A Polk County jury found 44-year-old Shaun Paul Runyon guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder, nearly five years after he beat and stabbed three coworkers to death inside a short-term rental house in Davenport. The trial opened on August 31, and sentencing now remains pending, with prosecutors having sought the death penalty when charges were first filed.
The verdict was announced by the Polk County Sheriff's Office
on Thursday, closing out a case that began on October 2, 2021, when Runyon killed supervisor Kevin Lanusse, 41, of Effort, Pennsylvania; Dewlon Donell, 46, of Baltimore, Maryland; and Gregory Dolezal, 44, of Ohio, according to the
Polk County Sheriff's Office
. All three men were traveling contractors working alongside Runyon in central Florida at the time of the attack.
The State Attorney's Office for Florida's 10th Judicial Circuit filed notice in October 2021 seeking the death penalty against Runyon, citing aggravating factors that the killings were carried out in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner, as reported by 10 Tampa Bay News. Sentencing remains pending now that the jury has returned its verdict.
A Job Site Punch Set Off Days of Planning
The violence traced back to October 1, 2021, when Runyon punched Lanusse at a job site after being told he wasn't working fast enough, then walked off, with colleagues assuming he was simply driving home to Pennsylvania, according to FOX 13 Tampa Bay. The crew worked for JNB Electric, a Pennsylvania firm owned by Runyon's half-brother. Instead of heading north, the report notes that Runyon drove to Georgia to buy a crossbow, then returned to Florida, swapped his company vehicle for an Enterprise rental at Tampa International Airport, and bought a baseball bat, per an account from CBS News. He ultimately told detectives he chose the bat and a knife over the crossbow to carry out the attack.
Seven people were inside the short-term rental house at Windsor Island Resort when Runyon struck, including a co-worker, his wife, and their 7-year-old daughter, all of whom escaped uninjured, according to ClickOrlando.com. The rental had been hosting several out-of-state contract workers along with visiting family members at the time.
Sleeping Victims Beaten, One Fought Back
Law enforcement affidavits described how Runyon beat Lanusse and Donell to death in their beds with the baseball bat while they slept, while Dolezal woke up, fought back, and was fatally stabbed on the front porch, per the Polk County Sheriff's Office. Dolezal was the only victim who managed to confront his attacker before collapsing.
After fleeing the scene, Runyon went to a Lake Wales-area home before heading to Lake Wales Medical Center, where deputies arrested him following a two-hour manhunt. He told investigators his coworkers had raped him, but Sheriff Grady Judd said forensic testing and investigation found zero evidence supporting the claim, according to The Independent.
Suspect Was Already Out on Bail in Pennsylvania
At the time of the Florida attacks, Runyon was free on $75,000 bail in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, awaiting trial on charges including felony strangulation, child endangerment, terroristic threats, and reckless endangerment, stemming from a domestic violence incident recorded in May 2021, the outlet's report notes. Those pending charges were still unresolved when he traveled to Florida for the electrical job that would end in the triple homicide.
The Davenport killings arrived amid what Sheriff Grady Judd described as a troubling spike in local violence. In October 2021, Judd publicly urged residents to “chill out” and “quit murdering people” after a sharp surge in homicides that included both the Davenport rental attack and a separate quad-homicide in North Lakeland, according to Newsweek.
With the guilty verdicts now returned, sentencing for Runyon remains pending.
