Jaylen Edgar, now 19, was sentenced on Tuesday, October 27, to two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Tyrek Hill, 25, and Timothy Schmidt Jr., 19, in the Halloween night 2024 mass shooting in downtown Orlando, Florida. Circuit Judge Keith Carsten handed down the sentence in an Orange County courtroom, adding a separate concurrent life sentence for the attempted murders of seven other people who were shot and survived.
Just before imposing the sentence, Judge Carsten addressed Edgar bluntly. “Nearly two years ago today, you terrorized this city,” the judge said, according to courtroom reporting. Edgar was convicted in August 2026 on two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted first-degree murder, after a trial at which surviving victims testified about the horror of that night.
What happened on Halloween night 2024
On the night of October 31 into the early hours of November 1, 2024, tens of thousands of costumed partygoers — about 75,000 people, according to Spectrum News 13 reporting cited in coverage of the sentencing — filled downtown Orlando. Edgar, then 17, was out with friends. Shortly after officers ordered him off a firehouse stretcher he had climbed onto, he walked past Tyrek Hill, turned around, and fired a single shot to Hill's head from point-blank range, prosecutors established at trial.
Edgar then ran through a nearby alleyway and emerged on Orange Avenue near Washington Street, just steps from the Wall Street Orlando complex. After a brief confrontation as he pushed through the crowd, he fired a second shot that struck University of Central Florida student Timothy Schmidt Jr. in the chest, followed by several more shots as he tried to flee. Orlando police officers captured him quickly at the scene. Hill died at the scene and Schmidt died later, while seven other people were struck by gunfire and survived. No motive has ever been disclosed.
Edgar speaks for the first time
At the sentencing, Edgar spoke in court for the first time since the trial. He said he had been drinking and doing drugs with friends before heading downtown that night, and that he blacked out before the shooting and only came to once he was in the back of a squad car. He and a court-appointed psychologist described years of instability and trauma, including a suspected gang-related drive-by shooting in 2020 that killed his 3-year-old nephew. “I know how it feels to lose someone innocent that didn’t deserve what was done to them,” Edgar said. “For six years, I’ve been asking myself the same question that everybody been asking here, and that’s the question, ‘Why?’ And I wish I could answer that question, but I can’t.”
Assistant State Attorney Frank George, who at trial argued there was no ready explanation other than that Edgar wanted to kill people that night, confronted him after the statement: “Sir, you put a gun to a man’s head less than five inches away and shot him. What are they supposed to think, that it was an accident?” Edgar sat downcast and silent, the reporting said.
Families tell the court what was taken
Timothy Schmidt Sr. told Edgar: “My son is not a case number, he’s not a statistic — he’s junior and I’m senior. That will never change, not for you, not for this court, not for anyone. He was loved beyond measure. He gave more to this world in 19 years than most people give in a lifetime, and his absence will be felt by tens of thousands for the rest of our lives.” Schmidt was remembered as a loving son, grandson and nephew who planned his entire day around helping someone in need.
Jessica de Carvalho, who survived being shot in the hand as Edgar fired into the crowd, said she has become a stronger woman: “I am a victor because I chose not to let this turn me into an angry person.” Teresa Clinton, Hill's mother, spoke directly to Edgar. She described her son as a gentle giant who had gone out that night after a hard week's work driving a tow truck. “You did a grown-man act,” Clinton concluded, “and now you have to do the grown-man walk.” She wished Edgar well and said she hopes he gets the help he needs in prison.
After the sentencing, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell said the victims “deserved to celebrate, spend time with their loved ones and return home safely. Instead, their lives were forever changed by senseless violence,” and noted the tragedy has also profoundly affected Edgar's own family.
What the sentence means, and what happens next
Because Edgar was 17 at the time of the shooting, he was ineligible for the death penalty, ClickOrlando reported. Even if he qualifies for the earliest possible parole, Edgar likely will not be released until he is 92, according to the sentencing coverage. The case closes the court chapter of a shooting that came a year after two people were killed and more than a dozen hurt in Halloween gunfire in Ybor City in 2023 — a case in which three people have been charged and are awaiting trial, police say.