BARTOW, Fla. — A Polk County jury on Thursday convicted Shaun Paul Runyon, a 44-year-old Nazareth electrician, of killing three coworkers, including his supervisor, Kevin Lanusse of Monroe County, at a Florida rental house in October 2021.
Runyon was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office posted on X. The post said, “his sentencing is pending.”
The same jury will decide whether to recommend death in a penalty phase beginning Wednesday, Sept. 16, WFLA-TV reported. The State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit said in October 2021 it would seek the death penalty, The Ledger of Lakeland reported. Opening statements were Aug. 31, according to The Ledger.
Lanusse, 41, lived in Effort, in Chestnuthill Township. Also killed were Dewlon Donell, 46, of Baltimore, and Gregory Dolezal of Akron, Ohio. The sheriff’s 2021 release gave Dolezal’s age as 41; WFMZ-TV reported it Thursday as 44.
The crew was working at Publix’s Lakeland headquarters and staying in unincorporated Davenport, according to a sheriff’s office release from Oct. 4, 2021. The release called their Pennsylvania employer JNB Electric; WFLA and lehighvalleylive.com spelled it J&B Electric Inc.
According to the release, Runyon punched Lanusse during a disagreement on the job on Oct. 1, then left; his coworkers assumed he was going home to Pennsylvania.
Instead, the release says, Runyon told detectives he drove to Georgia and bought a crossbow, planning to return to Florida and kill his three coworkers. He left his work vehicle at Tampa International Airport, rented a car, bought a baseball bat in Tampa, and chose it over the crossbow.
Detectives said Runyon beat Lanusse and Donell to death with the bat while they slept and stabbed Dolezal to death when he woke and tried to escape. Runyon also hit another coworker with the bat; that man, his wife, and their daughter got out.
The release says Runyon returned to the house at about 9:45 a.m. Oct. 2; WFLA and The Ledger described the attack as happening before dawn. Deputies arrested him at Lake Wales Medical Center after a two-hour manhunt.
“He (knew) they’re going to be in bed asleep because they’ve been working overnight,” Sheriff Grady Judd said at a 2021 news conference, as quoted by WFLA.
After fleeing, Runyon showed up at a Lake Wales couple’s home in bloody clothes and told them he had been raped, lehighvalleylive.com reported in 2021, citing Judd.
When he went to Florida, Runyon was out on bail in a Northampton County case. The sheriff’s release, citing county court records, said Nazareth police arrested him May 21, 2021, on charges including strangulation, endangering the welfare of a child, terroristic threats, and reckless endangerment. He posted 10 percent of his $75,000 bail and was released a week later.
He was accused of choking his girlfriend and pointing a loaded rifle at her at his Convent Avenue home while her 9-year-old daughter watched from upstairs, lehighvalleylive.com reported, citing the arrest affidavit.
“We had him. We got him, and then they let him out,” Northampton County District Attorney Terry Houck told lehighvalleylive.com in 2021. Houck told the site Runyon had waived a preliminary hearing that July, and the Pennsylvania case would be waiting after the Florida trial.
Thursday’s coverage of the verdict did not describe the defense’s case at trial.
Under the sheriff’s X post, one person replied that the sheriff was hurting the court case. The account answered: “I guess if the Sheriff didn’t say anything, the suspect would have been convicted of Super-Duper Serious Murder instead.”