Feb. 24, 2023 Orange County sheriff’s investigators are still trying to determine a motive behind Keith Melvin Moses’ alleged shooting rampage that left an Orlando TV journalist and a 9-year-old girl dead.
By Jeff Weiner Source Orlando Sentinel Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A man told detectives he was cruising around Pine Hills on Wednesday with his friend Nathacha Augustin when he spotted Keith Melvin Moses, who was walking along Hastings Street and “seemed down.”
The driver, according to an affidavit, offered the 19-year-old a ride in his Hyundai. About 30 seconds after Moses sat down in the rear passenger seat behind Augustin, the driver said he heard a loud bang. Augustin was bleeding from her face. As the driver pulled over on Hialeah Street to call 911, he said Moses took off running.
Augustin’s shooting death just before 11 a.m. Wednesday began a daylong rampage by Moses, authorities say.
He returned to the scene later in the day and shot two Spectrum News 13 journalists — killing reporter Dylan Lyons — and then went to a nearby house on Hastings, where he killed 9-year-old T’Yonna Major and critically wounded her mother, according to Sheriff John Mina.
An affidavit in support of an arrest warrant in Augustin’s killing shed some light on how the violence began, but not why. The motive remains unclear.
Mina on Thursday told reporters that Moses was taken to a hospital after his arrest because he said he was struggling to breathe. While there, he fought with hospital staff and had to be restrained, the sheriff said.
“We transported him to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to try and conduct an interview. Moses pretended to be asleep and did not speak with the detectives,” Mina said. “At one point, he began physically resisting our detectives and had to be subdued there at the Sheriff’s Office.”
Moses was slated to be in court Thursday afternoon for an initial appearance, but the public defender representing him waived his appearance, citing “mental health” as the reason in a court filing. A judge ordered Moses held without bail at the Orange County Jail.
The affidavit shows deputies arrived at the Hialeah Street shooting scene about 11:15 a.m. to find Augustin lying on her stomach next to the Hyundai’s passenger side. She had a gunshot wound to the left side of her chin.
She was pronounced dead just before 11:30.
Blood was found on the car’s passenger and driver seats and the center console. Inside, detectives found a single spent shell casing.
According to the affidavit, the Hyundai driver, whose name was not included in the document, told detectives that he “did not have any problems with anyone” and, as far as he knew, neither did Augustin.
He said he hadn’t heard any argument between Augustin and Moses before the gunshot. Though Mina on Wednesday described Moses and Augustin as acquaintances, the driver said they didn’t know each other, the affidavit said.
According to a synopsis of the case released by the Sheriff’s Office on Thursday afternoon, detectives had cleared the crime scene and towed away the Hyundai before Moses returned and attacked the News 13 crew.
Calls about the shooting that killed Lyons came in about 4:05 p.m. and calls about the shooting that killed T’yonna started at “about the same time,” the OCSO synopsis said. Moses was detained about 4:30 p.m.
Body worn camera footage from his arrest showed Moses screaming, “They killing me,” and “Let me go,” as deputies tackled him to the ground and handcuffed him. Later in the video he shouted repeatedly, “I can’t breathe.”
The footage showed deputies cutting a hole in Moses’ pants with a knife to retrieve a handgun.
Though Moses is currently only charged in Augustin’s killing, Mina said additional charges are coming, adding that several witnesses identified him and video evidence also places him “at the scene at the time of the shootings.”
“I am 100% confident that we will charge him with homicide in the killing of Dylan Lyons and also of the 9-year-old girl, T’Yonna Major,” Mina said. “We’re not looking for anyone else. He’s our guy.”
Moses had a lengthy prior record of mostly juvenile arrests, though he was also arrested as an adult in November 2021 on charges of possessing cannabis and drug paraphernalia. Moses was on felony juvenile probation at the time but the case was dropped the following month.
On Thursday, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell said the case was dropped because of the small amount of marijuana that was found in Moses’ possession: 4.6 grams.
She said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement does not test amounts that small, meaning the State Attorney’s Office could not prove the case, which she called “not suitable for prosecution.”