STARKE, Fla. — Just over one week after Rachael Kerr was killed in a domestic violence shooting inside her Starke home, her older brother says the warning signs were clear — documented in arrests, court orders, and restraining injunctions that ultimately failed to protect her.
Kerr was in the middle of a divorce from her estranged husband, Loyd Kerr, when she sought multiple protective injunctions, according to court records. In the months leading up to her death, deputies arrested him several times for violating those orders. He was also facing felony charges and was under a court order prohibiting him from possessing firearms or contacting his estranged wife. Despite that history, investigators say he was released from jail on bail.
Early Thursday morning last week, deputies responded to a 911 hang-up call at the home. They found Rachael Kerr tied up and shot. Her husband later turned the gun on himself. Their two children — an 11-year-old and a 9-year-old — were inside the home and feared they would be killed next.
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“She lived in fear,” said Kerr’s older brother, Nick Leidy, speaking from his home in St. Petersburg. “She was very vocal about what he would do to her, and to those kids. That brought on the restraining orders.”
Leidy said his sister followed the legal process and believed the protections in place would give her time to plan for her safety. Because of his prior arrests, he said, her estranged husband had been ordered to surrender his firearms voluntarily.
“Because of his arrest and everything he’d done, he was ordered to voluntarily turn in his guns,” Leidy said. How he still had access to a weapon remains unclear. “Whoever allowed a bail to be set probably would be — is a failure, in my opinion.”
Investigators later told the family that the children were directly threatened during the attack.
“When we were at the sheriff’s office, they (the children) told that story — that he put the gun to each one of their heads and asked if they wanted to go to heaven with him,” Leidy said. “They begged him not to go through with this. He ended his life in front of them.”
Now, Leidy is preparing to adopt his niece and nephew. He has three children of his own and says the adjustment will be difficult, but necessary.
“It’s easy for them to welcome them into my arms,” he said. “Is it going to be challenging? Yeah. A long road ahead of us. I believe there’s no greater reward.”
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As he takes on a new role as not just an uncle, but now their father figure, Leidy says he’s relying on faith and family — and the memory of his sister — to move forward.
“That would probably be her message to me,” he said. “When it feels too much, put it on God. He’s there with us.”
The case has raised questions about how domestic violence injunctions are enforced in Florida. State Representative Anna Eskamani, who co-sponsored House Bill 729, said the legislation is designed to strengthen protective injunctions, requiring individuals under a final domestic violence order to surrender firearms and escalating penalties for repeat violations — measures she says might have helped prevent tragedies like Kerr’s death.
Eskamani said the bill would close gaps that leave victims exposed even after judges step in. “Even with a court ordering to surrender firearms, that gets ignored,” she said. “The goal of this bill is to ensure the injunctions are not toothless and that there’s a clear requirement for law enforcement to remove those firearms and to keep that survivor safe.”
Action News Jax asked the State Attorney’s Office how Loyd Kerr could still have a gun when his court order clearly prohibited it. Officials say it remains unclear exactly how that happened. There is no public record showing whether weapons were ever surrendered or if enforcement failed somewhere. What is clear is that the order existed. How — or if — it was enforced remains unanswered.
While Eskamani is not optimistic the bill will cross during this legislative session, she isn’t giving up. “Anything is possible until the end of session,” she said.
A GoFundMe campaign created by her brother, Nick Leidy, has also been set up.
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