ORLANDO, Fla. — A jury found Markeith Loyd guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday for shooting and killing Orlando police Lt. Debra Clayton when she tried to arrest him in 2017 for murdering his pregnant ex-girlfriend.
Jurors also found Loyd guilty of attempting to murder a second law enforcement officer and carjacking a man with a gun while attempting to flee. The 12-person jury began its deliberations shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday and made a decision in about five hours between two days.
Outside the Orange County Courthouse, Clayton’s sisters said it was hard to sit through Loyd’s trial knowing he took away their sibling.
“He’s going to get what he deserves,” Ashley Thomas said. “... She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Thomas said she questions why Loyd opted to turn around and get in a gunfight with her sister after initially fleeing.
“There’s no excuse for you to go back and do what you did,” she said. “That could have been your mom, that could have been your sister, that could have been your daughter there. Why would you do that to a woman?”
Both prosecutors and Loyd’s defense attorneys declined to comment after the verdict.
Loyd now faces the possibility of being sentenced to death.
The jurors who deemed him guilty will be back in court Saturday to begin the trial’s penalty phase, in which they’ll be asked to recommend either execution or life in prison. Only a unanimous verdict can result in a death sentence, and only if Circuit Judge Leticia Marques agrees.
Orlando police Chief Orlando Rolón and Orange County Sheriff John Mina, who was Orlando’s police chief when Clayton was killed, were present in court for the verdict. Both Mina and Rolón said they believed Loyd should be sentenced to death and never “see the light of day.”
“The message we have for (Loyd) is justice is served but more justice is coming,” the sheriff said. “We don’t feel sorry for him. We don’t care about his lame excuses. He is a murderer and that was proven in court twice now.”
The chief said Clayton, who was known for mentoring youth, exemplified the good done by law enforcement officers across the country.
“It’s unfortunate that sometimes a tragedy has to strike in order for that to be recognized,” Rolón said. “We will continue to live by what she obviously showed our community.”
“Today’s guilty verdict doesn’t ease the pain that so many have felt from the loss of Lt. Debra Clayton nearly five years ago, but it can provide solace as justice will be served,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement.
Prosecutors say Loyd killed 42-year-old Clayton during a shootout Jan. 9, 2017, at the Walmart on Princeton Street after she tried to arrest him for the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon.
A woman who recognized Loyd testified that she told Clayton, who had finished shopping at the store, that he was wanted for killing Dixon.
When Clayton attempted to stop Loyd, he ran before turning around and engaging in a gun battle with the officer, witnesses said. It remains unclear who fired first, but Loyd hit Clayton four times, including a fatal shot to her neck as he stood over her, before fleeing in his car, according to prosecutors.
“Debra Clayton is dead because of anger,” Assistant State Attorney Ryan Williams told jurors during closing arguments. “She is dead because of hatred. She is dead because a man valued his freedom more than he valued her life.”
But Loyd testified Clayton shot at him first and he fired in self-defense, though he didn’t intend to kill her. His attorneys argued Loyd was insane when he shot Clayton, having become convinced the police wanted to kill him.
“I didn’t go and finish her off,” Loyd said on the witness stand. “She was still alive when I left.”
Loyd’s attorney, Terence Lenamon, argued Loyd was insane and had a “delusional” belief that police were out to kill him, rather than capture him, as he eluded arrest after killing Dixon.
“Markeith believed police were trying to kill him for some time,” Lenamon said.
Defense attorneys also argued Loyd didn’t shoot Clayton “execution-style” as authorities have claimed because there was no gunpowder residue or stippling on her wounds, which means he was at least 3 feet away from her.
Shortly after Clayton’s killing, a captain with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office was driving in the area when he began to follow a vehicle matching the description given for Loyd’s car into the Royal Oaks apartment complex off Pine Hills Road, he testified.
Capt. Joseph Carter told jurors he barely managed to step outside his vehicle when he saw the car’s driver raise a gun and fire at him before fleeing. He was uninjured but said he later found a bullet in his wheel’s hubcap.
A man who lived in the complex told jurors that he was walking to his apartment when Loyd threatened him with a gun, demanded his car keys and took off in his vehicle.
But Loyd told jurors he only fired a “warning shot” at Carter and didn’t threaten the man with a gun to get his keys.
After a nine-day manhunt, Loyd was arrested after crawling out of an abandoned house in Carver Shores. Four OPD officers punched, kicked and hit Loyd with their rifle muzzles in a beating that caused him to lose an eye — and were eventually cleared of criminal wrongdoing and exonerated of excessive force claims.
Loyd’s defense was not allowed to tell jurors about the beating during the trial, but his attorneys have indicated an expert will testify during the penalty phase that Loyd has brain damage, which could have been caused by the officers who beat him.
It will be the second time Loyd faces possible capital punishment.
He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2019 for killing Dixon and her unborn child, but he avoided the death penalty after jurors recommended he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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