Dylan Lyons has been identified as the Spectrum News 13 reporter who was murdered yesterday while reporting at the scene of a homicide. He was 24.
Spectrum News 13 photojournalist Jesse Walden was also critically injured.
Orange County Sheriff John Mina said a 9-year-old girl was also killed in a separate, but related, random shooting.
Lyons was born and raised in Philadelphia and graduated from the University of Central Florida.
On Twitter, Casey Lynn, identified by NBC News as as Lyons’ fiancee wrote, “The love of my life was murdered. I will never be the same person ever again. Please help my family and I during this time.”
“He took his job very seriously. He loved his career. He loved what he did,” said Spectrum Sports 360 reporter Josh Miller. “He loved the community, telling the stories of people, reporting on the news, and he was just passionate about what he did.”
The station said Lyons was a “motivated and talented professional who was living his dream in Orlando, Dylan Lyons will not be forgotten.”
He joined Spectrum News 13 as a multimedia journalist in July 2022.
Both Lyons and Walden were covering a previous homicide in Pine Hills, just outside Orlando, at around 4 p.m. when, according to Sheriff Mina, Keith Melvin Moses, the suspect in the woman’s killing, returned to the scene and opened fire on the two while they were in or near their vehicle.
“The amount of people that will miss him, I’m sure, I can’t even come to fathom how many,” Miller said.
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to cover funeral costs. Click here to donate.