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A judge has ruled that the statements of a then-11-year-old girl, the lone survivor of her family’s north Lakeland mass murder, are admissible in court.
Judge Kevin Abdoney made the ruling earlier this month in a document that also includes some of the girl’s statements to Polk County Sheriff’s Office Det. Brittany Wright and details not heard before.
“If the child appears as a witness, the statements made by (her) to Detective Wright are admissible as substantive evidence at trial,” Abdoney wrote in his Sept. 3 ruling in the case against the accused murderer, Bryan James Riley. The ruling came nearly three years after the quadruple homicide.
LkldNow is not identifying the girl.
Today: A status hearing between the judges and lawyers in Riley’s case is scheduled for 10 a.m. Riley will appear via videoconference, according to a document filed in late August.
The Lakeland community was horrified by the Sept. 5, 2021, murders of a family who had no prior connection with their alleged killer. Prayers were offered in churches across the city and people contributed to multiple charities for the girl, who is now 14.
The crime: Prosecutors say the day before the shooting, Riley, now 36, randomly stopped at the North Socrum Loop Road home of Justice Gleason, 40, his girlfriend Theresa Lanham, 33, the couple’s 3-month-old son, and Lanham’s mother, 62-year-old Cathy Delgado, who lived in a separate home on the three-house property.
Riley demanded to know where “Amber” was, saying God told him to rescue a girl thinking of committing suicide there. The family told him there was no one there by that name and to leave. They called the Sheriff’s Office, but Riley, who lived in Brandon, had already left.
New details emerge: Detective Wright interviewed the girl on Sept. 7, 2021, at Tampa General Hospital, where the girl was recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. There was no one else in the room with the two, and Wright recorded the conversation.
“Do you know why I’m here today?” Wright asked the girl.
“’Cause the guy,” she answered.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“He shot and killed my family. I was the only survivor,” she said.
The girl told Wright that she and her father had been doing yard work they day before the shooting when “the guy” drove by two or three times in his black Ford truck. She never saw the man, but heard her father say on one occasion, “This f’ing guy.” She went on to say that the man was looking for her father’s daughter and that the daughter wanted to commit suicide.
The man later identified as Riley left. Sheriff’s deputies were called, but said they couldn’t do anything because he hadn’t trespassed and hadn’t made any threats.
The girl said that her “soon-to-be-grandma” (Delgado) followed the man into another county and told deputies that the truck’s license plate had “an Army thing on it.” Riley is a former U.S. Marine.
In her words: The girl then told Wright exactly what happened in the predawn hours.
“She was awakened by her father, who picked her up and took her into the bathroom. She stated that he said there was shooting at (Cathy’s) house which was on the same compound,” the court document reads. “She stated that her ‘step-mom,’ Teresa, also came into the bathroom with her 3-(month)-old baby brother, Jody. She stated that Teresa and Jody were in the closet and that she hid beside the toilet. She reported that she heard glass breaking at the back door and that her baby brother started screaming. She said that ‘the guy had a really big gun.’ She first stated, ‘He shot my baby brother first. I’m pretty sure he shot my step-mom next or my dad.’ (She) later stated that her father was shot before her step-mom and brother were shot.”
At one point, she told the detective that her step-mother was on the phone with 9-1-1, screaming that they had shot her baby. She stated that her dad was shot first because he was trying to close the bathroom door.
“She said she didn’t know everyone was dead until it went silent,” the document reads.
She said “the man” told her that her parents were sex traffickers right after he shot them. He then told the girl to go sit on the couch. He asked her, “Are you Amber?” She responded “I’m not Amber. I don’t know any Amber.”
“She said the man said, ‘Yes you are. I know you know where Amber is,’” the document reads. “She stated the man then shot her in the thigh and that she placed her right hand on her thigh because ‘it hurt really bad.’ He then shot her in the hand. She was unsure how many times she was shot.”
At that point she played dead. She thought he had called someone because “his friends” arrived. The girl apparently didn’t understand that the person who entered the house was a law enforcement officer: Lt. Duane Tomkins, a shift commander with the Sheriff’s Office.
She told the detective “the man” kept shooting at the roof, walked away, then came back into the room, sat next to her on the couch and asked her, “Which way do I escape?”
She went on to say that her family had called 9-1-1, but it took them “30 minutes to get there.” She said she was lying in her blood and that it was “like a horror movie.”
When law enforcement arrived, she heard them on a loudspeaker say, “If you’re in the house, come out with your hands up,” so she “scooched” on the ground to the door, opened it and put her hands up. She was taken to an ambulance and “she thought she was going to die.”
Judge’s rulings: Abdoney stated that, in listening to the recordings, he thought the girl sounded “substantially alert and able to focus and respond appropriately to questions.” He also said the girl “has no known relationship to the defendant, referring to him only as ‘the guy’ or ‘the man.’ She therefore has no reason to fabricate the allegations.” He added that two statements she gave were substantially similar, although there was some variation in detail.
He said he would allow her statements and her testimony, along with those of Detective Wright if the girl were unavailable to testify.
Mom’s encouragement to lie: Abdoney discussed the fact that the girl’s mother encouraged her to lie about Riley kidnapping her, saying he would get more time in prison if she did.
“While it is of some concern to the court that the child’s mother made statements to the child that she should say things that were not true in order to prejudice the defendant, the court finds credible the child’s testimony that she took those statements as a joke,” Abdoney wrote. “Further, her statements to her grandmother that she knew it would be wrong to lie and her confirmation in court that she had not and would not lie satisfy the court that her mother’s statements had no impact on the reliability of hearsay statements.”
Gifts: Abdoney also addressed an issue the defense attorneys brought up. Polk County Sheriff’s officials had given the girl expensive gifts, which one of Riley’s attorneys felt was inappropriate, including an art set, an iPad and iPods.
“While the court understands the purpose of these gifts was to provide comfort to a child who had experienced extremely traumatic events, and while the court assigns no ill intent on the part of law enforcement, it questions the wisdom of the timing of such gifts,” Abdoney wrote.
He added that he found the girl credible when she said the gifts had no bearing on her statements, “especially considering her firm understanding of the obligations to tell the truth and resistance to any attempts from others to lie.”
The state is seeking the death penalty in the case. Riley’s attorneys have reserved the right to use an insanity defense.
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