‘He loved what he did:’ News 13 reporter, UCF alum Dylan Lyons killed in Orlando shooting

Even before he stepped into his first newsroom, Dylan Lyons’ future in journalism looked promising.

While a student at University of Central Florida’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media, Lyons quickly proved himself to be a leader who was interested in teaching others as he learned, said Rick Brunson, a senior instructor in the journalism school.

Brunson taught Lyons in two journalism classes when he was a sophomore at UCF and worked closely with Lyons as advisor of the student chapter of the Radio Television Digital News Association when Lyons was president.

“I would watch him as he was out and about on campus,” Brunson said. “He would bring other students in the [videography] class along with him to kind of coach them and mentor them and show them how to work the camera, how to set up a shot. He was that kind of a guy. He wasn’t just looking out for his own grade. He involved other people around him in such a friendly way. People just loved being with him. That was Dylan.”

Lyons, 24, died after he and another Spectrum News 13 employee, photojournalist Jesse Walden, were shot just after 4 p.m. Wednesday while working on a report at the scene of a homicide that happened in the 6100 block of Hialeah Street in Pine Hills hours earlier. Walden was critically injured in the shooting but survived.

After killing Lyons, the suspected shooter, 19-year-old Keith Melvin Moses, walked to a home nearby and shot two others, Orange County Sheriff John Mina said in a press conference Wednesday evening. There, deputies say Moses killed 9-year-old T’Yonna Major and critically injured her mother.

Moses is also suspected in the earlier homicide. The victim, 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin, was found dead in her car around 11:17 a.m. Wednesday. Mina said Moses knew Augustin but it’s unclear if he had any connection to Lyons, T’Yonna or the others who were injured.

“No one in our community, not a 9-year-old child or a media professional should become of victim of gun violence,” Mina said.

Lyons was born and raised in Philadelphia before relocating to Florida and attending high school at A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. According to his LinkedIn page, he started in 2012 and graduated in 2016. The Palm Beach County School District confirmed Thursday he was in the school’s theater program.

“The Dreyfoos family is saddened to learn of the tragic and senseless loss of our former student,” Principal Blake Bennett said in a statement. “According to teachers who worked with Dylan, he was a bright shining star and was adored on our campus. He will forever be in our thoughts and prayers.”

Lyons enrolled at UCF, earning degrees in journalism and political science. He joined Spectrum News 13 in July, according to his bio on the news station’s website.

“As a reporter, he’s honored to have the unique privilege of being a voice for the voiceless and making sure all communities and stories are treated fairly and equally,” it says.

He previously worked for WCJB-TV, a news station in Gainesville. His coverage of the 2020 race for Florida’s 3rd Congressional District was chosen as the best politics or elections reporting series by the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists.

“When he graduated ... he already had a job waiting for him,” Brunson said. “They plucked him up there at Gainesville WCJB-TV. They wanted him as soon as he walked in. He got his cap and gown and got his degree and headed up there and he did amazing work. ... Right out of the box from the get-go, he was an award-winning journalist.”

Still, Brunson said he was proud when Lyons made the choice to come back to work in Orlando for News 13.

“I love it when [former students] come back to this town and to this market to work,” he said. “... He wanted to be an excellent journalist and he wanted a long-lasting career doing it. He was on his way until he was cut short in a heinous crime. I’m having a hard time getting my head around it.”

Brunson said he rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center as word reached him that Lyons had been the journalist killed Wednesday. There he met Lyons’ mother and fiancée who were distraught.

Brunson said Lyons loved his mother and conversations that started on the topic of his schoolwork during office hours would often end with Lyons talking about his mom and other family members.

“He just loved his mom and wanted to make her proud,” Brunson said. “To see her last night having lost her son, it just broke my heart.”

In a remembrance posted to the Spectrum News 13 website, friend and colleague Josh Miller said Lyons “took his job very seriously.”

“He loved his career,” Miller said. “He loved what he did. He loved the community, telling the stories of people, reporting on the news, and he was just passionate about what he did.”

Lyons’ family set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his funeral.

“He was an acting father to his niece and nephew who he loved so much,” his sister Rachel Lyons wrote. “He loved his fiancé and... was a devoted son to his mother and father.”

In a statement late Wednesday, News 13 parent company Charter Communications said, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and the other lives senselessly taken today.”

“Our thoughts are with our employee’s family, friends and co-workers during this very difficult time,” the statement said. “We remain hopeful that our other colleague who was injured makes a full recovery. This is a terrible tragedy for the Orlando community.”

The motive for the violence remains unclear.

“Every day, journalists across the country go out into the field to do the essential work of bringing important information to their communities,” Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “We are sadly seeing journalism become an increasingly dangerous profession in the United States, and it should not be this way.”

Caroline Brauchler, a senior at UCF and editor of the journalism school’s student publication NSM Today, said she and her classmates are taught about the dangers that come with reporting, learning the story of another UCF graduate, Steven Sotloff, who died at 31 in 2014 while reporting on unrest in Syria.

“At UCF, we’ve seen this happen before,” Brauchler said referring to Sotloff. “We’ve seen a reporter that was trained here at UCF who went out into the world to do the good, honest work that we’re trained to do. He was just doing his job and he was killed and now we see the same thing with Dylan.”

Over the course of the day Thursday, a makeshift memorial grew outside the Nicholson School of Communication and Media at UCF, with well-wishers leaving flowers, candles and other remembrances beneath a sign that said, “In loving memory of Dylan Lyons.”

Brauchler, who did not know Lyons personally, said the slaying does not change her desire to become a professional journalist.

“I will always respect Dylan for what he did,” she said. “He carried his commitment to journalism until the very end. I hope that myself and all of the other students that we work with here at UCF can grow up to be like him, and as dedicated as him.”

Jeff Weiner, Amanda Rabines and David Harris of the Sentinel staff and Scott Travis of the South Florida Sun Sentinel contributed.