{"id":235189,"date":"2026-04-17T04:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/235189\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T04:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:04:08","slug":"former-florida-deputy-faces-upgraded-second-degree-murder-in-shooting-of-colleague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/235189\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Florida deputy faces upgraded second-degree murder in shooting of colleague"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/r9hl5r8dd3lhh96e.jpg\" alt=\"Former deputy charged with second-degree murder in shooting\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. &#8211; A former Brevard County sheriff\u2019s deputy is now facing a second-degree murder charge in the 2022 death of his roommate and fellow deputy, as prosecutors escalate the case following a rejected plea agreement.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Andrew Lawson is accused of shooting and killing Deputy Austin Walsh, his best friend and roommate, during what authorities describe as a firearm incident inside their shared residence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> Upgraded charge  <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WOFL\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">New Developments:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Investigators say Lawson pointed a gun at Walsh &#8220;as a joke,&#8221; pulled the trigger once but the weapon did not fire, then &#8220;cocked it, pulled the trigger again, shooting Walsh in the face.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Lawson now faces life in prison following the upgraded charge announced Thursday. The development comes after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have capped Lawson\u2019s sentence at seven years.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/fox-local\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX LOCAL APP<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">&#8220;The 7-year cap proposed by the state of Florida is an insult to what took place that night, and that is not justice for our son,&#8221; said Cheryl Walsh, the victim\u2019s mother, during earlier court proceedings.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Legal analysts say prosecutors likely revisited how the evidence was characterized rather than introducing new material.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Attorney Geoffrey Golub said, &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t say any new evidence came. But they reassessed the evidence they had, and they said, you know, we can charge this as a second-degree murder.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/newsletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">SIGN-UP FOR FOX 35&#8217;S BREAKING NEWS, DAILY NEWS NEWSLETTERS<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Golub also pointed to the sequence of events described by investigators as significant in the charging decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">&#8220;We&#8217;re kidding around, not a great joke here, but he shoots and nothing goes off Well, okay. How do you then take a second shot? I think the joke\u2019s over at this point, if you&#8217;re just fooling around. So to me, the second shot would have been planned,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">If prosecutors and the defense do not reach another agreement, the case is expected to proceed to trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: This story was written based on information shared by court proceedings on April 16, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/brevard-county\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brevard County News<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. &#8211; A former Brevard County sheriff\u2019s deputy is now facing a second-degree murder charge in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[315,630,47,28,30,29,115,628],"class_list":["post-235189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-brevard-county","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235189","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=235189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}