A Florida man has been acquitted of murder charges in the shooting of a gay man at a Tampa dog park a year ago.
The six-person jury deliberated for two-and-a-half hours before finding Gerald Radford not guilty of 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. Radford then claimed he was able to disengage the gun’s safety, point the gun toward Lay, and fire.
But Hillsborough Chief Medical Examiner Kelly Devers testified that the path the bullet took through Lay’s torso, as determined by an autopsy, was not likely in the scenario that Radford described.
Diaz then acted out another scenario, where Lay was on his knees struggling with Radford, who was standing behind him with the gun — which Devers said was the more likely scenario that would account for Lay’s injuries, which included a scrape under his eye, bruising on his temple and ear, and scrapes on his forehead, chin, scalp, behind his ear, and on both knees.
Defense attorney Matthew Futch argued that prosecutors had failed to provide conclusive evidence refuting Radford’s account of the altercation.
He urged jurors not to be swayed by emotion and to discount anti-gay slurs allegedly attributed to Radford in the months and weeks leading up to the shooting.
In a rebuttal closing argument, Diaz attempted to paint Radford as a “bully” who had instigated various altercations with Lay in the months leading up to the shooting.
He also contended that Radford’s use of a gun during what amounted to a fistfight was excessive. “It’s a fistfight, and you don’t get to shoot the guy in the fistfight if you don’t reasonably believe that you’re going to die or you’re going to suffer great bodily harm,” he said.
“While it is not the outcome we sought, we are proud to stand with Walt’s friends and family as we fought for justice together,” Hillsborough State Attorney Suzy Lopez said following the acquittal. “The fact that this victim was forced to endure hatred and prejudice from the defendant based on his sexual orientation shows that our society still has progress to make toward equality.”
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