Shooter in Gay Man’s Murder Found Not Guilty

metroweekly.com:

second-degree murder in relation to the death of 52-year-old John Walter Lay at the city’s West Dog Park on February 2, 2024.The jury also failed to find Radford guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter with a weapon.Prosecutors with the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office had sought to attach a hate crime enhancement to the charges.

Had he been convicted, Radford could have been sentenced to life in prison.Prosecutors were impeded by the fact that there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting and no surveillance video of the altercation.

Radford claimed Lay had attacked him and that he shot Lay in self-defense. Radford’s attorneys said that the state attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office caved to public pressure and news media attention and rushed to make an arrest and, in doing so, conducted a shoddy investigation, even failing to secure surveillance video from a nearby home before the footage was erased.Assistant State Attorney Justin Diaz sought to poke holes in Radford’s defense, comparing how the latter’s account of the shooting “expanded and changed” from the time Radford called 911 to what he claimed in December when he sought to avoid prosecution by asserting a “Stand Your Ground” defense, which the judge rejected.In his most recent account, Radford claimed Lay hit him in the head, knocking him to the ground before getting on top of him, pinning him down, and beating him.Radford claimed that when he pulled out his gun, Lay grabbed the weapon with both hands and was able to get his finger on top of Radford’s as it rested on the trigger.