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A recap of the trial of Markeith Loyd. Will he face the death penalty?

Markeith Loyd/Photo: Orlando Police Department
Markeith Loyd/Photo: Orlando Police Department

Markeith Loyd has been convicted of first-degree murder in the 2017 killing of an Orlando Police Officer. 

The Orlando Sentinel’s Monivette Cordeiro covered the trial and spoke to WMFE’s Talia Blake about how the case played out in court and what Loyd’s conviction means.

Below is a transcript of the conversation:

TALIA BLAKE:  This case caught the attention of many central Floridians, but for those who may not know the name Markeith Loyd, can you briefly tell us about this case?

MONIVETTE CORDEIRO: InDecember of 2016, Marquis Loyd went to his ex girlfriend's house, she was pregnant at the time. Her name was Sade Dixon and he was upset at her over some alleged infidelity. After a scuffle, he shot her and her brother, and attempted to shoot the rest of her family. She died in that incident. From December 2016, he was kind of on the run. He stopped at a Walmart in January 2017 to, according to him, get some food and supplies. That's when someone recognized him, alerted Orlando Police Lt. Deborah Clayton that he was there, and that he was wanted for murder. She tried to detain him. He ran. According to him, she fired the first shot and he turned around to defend himself. It's not clear, there's no concrete evidence as to who fired the first shot, but he turned around and he engaged in a gun battle with her. He shot her four times including once in the neck that was fatal to her and she ultimately passed away. He was on the run again, for about another week or so before finally being arrested at a Carver Shores home in Orlando.

BLAKE: This trial has been pretty quick. What was the past two weeks been like in the courtroom?

CORDEIRO: So we heard from witnesses and experts on both sides about what happened with the shooting [and] in the aftermath. Lloyd and his defense attorneys had a two part defense. One: that Lloyd wasn't sane at the time of the shooting, because he had a fear that police were going to kill him. That they would capture him after the Dixon killing and not bring him in, but actually kill him. Also, a self defense claim because they said Clayton shot at him first and he was responding to her shots. So, they brought an experts, like mental health and stuff like that. On the other side, prosecutors were arguing he had an opportunity to flee after  shooting Clayton the first couple of times, but he decided to come back and, fire the fatal shot into her neck. So, they brought witnesses to corroborate what happened the day of the events and experts who said that Lloyd wasn't insane at the time of shooting.

BLAKE: Lloyd is already serving life in prison for the murder of his ex girlfriend Sade Dixon. Now that he's been convicted of Clayton's murder, what comes next?

CORDEIRO: With the Dixon conviction, he avoided the death penalty because jurors voted, or recommended, that he not be sentence to capital punishment. So, he was sentenced to life. In this case, the same thing is going to happen in that jurors will now do a penalty phase on Saturday, where they will listen to evidence and decide if Lloyd should be sentenced to death, this time around for Clayton's killing. That could take  another week.

After a brief stint as Morning Edition Producer at The Public’s Radio in in Rhode Island, Talia Blake returned to WMFE, the station that grew her love for public radio. She graduated with a double-major in Broadcast Journalism and Psychology from the University of Central Florida (Go Knights!). While at UCF, she was an intern for WMFE’s public affairs show, Intersection. In her spare time, Talia is an avid foodie and enjoys working out.