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Ongoing case · 2023
Ongoing case: this file carries charge-sheet facts only. Anyone charged is presumed innocent unless convicted.
The short answer
Television reporter Dylan Lyons was fatally shot on February 22, 2023, while covering a homicide scene in Pine Hills, Florida; the same gunman also killed a 9-year-old girl and wounded two others before being arrested.
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Suggest coverage for Killing of Dylan LyonsThe case file
Dylan Colby Lyons (born March 11, 1998, in Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania) was a television news reporter for Spectrum News 13 in Orlando, Florida. He was a graduate of the University of Central Florida, where he studied journalism and political science and worked for UCF Knightly News, and he had previously reported and anchored for WCJB, an ABC affiliate in Gainesville.
On February 22, 2023, Lyons was part of a news crew reporting from the Pine Hills neighborhood of Orange County, Florida, on the earlier fatal shooting of Nathacha Augustin. 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, an Orlando native who was the suspect in the Augustin shooting and had reportedly been an acquaintance of hers, returned to the crime scene and shot Lyons and Spectrum News photographer Jesse Walden. Moses then allegedly went to a nearby home and shot Brandi Major and her 9-year-old daughter, T'Yonna Major. Lyons and T'Yonna Major died from their injuries, while Brandi Major and Walden were critically injured but survived. Police later arrested Moses, who had a criminal record dating back to 2018 but had never been imprisoned because he was a minor at the time of those prior offenses.
Lyons was survived by his immediate family and his fiancé, Casey Lynn. A GoFundMe page was organized by the Orlando community and by Lyons's sister, Rachel, to help cover funeral expenses for Lyons and for T'Yonna Major.
The killing drew international condemnation from press freedom advocates. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay condemned the killing of Dylan Lyons in a press release published March 1, 2023. UNESCO's mandate to "promote the free flow of ideas by word and image" includes protecting journalists and media workers from attacks and reprisals connected to their work, and the circumstances of Lyons's killing were catalogued in UNESCO's Observatory of Killed Journalists, which archives cases of journalists killed in relation to their duties since 1997 where the Director-General has issued a condemnation.
The case has continued to generate civil litigation. On January 29, 2025, Lyons's family filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications, the owner of Spectrum News 13, alleging the company failed to provide staff with proper safety equipment and did not conduct an appropriate risk assessment before sending the news crew into the area while Moses remained at large. On February 18, 2025, the families of Lyons and T'Yonna Major filed a separate lawsuit against the Orange County Sheriff's Office, alleging wrongful death and civil rights violations for allegedly failing to adequately warn residents or apprehend Moses, and alleging that Brandi Major was told the situation was under control before deputies left the earlier shooting scene. The lawsuit also accused the sheriff's office of discrimination in allocating fewer resources to the Pine Hills area.
6 dated entries · 1998–2025
Dylan Colby Lyons born in Meadowbrook, Pennsylvania.
Keith Melvin Moses, later charged as the shooter, born.
Nathacha Augustin is fatally shot in Pine Hills, Orange County, Florida; while a news crew including Dylan Lyons and photographer Jesse Walden reports from the scene, Keith Melvin Moses returns and shoots Lyons and Walden, then shoots Brandi Major and her 9-year-old daughter T'Yonna Major at a nearby home. Lyons and T'Yonna Major die; Brandi Major and Walden are critically injured but survive. Moses is later arrested.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay publishes a press release condemning the killing of Dylan Lyons.
Lyons's family files a lawsuit against Charter Communications, owner of Spectrum News 13, alleging inadequate safety provisions and risk assessment.
Families of Lyons and T'Yonna Major file a lawsuit against the Orange County Sheriff's Office alleging wrongful death and civil rights violations.
6 named in this file
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
Mother of T'Yonna Major, critically injured but survived being shot at her home.[3]
Television news reporter for Spectrum News 13 fatally shot on February 22, 2023, while covering a homicide scene.[3]
Spectrum News photographer critically injured but survived being shot alongside Lyons.[3]
Woman fatally shot earlier on February 22, 2023, in the incident Lyons's news crew was covering when he was killed.[3]
9-year-old girl fatally shot by the same gunman at a nearby home shortly after Lyons was shot.[3]
Indicted by an Orange County, Florida grand jury on charges including two counts of first-degree murder with a firearm (for the deaths of Dylan Lyons and T'Yonna Major), one count of first-degree murder with a firearm for the death of Nathacha Augustin, two counts of attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, and armed burglary, stemming from the 22 February 2023 Pine Hills shooting spree; case remains pending, with trial pushed to 2027 as of the most recent reporting.[3]
3 cited
Coverage is not a source: every fact in this file rests on the records below.
PressNBC NewsAccessed Jul 7, 2026
Pressunesco.orgAccessed Jul 7, 2026
EncyclopedicWikipediaAccessed Jul 7, 2026
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