{"id":109072,"date":"2026-01-07T14:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/109072\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T14:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:28:08","slug":"intrusive-thoughts-suspect-writes-judge-before-trial-in-deadly-orlando-halloween-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/109072\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Intrusive thoughts:\u2019 Suspect writes judge before trial in deadly Orlando Halloween shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 The man facing murder charges in the Halloween 2024 downtown Orlando mass shooting<\/a> wrote to the judge in his upcoming trial, criticizing his attorney and asking for another mental-health evaluation.<\/p>\n

The trial of Jaylen Edgar, 18, is scheduled to begin Monday after jury selection starts Thursday, records show. <\/p>\n

Edgar is accused of opening fire in a crowd of people celebrating Halloween in downtown Orlando, killing two of them \u2014 25-year-old Tyrek Hill<\/a> and 19-year-old Timothy Schmidt Jr.<\/a> \u2014 and wounding seven others. <\/p>\n

He faces charges of possession of a firearm by a minor, culpable negligence with personal injury, two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted first-degree murder. Edgar was 17 when the shooting occurred and was charged as as adult.<\/p>\n

[MORE: New documents give insight into fatal downtown Orlando mass shooting<\/a>]<\/p>\n

In a handwritten letter filed Tuesday and penned to \u201cyour Honor,\u201d Edgar alleged conflict of counsel and claimed he was being ineffectively represented on purpose, by his attorney, amid his struggle to explain the \u201dintrusive thoughts and mental state of surreality\u201d he claims to have experienced on the night of the shooting. <\/p>\n

Edgar also claims that the state has been trying to force a plea deal upon him, stating he doesn\u2019t want to discuss any offers until he\u2019s \u201dexplored all of (his) defensive options.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, in the state\u2019s efforts to force-feed a 50-year plea deal down my throat opposed to the threat of natural life in the department of corrections, my attorney has deliberately failed to include reasonable hypothesis of my mental state of psychosis during the alleged commission of the crime,\u201d Edgar wrote, going on to call for another mental-health evaluation \u201cto explore the reasonable hypothesis of incompetency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The families of the two victims who died have since filed suit<\/a> against the city and the operator of Wall Street Plaza, the latter of whom sought distance from the litigation in the owner\u2019s comments to News 6 that the incident didn\u2019t happen on their property. Plaintiffs allege failures related to things such as security, training, and lighting. <\/p>\n

[WATCH: Families of Orlando Halloween mass shooting victims file suit \u2018to get answers\u2019]<\/p>\n

The city made changes in the aftermath of the shooting to end downtown Orlando\u2019s \u201cstreet-party atmosphere,\u201d<\/a> in large part by opening Orange Avenue and its side streets to regular traffic during the night. <\/p>\n

This found itself paired with a city ordinance in place since May 2023 that requires certain bars to pay for police protection. It was part of a crackdown on crime<\/a> following violence downtown in the years leading up, unmoved as a judge in September dismissed a lawsuit filed by several downtown bars<\/a> for monetary damages and a permanent injunction against the ordinance.<\/p>\n

Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n

Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 The man facing murder charges in the Halloween 2024 downtown Orlando mass shooting wrote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[265,2275,4823,1335,139,19478,141,140,215],"class_list":["post-109072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime","tag-downtown-orlando","tag-fatal-shooting","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-halloween-mass-shooting","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}