said.
Clayton’s death launched a nine-day, citywide manhunt across Orlando, police said.
Officers finally found Loyd at an abandoned home in the Carver Shores neighborhood, authorities said.
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No one on scene was wearing a body camera during the arrest, records show.
The only record of what happened next came from an infrared camera on a police helicopter overhead, records show.
The helicopter footage shows Loyd coming out of the house, according to records. It also shows an officer appearing to kick him while he was down, the recording shows.
Loyd had been carrying two handguns when police closed in, authorities said. One of the firearms was fitted with a 100-round drum magazine, police said.
Loyd came out of that capture with a fractured orbital bone and permanent blindness in one eye, according to a later state investigation.
The defendant spent more than 20 hours in a hospital before his first court appearance, records show.
Loyd arrived for that hearing with half his face wrapped in bandages, according to records.
“They done took my eye. Broke my nose, broke my jaw,” Loyd told reporters.
Both a state attorney’s review and the Orlando Police Department’s internal review concluded the force used was lawful, records show. No officer involved was ever disciplined, according to the findings.
A jury convicted Loyd of murdering Dixon and their unborn child in 2019, court records show.
A second jury convicted him of murdering Lieutenant Clayton in 2021 and unanimously recommended death, court records show.
Loyd was formally sentenced that March, court records show. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in November 2023, according to court documents.
His defense attorneys have already taken the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, court records show.
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