Daniel C. Lloyd

A Butler County Common Pleas Court jury on Friday, May 10, found Daniel Lloyd, 21, guilty of homicide in the June 2022 shooting death of an Ohio man in Muddy Creek Township.

The jury of five women and seven men began deliberating Thursday afternoon and resumed Friday morning before finding Lloyd, of Pitcairn, guilty of homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide in the June 21 death of Frederick Orr, 32, of Columbus.

Judge Timothy McCune scheduled sentencing for June 20.

The trial began Monday and testimony and arguments were complete Thursday.

The Butler County District Attorney’s office contend that Lloyd hid in the back of an SUV owned and driven by former co-defendant Nicole Schwartz, 39, of Ellwood City, when she picked up Orr after he was released from the county prison June 10, 2022, and shot Orr early June 11.

Orr’s body was found with three gunshot wounds — two in the back and one in the back of his head — along Kelly Road between East Portersville and Yellow Creek roads.

Schwartz, the prosecution’s main witness, testified she ran drugs for Orr, but she used the crack cocaine and spent the $3,000 he stashed before he went to prison and began a relationship with Lloyd.

Assistant district attorney Ben Simon argued Lloyd wanted to replace Orr as a drug dealer in Butler.

Schwartz also was charged with homicide, but her case was severed from Lloyd’s and has been continued. She testified for the prosecution, which offered her a plea agreement in which she would serve 9 to 20 years in prison followed by five years of probation.

State police filed the charges in both cases.

Schwartz said Orr had been trying to contact her from the jail and she suspected he was trying to get released. Orr reached her June 10 and said he wanted to be picked up immediately, she said.

Schwartz said she managed to stall Orr while she met with one of her brothers, his girlfriend and Lloyd at a motel. She said she wanted to stay in a hotel for the weekend to avoid Orr but agreed with the plan to kill Orr that was “already decided.”

With Lloyd hiding in the back of her SUV, Schwartz picked up Orr and, as they were driving from Butler toward the township, state police pulled them over for an expired registration, according to testimony.

Neither trooper saw anyone else in the SUV, which had tinted rear windows, and let Schwartz go with a warning, according to testimony.

When they arrived at a spring along Kelly Road, Schwartz said she told Orr she heard a noise coming from the engine, got out of the vehicle, opened the hood and asked Orr to help her.

She said the plan was to shoot him outside the vehicle, but he refused to get out of the car. Moments later, she said she heard gunshots. Lloyd then pushed Orr out of the SUV and onto the street, she said.

A security camera at a nearby home recorded the sound of six gunshots.

After the shooting, Schwartz said she and Lloyd drove to her home and she walked to the nearby residence of her brother’s girlfriend, where he was staying, and asked him to come to her home.

Her brother and Lloyd cleared out her garage and taped cardboard over its windows before parking the SUV inside.

Lloyd was arrested in Michigan in September, and Schwartz turned herself in June 24, but police had been on their trail since soon after the shooting, according to testimony.

Orr was last seen with Schwartz, which led investigators to her brother and the SUV, according to testimony.