A Florida woman remains jailed after investigators said two of her former husbands were killed on the same day in shootings linked across Tampa and Bradenton, leaving one murder charge filed in Manatee County and a second homicide investigation still open in Hillsborough County.
Susan Erica Avalon, 51, is accused in the Dec. 17 killing of David Scott, 54, at his Bradenton home and has pleaded not guilty in that case. Investigators say the same day also included an earlier killing in Tampa, where another former husband was later found dead after deputies asked city police to check on him. The case matters now because the legal track is moving faster in Manatee County than in Tampa. Avalon has a March 26 case management conference scheduled in Manatee County, but no separate public charge had been announced in the Tampa death as of Saturday.
Investigators say the day’s known public timeline began with a shooting call at about 2:55 p.m. on Dec. 17 in the 7000 block of Chatum Light Run in Bradenton. Deputies found Scott suffering from two gunshot wounds after, they said, he answered his front door and was shot in what the sheriff’s office quickly described as a targeted attack. Scott was taken to a hospital and died later that evening. Before he died, authorities said, he told deputies the shooter was possibly his ex-wife. His 15-year-old daughter, who was inside the house, told deputies she heard gunfire and saw a silver Honda Odyssey leaving. Sheriff Rick Wells later said investigators used that account, along with surveillance footage and vehicle tracking, to identify Avalon as a suspect. Detectives then went to her home in Inverness, where they said they found her cleaning the minivan with bleach and rags. When deputies told her they were there to ask about her ex-husband, Wells said, Avalon replied, “Which one?”
That answer widened the case within hours. After hearing it, Manatee County detectives asked Tampa police to conduct a welfare check at a home in the 1200 block of East Frierson Avenue. Officers found an adult man dead inside with multiple gunshot wounds. Public reports said there was damage to a rear door that suggested forced entry, though officials have not released a full public timeline for the Tampa scene. Tampa police have said only that the dead man and the suspected shooter were known to one another and that the case appears tied to the Manatee investigation. Authorities also said they believe the Tampa killing happened before the Bradenton shooting, making the Bradenton doorstep attack the second known stop in a day that crossed multiple counties. Detectives have pointed to surveillance video showing Avalon at a Panera restaurant shortly before the Bradenton shooting, where they said she took a food order that was not hers and used it as a ruse to get Scott to open the door. License plate readers then tracked a silver Honda Odyssey from Citrus County into Hillsborough County, across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge into Manatee County and back north again, investigators said.
Records and interviews described a long and bitter family court history behind the case, though those disputes do not answer the core criminal question of what happened inside each home. Local reporting based on court filings said Avalon and Scott had been divorced for about 11 years and were still fighting over custody and money involving their children. Those records said Avalon owed about $4,000 in unpaid child support and had been given a December deadline to pay $200 or risk losing her driver’s license. Investigators also said Avalon’s live-in boyfriend told them she had recently tracked down Scott’s address and told him the day before the shootings that she loved him “in case something happens to her.” He also told detectives she came home after the shootings, got into the shower and was still wearing the gray sweatshirt seen on surveillance video. Authorities have said about five children are tied to the two marriages. Even with those details in public, key facts remain unresolved outside court. Officials had not publicly said they recovered the gun, and the Tampa victim’s name had not been widely released in the reports reviewed Saturday.
The legal picture is clearer in Manatee County than it is in Hillsborough County. Manatee County court reporting said Avalon was arrested Dec. 18, 2025, at 1:48 a.m. in Inverness on an out-of-county warrant. She was charged in the Scott case, and later court coverage described the case as a second-degree murder prosecution. On Jan. 27, local court reporting said Avalon filed a written plea of not guilty, waived formal arraignment, demanded a jury trial and filed notice that she would take part in discovery. A later local report said she is required to appear at a March 26 case management conference in the Manatee case. Officials have also said prosecutors intended to seek a more severe charge and potentially the death penalty, arguing that the evidence points to planning rather than sudden violence. But as of Saturday, public reporting still described the filed Manatee charge as second-degree murder, not a completed first-degree murder count. Tampa police, meanwhile, have said they are working with the State Attorney’s Office on the second death, but no separate public charge had been announced there.
The case has drawn wide attention in part because of the small details investigators say show planning. Sheriff Wells called the Bradenton shooting “brazen” and said it happened in broad daylight in a neighborhood where children were coming home from school. Investigators have highlighted the taken Panera order, the route across counties, the minivan seen leaving the Bradenton neighborhood, and the bleach used after Avalon returned home. For Scott’s family and neighbors, the story is less about route maps and warrant language than about the man they lost. A neighbor, Ronald Andriano, told local television that Scott walked the neighborhood most mornings and was “such a nice man.” In February, Scott’s daughter Julia Scott said the loss of her father had left her and her siblings facing life without the parent who had been their steady support. Those public remarks gave the Manatee County case a human outline even as many parts of the Tampa side remained sealed, unnamed or still under review.
As of March 7, Avalon remained in custody, the Manatee County prosecution was headed toward a March 26 conference, and the Hillsborough County homicide investigation had not produced a publicly announced charge. The next clear milestone is in Bradenton, where court proceedings are expected to move first.
Author note: Last updated March 7, 2026.