{"id":416453,"date":"2026-10-02T05:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/416453\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T05:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:36:16","slug":"lee-county-double-killer-showed-disturbing-signs-years-before-florida-murders-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/416453\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County double killer showed disturbing signs years before Florida murders | Investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"

LEE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A man convicted in a Lee County<\/a> double murder had a history of disturbing behavior long before the killings, according to a former comrade who fought alongside him in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

WINK Investigates is learning exclusive new details about Craig Lang, a foreign fighter turned convicted killer.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a08-year cold case solved: Killers tracked down using phone technology<\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas Jones says he first met Lang in Ukraine more than a decade ago, where the two served together in a paramilitary squadron.<\/p>\n

But after just a few months, Jones says he wanted nothing to do with Lang.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t see it as any future. And it wasn’t any kind of the people I wanted to be around,” Jones said.<\/p>\n

Jones says he witnessed Lang mutilate a cat near their base. He also says Lang stole from him, damaged his property and that he heard allegations of torture against a suspected spy.<\/p>\n

“Using, kind of, GITMO style torture in that base where we were. Blasting large music and sleep deprivation and stuff like this. I was glad that I kept a distance,” Jones said.<\/p>\n

Jones eventually left the squadron and joined another faction, though he kept occasional contact with Lang.<\/p>\n

By the time Russia invaded Ukraine, Lang had become something of a celebrity overseas as a foreign fighter. Few people knew he was the prime suspect in a double murder back in Florida.<\/p>\n

“He played on the knight coming to Ukraine to help the people. In the end, he used Ukraine as the bolt hold for the incident in Florida,” Jones said.<\/p>\n

For nearly two years, Lee County Sheriff’s deputies searched for the killers of Danny and Deana Lorenzo.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Lang and Alex Zwiefelhofer lured the couple to a parking lot in Estero, where the Lorenzos brought $3,000 with them thinking they were there for a legitimate firearms sale.<\/p>\n

Investigators say Lang and Zwiefelhofer then ambushed the couple, killing them in a hail of gunfire.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say the two men wanted the money to fund their ambitions to fight in battles around the world.<\/p>\n

“It’s just shocking, for $3,000 to murder somebody, it’s just unacceptable. He’ll never see the light of day or get out of prison again,” Jones said.<\/p>\n

After the murders, Zwiefelhofer returned to his home in Wisconsin, where he was later arrested. Lang fled to Ukraine until he was extradited back to Lee County in June 2024 to face charges.<\/p>\n

“They did come to Kyiv, and he did was paranoid, and people were watching him and things like this. But it was bound to happen, you know. If you do that kind of stuff in America, America will come and get you, you know,” Jones said.<\/p>\n

Both Lang and Zwiefelhofer were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A man convicted in a Lee County double murder had a history of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,325,115,11011],"class_list":["post-416453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-lee","tag-news","tag-wink_investigations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416453","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=416453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}