A Missouri state lawmaker’s daughter and son-in-law were killed by Haitian gang members who ambushed their missionary group’s compound on Thursday evening.
The couple—David Lloyd III, 23, and Natalie Lloyd, 21—made desperate calls as they were being held hostage inside a home on the compound but never made it out alive, their Oklahoma-based group, Missions in Haiti, wrote on Facebook. The group’s Haitian director, 20-year-old Jude Montis, was also killed in the attack.
“My heart is broken in a thousand pieces,” Natalie Lloyd’s father, Missouri state Representative Ben Baker, said. “I’ve never felt this kind of pain.”
David Lloyd III’s father said that gang members arrived at the Missions in Haiti compound in trucks, stealing cars and beating up his son inside the home. After they left, another gang arrived—and the situation turned deadly.
“And then all of a sudden another group pulls up and that’s where things got foggy,” David Lloyd Jr. told The New York Times. “I was talking to him when that next group pulled up. And he was telling me that he got hit in the head by a pistol. He’s like, ‘I’ve got to go now. There’s a bunch of them here again.’”
In a Facebook post before the trio died, Missions in Haiti said that gang members had opened fire on the compound, shooting out all the windows.
“They are holed up in there, the gangs has shot all the windows out of the house and continue to shoot,” the group said, shortly before announcing the deaths. “Their lives are in danger.”
Since February, Haiti has been facing powerful criminal gangs that now control the capital city. Thousands of people have been injured, killed or forced to flee amid the takeover.
This week, President Joe Biden welcomed Kenyan President William Ruto to the White House for a three-day visit. Kenya is working with the United Nations to deploy forces to Haiti amid this crisis. About 1,000 Kenyan officers will arrive in Haiti in the coming days to help quell the chaos, along with additional forces from several other countries.