Survivors testify during downtown Orlando Halloween mass shooting trial
ORLANDO, Fla. —
Opening statements began Thursday morning in the trial of Jaylen Edgar, who is accused of killing two people and injuring several others during Halloween celebrations in Orlando in 2024.
Edgar, who was 17 at the time, is accused of opening fire into a large crowd on Orange Avenue, killing 25-year-old Tyrek Hill and 19-year-old Timothy Schmidt Jr.
Prosecutors told a jury that Edgar had a simple motive.
“The why is as easy as it is frightening: the evidence will show the why is simply because that is what the man wanted to do. He went there to kill as many people as he possibly could,” assistant State Attorney Frank George said.
In his opening statement, George said there is no doubt that Edgar fired the shots that killed two people and wounded seven others.
“This is not a ‘who done it,'” George said. “Not by any stretch of the imagination.”
Prosecutors played surveillance video showing the shooting on Orange Avenue in the middle of a massive crowd in downtown Orlando for Halloween celebrations in 2024.
The gunman walks by the first victim, Tyrek Hill, turns and points a gun before firing.
Hill’s family members and at least one juror gasped upon seeing the video.
Investigators said Edgar ran with the fleeing crowd through downtown and then fired several more shots. One of them hit and killed UCF student Timothy Schmidt Jr.
Hours before the shooting, Schmidt Jr. sent his father a photo of him in a red costume before he went downtown.
Orlando Police Capt. Cindy Lane testified that she found the 19-year-old unresponsive on the ground.
“I flipped him over, and I noticed there was a hole in the costume,” she said, adding, “it was in the center area of his torso.”
OPD Officer Michael Hernandez testified he had an encounter with Edgar before the shootings when he commanded him to get off an Orlando Fire Department vehicle.
After Hernandez saw Edgar shooting in the ground, his takedown of the suspect was caught on surveillance video.
“I grabbed him,” Hernandez said, “did a leg sweep, redirected him back to the ground, and then I secured him in handcuffs.”
On Thursday afternoon, the state called on the seven surviving victims to testify about their injuries and what they recall from that Halloween night.
“I realized this was a mass shooting as far away started running,” Jessica De Carvahlo said, “and as I was running, I didn’t realize that I had been shot. I looked at my hand because it was excruciating pain that I’d never felt before.”
De Carvalho told the court she needed emergency surgery to reconstruct her hand.
“I still have limited function in my hand; some function was restored, but it obviously will never be a perfect hand,” she said.
Edgar’s attorney, Junior Barrett, did not give an opening statement. He has said that Edgar wants him to pursue a ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ defense.
But Barrett has said he cannot ethically do so based on two evaluations done by psychologists on Edgar.
The judge did leave open the possibility that Edgar could try to convince the jury he was insane if he took the stand himself and testified.
Edgar cannot face the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the shooting.
The trial resumed Friday at 9 a.m.
