BREAKING: Haitian Gangs Murder Missouri Lawmaker’s Daughter and Son-in-Law, Serving as Missionaries
By Julie Roys
David and Natalie Lloyd, who worked for Missions in Haiti, were murdered in Port-au-Prince Thursday. (Source: Facebook)
Gang members in Port-au-Prince yesterday shot and killed a Missouri state lawmaker’s daughter and son-in-law, who were serving as missionaries in Haiti, as well as a Haitian missions director.
Natalie Lloyd, 21, the daughter of Missouri state Rep. Ben Baker, and her husband, Davy Lloyd, 23, were returning from a youth event Thursday when they were ambushed by armed assailants, according to International Christian Concern (ICC). Both were members of Missions in Haiti, Inc., an organization founded by Davy Lloyd’s parents in 2000. Jude Montis, 20, the Haitian director of Missions in Haiti, also died in the attack.
The couple were married in August 2022 and moved to Haiti three months later, ICC reported.
Expressing his grief on Facebook, Rep. Baker wrote, “My heart is shattered into pieces. I’ve never experienced such agony. Many of you know that my daughter and son-in-law, Davy and Natalie Lloyd, were devoted missionaries in Haiti. They were assaulted by gang members this evening and tragically lost their lives. They ascended to Heaven together.”
Missions in Haiti, Inc. urgently appealed for prayers on its Facebook page early this morning, recounting how “a gang of 3 trucks full of guys” attacked three of its missionaries and then took them into a house owned by the organization. There, the assailants reportedly bound, assaulted and robbed Davy.
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Davy Lloyd’s mother, Alicia Lloyd, told NBC news that her son called her, crying and scared for his life.
“He had already sustained a beating at the hands of a gang and they had come into the compound,” she told NBC.
Then the gang members reportedly left, taking the missions organization’s vehicles and other items with them.
Another gang, who had reportedly heard of the attack, “came to help.” But instead of helping, they shot at the couple, Missions in Haiti reported. Representatives with the mission tried to negotiate with gang members but were unsuccessful.
In a newsletter from May 2023, a staff member of Missions in Haiti wrote about the challenges posed by gang activity. “The gang leader in our area controls one of the ‘nicer gangs’ in Haiti. This gang works to keep the ‘bad guys’ out of our area, and we pray that they will continue to be strong enough to keep some semblance of peace in this area.”
The escalation of violence in Haiti has prompted numerous NGOs to halt their operations and U.S. State Department has strongly urged Americans to stay out of the country. In 2023, Doctors Without Borders suspended services after armed men abducted a patient from the organization’s hospital.
Haiti’s longstanding instability worsened following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 and the devastating earthquake in August of the same year. The 400 Mawozo gang, Haiti’s largest, has a reputation for targeting religious groups, exemplified by the kidnapping of 17 Christian missionaries in October 2021.
McKenna Wendt, Advocacy Manager at ICC, expressed sorrow over the deaths of the American missionaries, saying the perpetrators “represent the purest form of evil.”
Recalling a quote by the early church father Tertullian, Wendt noted, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” and she expressed hope that “the deaths of Davy and Natalie Lloyd will not be in vain.”
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