A chance encounter with a former sailor besieged by child sex trafficking delusions eventually led to the massacre of four members of a Florida family, including a mother who had her baby, a sheriff said Thursday.
Bryan Riley, who faces murder and other charges in Sunday’s murders, was briefly arrested by the Lakeland home of the murdered family the day before after going to a close friend’s house to pick up a kit first aid, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference.
Riley had told acquaintances that he was going to do relief work for Hurricane Ida and the friend offered the kit for the alleged trip. Not far away, Riley saw Judge Gleason mowing the lawn with his 11-year-old daughter in the garden, Judd said.
This triggered the trigger that led to the killings, Judd said: Riley saw the girl, believing it was an imaginary boy named Amber who was suicidal and was detained by an alleged ring of sex trafficking that God had told her to face. In fact, no one named Amber lived at home and Gleason repeatedly told Riley that before asking her to leave the initial meeting.
“It was all fiction, all invented by him,” Judd said. “There were no victims of sex trafficking in this house.”
Amber was, in fact, a “fruit of his imagination,” Judd said, according to CBS Tampa affiliate WTSP-TV, and the victims “were the unfortunate people he chose.”
WTSP
According to the WTSP, Judd said that after telling him he would call the police, Riley left angrily, though he did not threaten the family.
The station adds that Judd said Riley had a fight with his girlfriend on Saturday night, that he left home around 1 a.m. Sunday and went to Gleason’s house to “do recognition “because then Riley told detectives,” God told me to kill everyone and save Amber because she’s a victim of sex trafficking. “
He established his diversions, including the burning of a truck, and planned his attack, Judd said, according to WTSP.
Judd provided numerous new details about Sunday’s killings, including that Riley, in body armor, had three guns with him and fired at least 100 shots at the main house and a smaller one in the back where Catherine Delgado, 62 years, she was the first to die. .
Police officers fired about 60 shots in a battle that left Riley with a gunshot wound to the abdomen that did not endanger his life, Judd said. Riley surrendered after that.
“He was a coward. An absolute coward. He looks like a man, but he’s not a man. He’s a coward who snorts,” Judd told reporters.
The eleven-year-old girl survived the attack despite being shot several times and has so far undergone four surgeries, Judd said.
He told investigators that his family crowded into a bathroom after Riley headed home, killed his dog and then attacked everyone hiding in it. Riley repeatedly asked about Amber and then did the countdown (three, two, one) before shooting her and finally leaving her dead, she told authorities.
Judd said the girl played dead and he was able to survive despite injuries to his legs, hand and abdomen.
“That’s the reason he lives today,” the sheriff said.
The victims are Gleason, 40; his girlfriend, Theresa Lanham, 33; her baby, Jody, who was born in May; and Delgado, who was Lanham’s mother and owned the property. They had no weapons.
Riley, 33, served in the navy in Iraq and Afghanistan and worked as a security guard in the Lakeland area, including a church. After that recent job, his four-year-old girlfriend told investigators that Riley started talking about communication with God, but not about violence.
“No one has told us he knew anything about violence,” Judd said.
Riley is recovering from his gunshot wound and is being held without bail for murder, attempted murder and other charges. An indictment date of October 12 is set for him to file a lawsuit. Judd said he already confessed to the crimes, which could carry the death penalty.
Investigators have also not yet verified the statement following Riley’s arrest to officers that it was methamphetamine at the time of the shooting. No evidence of this drug has been found, although Judd said illegal steroids were found at Riley’s home in Brandon and that blood tests at the hospital could reveal more.
“This investigation is not over much. This will continue for weeks and weeks and weeks,” the sheriff said. “This mass murder is exceptionally horrible.”