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A television journalist was fatally shot while reporting from the crime scene of an earlier incident.
Dylan Lyons, a reporter with Spectrum News 13, was identified as the victim killed during a shooting in Pine Hills, Florida on Wednesday (February 22) afternoon, which also critically wounded a photojournalist, the Orlando news station announced on its website Thursday (February 23) morning.
"Following the shooting death of one of our colleagues and the wounding of another, Spectrum News 13 has now identified the reporter who lost his life as Dylan Lyons," the Orlando news station said Thursday morning.
Lyons and a news crew were at prior crime scene of an incident where a woman, identified as Natacha Augustin, 38, was fatally shot earlier in the day, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said via NBC News. Mina said Keith Melvin Moses, 19, the suspect in Augustin's killing, returned to the scene and opened fire on Lyons and a photojournalist, who Spectrum News 13 later identified as Jesse Walden.
Moses was reported to have then walked into a nearby home and shot a woman and her 9-year-old daughter, according to Mina. The girl, identified as T'yonna Major, was reported to have died from injuries sustained in the shooting while her mother, who was not publicly identified, was reported to be in critical condition Wednesday night.
Moses was arrested in the area and initially charged in the death of Augustin and will later be charged in the additional four shootings, according to Mina. The sheriff had initially confirmed that a reporter had died, however, didn't identify Lyons publicly and specified that it was unclear whether Moses knew Lyons and Walden "were news media or not" prior to the incident.
A GoFundMe page set up by Lyons' family said he was 24 years old. The Philadelphia native joined Spectrum News 13 as a multimedia journalist in July 2022, according to his bio on the station's website.
Casey Lynn, a woman identifying herself as Lyons' fiancée, shared a tweet stating that "the love of my life was murdered."
"I will never be the same person ever again," Lynn wrote. "Please help my family and I during this time."
Lyons was described as a "proud University of Central Florida graduate with a degree in Journalism and Political Science" and had contributed to the student-run news station UCF Knightly News, as well as later working as a reporter and anchor for WCJB in Gainesville prior to joining Spectrum News 13, according to his station bio. The 24-year-old also won the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists award for best 'Politics/Elections Series' and was a finalist for Investigative Reporting in 2021.