Dylan Lyons was shot and killed while working at a Pine Hills homicide scene in Orlando. He was 24 years old. According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, a 9-year-old girl was killed in a separate, but related, shooting. The family has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to cover the funeral costs.
In the same shooting, Spectrum News photojournalist Jesse Walden was also critically injured.
Who was Dylan Lyons?
Yesterday, award-winning reporter at Spectrum News 13 in Orlando, Dylan Lyons, was murdered in a mass shooting in Pine Hills. Dylan was a loving acting father for his niece and nephew and was only 24 years old.
This is part of a video that he made for https://t.co/PryBHGVePG… https://t.co/TMX8r9xDDb pic.twitter.com/LSWOHagBjk
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) February 23, 2023
Dylan Lyons was born and raised in Philadelphia. He moved from Pennsylvania to Central Florida. He graduated from UCF.
He moved to Gainesville to become an anchor and report the news. Lyons’ friend and Spectrum Sports 360 reporter, Josh Miller, said, “He took his job very seriously. He loved his career. 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.”
Miller worked in Gainesville at the same time as Dylan. “When he was out of the news station, he was still talking about how much he wanted to succeed at his job, talking about how much he loved Orlando,” Miller said.
The 24-year-old loved his family and girlfriend equally, his friend said. “Very close with his mom, too,” Miller recalled. “I remember on different social media posts that he would put up, how grateful and thankful he was for his mother helping him get to his point, whether it was graduating from UCF, getting into the business.”
Lyons received an award from the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists and was a finalist for another.