Brian Hyde guilty of triple murder and baby’s death in Florida

Brian Hyde

On Friday a Belizean in the United States was found guilty of a most heinous crime after a re-trial. Six jurors in Lee County, Florida, needed three hours to find twenty-two year old Brian Hyde guilty of killing his cousin Michael Kelly, Kelly’s girlfriend Starlette Pitts, seventeen; his aunt Dorla, thirty-seven, and the unborn child of Starlette Pitts and Michael Kelly. One other child survived and is now being cared for by other family members. Hyde, who testified in his own defense, said he did not remember killing his family. His defense attorneys claimed that the trauma of Hyde’s family members being killed in Belize may have contributed to his state of thinking. They also argued that the role of others in the killing was never questioned. In May of 2015, two of Brian Hyde’s and Dorla Pitts’ relatives, her brother Russell Hyde’s common-law wife Rosalie Galvez and Dorla’s cousin Steven Hyde, were killed in successive days along with two others. These killings took place a few months before the bloodbath in Florida, though Russell Hyde himself was killed a few weeks after the Florida murders. Here is a report from an NBC affiliate in the area on the verdicts.

[NBC Feature]

The families of the victims declined comment. Hyde did not react to the jury’s verdict. Hyde moved to the family’s home in Lehigh Acres in February of 2015 after crossing the Mexican border to Texas. He spent some time in a detention facility before moving to Lehigh Acres. Hyde’s first trial in November was declared a mistrial after his uncle, Dorrien Pitts, inadvertently told jurors Hyde was in the country illegally. Judge Margaret O. Steinbeck declared a mistrial because of the political climate toward immigrants. Sentencing for Hyde is scheduled for June eleventh. He faces a minimum of ten years to life in prison.