Investigators say two witnesses described Daryl Hill running away before he was shot, while the accused gunman said Hill attacked him first.
APOPKA, Fla. — The murder case arising from the roadside death of Daryl Alexander Hill rests in significant part on sharply different descriptions of the same brief confrontation: witnesses said Hill was trying to leave when he was shot, while the man accused of killing him told investigators that Hill had attacked him.
Raul Lionel Vazquez, 26, faces a charge of second-degree murder with a firearm in the Aug. 11 shooting of Hill, 56, near Plymouth Sorrento and West Ponkan roads. An Orange County Sheriff’s Office affidavit says Vazquez admitted firing a shotgun but gave investigators multiple accounts of the events leading to the shot. Hill, who had been riding home after taking his 10-year-old daughter to her first day of school, was not part of the dispute that first drew deputies to the area. The competing statements matter because investigators allege Hill was running away and no longer threatening Vazquez when he was shot.
Two witnesses cited in the affidavit described a sequence beginning with a white Chevrolet Silverado involved in a crash. Deputies had received reports that a man and woman were physically fighting inside a vehicle before it crashed. Outside the pickup, witnesses saw Vazquez arguing with Kaidy Honaker. The affidavit described Vazquez as shirtless and without shoes. Hill then arrived on a bicycle. According to witness statements, he stepped into the confrontation involving the two strangers rather than simply passing the damaged vehicle.
The situation quickly changed from intervention to physical struggle. One witness said Hill and Vazquez began fighting and fell into nearby bushes. Honaker also became involved, according to the affidavit. But both witnesses described Hill subsequently leaving that fight rather than advancing toward Vazquez. They told investigators that Hill ran away with his hands raised and called for help. One witness said Vazquez moved toward the pickup and retrieved an object. Another identified the object as a firearm and said Vazquez fired once while Hill was running away.
Those observations differ from the account investigators attributed to Vazquez. During an interview, he said an unknown man had attacked him after the crash for an unknown reason. He told detectives that the man was getting the better of him in their fight even though Vazquez said he had years of mixed martial arts and wrestling experience. According to the affidavit, Vazquez offered more than one version of the episode. The point on which his statement and investigators’ account converge is that he acknowledged firing the shotgun that struck Hill.
Honaker’s statement introduced another version of the initial physical contact. She told investigators that Hill was the aggressor and had pushed Vazquez, according to reporting based on the affidavit. When investigators sought additional detail, she asked for an attorney. Her account does not, however, resolve the later sequence described by the witnesses who said Hill was moving away before the gunfire. No criminal charge against Honaker stemming from Hill’s death was identified in the reliable reports reviewed for this article.
Investigators also documented what they found after the shooting. Deputies reached the intersection at about 8:30 a.m. and found Hill on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound. Orange County Fire Rescue transported him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:20 a.m. The affidavit said witness accounts indicated Hill was unarmed. Authorities have not publicly reported recovering a weapon from him. A homicide detective concluded from the witness statements that Hill did not pose a threat to Vazquez when the shotgun was fired, an investigative conclusion that forms part of the basis for the murder allegation.
Only after the shooting did another important part of Hill’s morning become widely known. His wife, Suzanne Hill, said he had taken their 10-year-old daughter to school for the first day of classes and was bicycling home when he encountered the crash and argument. She had been tracking his phone location to make sure he made it home. When the location remained fixed and he did not respond, she went looking for him and encountered law-enforcement activity. The victim investigators initially described as a bystander was a husband and father whose family had expected him back from a routine school trip.
His relatives said that background also helped explain why he may have stopped. Suzanne Hill described her husband as consistently willing to assist other people, whether he knew them or not. They had been married for 17 years. He also had two adult children. Family members emphasized his humor and generosity after his death, while parents in the Wolf Lake Elementary School community reacted to the circumstances of a killing that unfolded near a school on the opening morning of the academic year.
The sheriff’s office did not need to settle every factual dispute before making an arrest. Probable cause for a charge and proof beyond a reasonable doubt at trial are different legal standards. The affidavit records the evidence investigators said supported Vazquez’s arrest, including witness statements, the physical scene and Vazquez’s own admission that he fired the weapon. Vazquez’s claim that Hill initiated the fight remains part of the record and could become significant as the case moves through court. The second-degree murder charge itself is not a finding that he is guilty.
The case also intersects with an older, unrelated criminal allegation against Vazquez. The homicide affidavit states that he was already on bond in a 2025 aggravated assault with a deadly weapon case investigated by Apopka police. A warrant signed Aug. 11 ordered him held without bond on the new second-degree murder charge, according to The Apopka Chief. The earlier case is separate from Hill’s death and cannot establish what happened at the intersection, but it affected Vazquez’s legal circumstances after his new arrest.
Several points remain unresolved in the publicly available record. Authorities have not announced what caused the original dispute inside the pickup, why the vehicle crashed or whether any event before Hill arrived will generate additional charges. The precise first moments of physical contact between Hill and Vazquez are disputed. What investigators say happened afterward is more consistent across the two outside witness accounts: Hill moved away, raised his hands, called for help and was shot after Vazquez retrieved the shotgun.
What happened in the seconds before the gunfire remains the central disputed issue in the public record. Vazquez told investigators that Hill attacked him, while outside witnesses described Hill leaving the confrontation with his hands raised and calling for help before he was shot. Those competing accounts have not been resolved by a trial or other final adjudication located in reliable reporting through Sept. 22. Vazquez is charged with second-degree murder with a firearm, and the allegation remains pending rather than proven.
Author note: Last updated September 22, 2026.