SOUTH FLORIDA — A major break in a decade-old cold case has led to murder charges against Timothy Thomas, a man already serving a life sentence for attempted murder in a 2015 shootout with a Monroe County deputy.
Thomas is now accused in the 2015 killing of 32-year-old Renaldo Clayton, a father from Florida City. Clayton was gunned down inside his home on NW 1st Avenue on the night of October 19, 2015, in what family members described as an “execution-style” shooting. Just hours earlier, Clayton had been seen playing T-ball with his 3-year-old son in the front yard.
According to investigators, the assailant waited for Clayton to return from the store, ambushed him at his doorstep, and followed him into the house before shooting him in the mouth and head. Nine 9mm shell casings were found next to Clayton’s body.
New evidence surfaced in May when Alachua County officials alerted Miami-Dade homicide investigators to a phone linked to Thomas, which contained incriminating information. Investigators also revealed that Thomas’s shootout with the Monroe County deputy occurred just five days after Clayton’s murder.
Ballistics tests later confirmed that the same weapon used in the deputy shooting matched the shell casings found at the Florida City crime scene. In August, authorities traveled to Graceville Correctional Facility in Jackson County to interview Thomas. He was then transferred to Miami-Dade County to formally face homicide charges in Clayton’s murder.
Additionally, Thomas has been charged in another unsolved case—the 2010 murder of a 16-year-old Gainesville boy.
Thomas appeared in bond court Saturday and is expected back in court Monday.
