Davie and Natalie Lloyd: US brokers deal with gangs to secure remains of American missionaries in Haiti

CNN
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The first U.S. commercial flight to Haiti in months made a somber return trip on Thursday morning, bringing back the bodies of a young American couple killed by gang members in Port-au-Prince last week.

According to a source familiar with the operation, the bodies of Davey and Natalie Lloyd will be flown from Haiti to Miami, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Dennis Hankins and U.S. security personnel, and then shipped to their families, the sources said.

“This morning, the bodies of Davey and Natalie Lloyd were safely boarded a flight bound for the United States, with several connections along the way and expected to arrive safely in Neosho, Missouri tomorrow afternoon,” said a statement posted by the family on the X account of Natalie’s father, Missouri Congressman Ben Baker, who asked for privacy during the transfer of the bodies.

“We praise the Lord for protecting us from this nightmare. The funeral will take place early next week and details will be announced tomorrow,” he added.

Their return, sources said, follows an extraordinary week of negotiations between the U.S. government, Haitian authorities, local groups and even gang leaders in a country crippled by criminal groups that have halted vital humanitarian aid shipments, destroyed health facilities and blocked key roads.

In a statement to CNN, a State Department spokesman confirmed that US officials in Haiti were “assisting families in arranging for the transportation of their remains and their belongings to the United States, consistent with their wishes.”

“We will continue to work around the clock until the remains are returned to the United States,” the spokesman added.

The reopening this month of Toussaint Louverture International Airport, the target of coordinated gang attacks, marks a key step in connecting Haiti’s capital with the rest of the world after months of violence in Caribbean countries far from the gangs’ reach. Local airline Sunrise Air resumed flights in early May.

But those gains have been overshadowed by the murder last week of three missionaries — Royce and Jude Monteith, the mission’s director in Haiti — which has captured the attention of U.S. authorities and the White House.

The three were attacked in the early evening on the grounds of the Mission in Haiti church and orphanage in the Lison district of Port-au-Prince, which began as an armed robbery by a gang that ransacked the premises and stole supplies and aid.

A second gang then arrived on the scene and opened fire, sparking deadly retaliation against mission staff, according to Davey Lloyd’s father, Mission in Haiti founder David Lloyd, who spoke to his son by phone that night.

Monteith and Lloyd barricaded themselves in their home on the compound, but that wasn’t enough, Lloyd told CNN, and the Haitian mission announced their deaths that night.

In the chaotic hours after the attack, staff in the offices of Missouri Rep. Eric Burleson and Sen. Josh Hawley, as well as the National Security Council, contacted the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Haiti.

“As soon as we learned of the situation, we contacted the State Department to request assistance. Unfortunately, the assistance did not arrive in time to prevent the tragedy,” Burlison said in a statement to CNN.

“Since they were killed, we have been working closely with Senator Hawley’s office, the State Department and the airline to return them to their families,” he added. “I want to thank everyone who has been a part of these efforts.”

Natalie Lloyd’s mother, Naomi Baker, is a staffer in Burleson’s office, and her father, Ben Baker, is a Missouri state representative.

Following the shock of the deaths, it became clear early on Friday that Davy and Natalie’s bodies needed to be urgently recovered, an operation that sources say will be carefully planned by the US government.

There was no time to spare.

“The body may have been desecrated or kidnapped,” one of the operation’s officials told CNN, “so we pulled the body from the crime scene.”

Private ambulance service HERO Client Rescue was tasked with recovering the bodies on Friday morning before Haitian authorities arrived on the scene, but HERO founder Stacey Librandi-Bourne told CNN that as the team raced to get to the scene, they were suddenly blocked by armed gang members.

The standoff prompted US authorities in Haiti to step in an unusual move to broker negotiations between gangs in the region to allow access to the bodies, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

In a phone call with several gang leaders, Vittelhom Innocent, leader of the Clays Barriers militia, which was not involved in the attack but controls the area around the U.S. Embassy, ​​claimed ownership of the bodies of the two Americans.

“After receiving the call, I contacted the people in charge of the area and did everything I could to get permission to enter and retrieve the body,” Innocent told CNN.

He added that he was “saddened to learn that one Haitian and two Americans who came to serve the population died in terrible circumstances.”

Innocent himself has a $2 million bounty on his head for kidnapping an American citizen, but he disputes this and says he would like to one day defend himself.

Emergency vehicles were quickly allowed into the ruins, where they found three bodies.

The bodies of Davey, 23, and Natalie Lloyd, 21, were eventually transferred to a local hospital morgue for safety, according to HERO. Investigators told CNN that an examination of the bodies found signs of blunt force trauma and severe burns on Davey, but no gunshot wounds.

Removing a body from a crime scene is a major violation, even in a city mired in lawlessness, but Haitian authorities have agreed to allow the body to be examined after it is removed, a source told CNN.

Haiti’s national police did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the case, but in a statement last week, police spokesman Gary Desrosiers told CNN that authorities would work with international law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute the murder.

Jude Monteith, 45, head of the Haiti Mission, was buried this week in Port-au-Prince. According to local reports, large crowds gathered outside the church where the service was held, and a mourning band was seen joining the funeral procession afterwards, following the hearse through the streets.

However, the Lloyds’ bodies remain awaiting return to Missouri to this day.

Natalie’s father, Ben Baker, explained on his Facebook page the continuing difficulties in bringing his daughter and son-in-law back, in a message signed by Baker’s publicist, Cassidy Anderson.

“We are currently working on retrieving Natalie and Davy’s bodies. As there are no embalming facilities in Haiti, we must obtain permission to transport the bodies fully unembalmed. After that we must find an airline willing to transport them. We wish you the best of luck,” the message read.

Sources told CNN that the last hospital in Port-au-Prince equipped to embalm bodies will be the General Hospital near the Champs de Mars, but street fighting between gangs and police has turned the iconic downtown park area into a volatile no-man’s land.

The wait for news that the bodies have been returned safely has left family members and advocates on edge, with Gov. Hawley releasing an open letter over the weekend urging the Biden administration to ensure the safety of the families.

“Natalie and Davy’s bodies need to be transported to their final departure point, but until then there are great risks. The situation on the ground in Port-au-Prince remains chaotic,” he warned.

But on Thursday morning, the bodies of Davy and Natalie Lloyd finally began their long journey home.

CNN’s Anneclaire Stapleton, Hande Atai Alam, Natalie Barr and Nikki Carvajal contributed to this report.