SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Police in Haiti have arrested a suspect in the fatal shootings of an American missionary couple and a Haitian man who headed a nonprofit organization in an attack by gunmen earlier this year that astonished many people in the ravaged Caribbean country.
The May 23 killings of missionaries Davy Lloyd and his wife Natalie Lloyd and Jude Montis, the director of Missions in Haiti Inc., an organization based in Claremore, Oklahoma, were blamed on gangs looting in Haiti’s capital and beyond.
The killings took place in the Lizon community in northern Port-au-Prince. The town has crumbled under the merciless violence of gangs that control 80% of the Haitian capital.
A video posted to social media by Haiti’s national police Wednesday night shows a 52-year-old man in handcuffs, accused of involvement in the Lloyds and Montis murders.
Arrests for high-profile murders are very rare in Haiti. In the video, the suspect denies any involvement in the killings. It was not immediately clear whether the man has been charged or whether he has a lawyer.
According to police, the suspect’s phone was used to make calls after the murders, but the man denied the accusation.
David Lloyd, the father of Davy Lloyd, told The Associated Press by telephone from Oklahoma on Thursday that he was not aware of the circumstances behind the suspect’s arrest.
The young couple – Davy was 23 and Natalie only 21 – were due to celebrate their two-year wedding anniversary in June.
“They loved the Haitian people and were dedicated to that country,” Lloyd said of his son and daughter-in-law.
Natalie Lloyd was the daughter of Missouri State Representative Ben Baker.
David Lloyd said his son called him the night of the attack to tell him that gangs had forced them to open the gates of the mission and ransacked the complex before abruptly hanging up. He said his son and others had been shot at before the gang stormed into the house and killed them.
They later set the house on fire, Lloyd said, adding that more than 100 gang members were believed to have been involved in the attack.
The mission center has now closed, for the first time in 26 years, and the children the mission served have been moved to a safer environment.
“There are too many gangs in the area,” he said. “The country as a whole seems hopeless.”
From January to May, more than 3,200 murders were reported across Haiti, including gang violence leaving more than half a million people homelessaccording to the United Nations.
In February, gangs launched coordinated attacks on key government infrastructure, raided police stations, and opened fire on the main international airport, forcing it to close for nearly three months. Gunmen also stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons, freeing thousands of prisoners.
As Haitian authorities are unable to cope with the chaos, a UN-backed police force from Kenya has been deployed arrived in June to lead a multinational missionnearly two years after the Haitian government urgently requested the deployment of a foreign force.
In the police video, a narrator says that the investigation into the case is still ongoing: “Whoever is involved in the murders, your turn is coming. You are being arrested.”
___
Associated Press reporter Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.