The young missionary couple killed by gang violence in Haiti this week was frantically trying to assess the deadly situation over the phone as armed attackers shot them — and set at least one of their bodies on fire.
“I was on the phone with my son when that was going down. He said, ‘Dad we’ve got a commotion again. I’ve got to see what’s going on,’” David Lloyd, 48, told the Miami Herald of the moment Thursday night a second gang descended on the compound belonging to Missions in Haiti Inc., the nonprofit he and his wife started more than 20 years ago.
The elder Lloyd had traveled from Port-au-Prince to Oklahoma just a day before, leaving his son Davy, 23, and daughter-in-law, Natalie Baker Lloyd, 21, on the campus to look after the mission’s school, children’s home, and bakery.
The pair was confident they would be safe, despite the massive surge in gang violence that started in late February and continues to terrorize the small nation, David Lloyd explained.
Davy and Natalie were coming out of the mission church with several children when members of the Terre Nwa/Terre Noire gang ambushed them, the Herald reported.
Davy Lloyd was tied up and beaten while the gunmen looted the property, David Lloyd told the outlet.
“They drove him into the house, tied him up and beat him,” he recalled. “Then they proceeded to loot the whole house, everything they wanted and took my trucks and drove off with them.”
The gang members got away with three vehicles, equipment, and money, including the mission’s payroll for the week, the elder Lloyd told the Wall Street Journal.
The gang eventually left, and the children and mission staff were able to untie Davy, who reunited with Natalie and Jude Montis, the mission’s Haitian director.
Suddenly, David Lloyd told the Herald, the compound was invaded by a second gang, this time from nearby Canaan.
Davy, Natalie, and Jude were barricaded together inside the Lloyds’ house when the second group arrived, he explained.
David Lloyd heard the chaos erupting over the phone as his son frantically tried to explain what was happening, he said.
“They eventually got into the house and killed all three of them,” the grieving father said.
A video of the scene reviewed by the Wall Street Journal showed Davy, Natalie, and Jude’s bodies sprawled on the floor of the home, with Davy and Jude’s remains having been burned.
“I’m just at a total loss,” David Lloyd told the Herald. “I’m just in total shock. I haven’t grieved. I haven’t done anything else. I haven’t eaten. I can’t think.”
Natalie’s father, Missouri State Rep. Ben Baker, told the Kansas City Star he would not comment further on his daughter’s killing until he knew the couple’s bodies were “safe at the embassy.”
Davy and Natalie Lloyd were married in June 2022, and moved to Haiti to work as full-time missionaries three months later.
Davy grew up on the Missions in Haiti compound, and spoke Creole before he was fluent in English, his father told the Herald.
When Davy left Haiti for bible college in the US, he “told basically all the girls there, ‘Don’t even talk to me if you’re not willing to live in Haiti the rest of your life, cause that’s my home,’” the elder Lloyd added.
Natalie frequently documented the couple’s life on the island nation through their joint Instagram account, as well as her personal page.
As of Saturday morning, a GoFundMe for the Baker and Lloyd families had raised over $36,000 – quickly surpassing its initial $20,000.
The top donor on the fundraiser page was Rob Vascovo, the former Speaker and Majority Leader of the Missouri House of Representatives.
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