A Florida woman accused of killing two former husbands in separate shootings on the same day remains jailed as one murder case moves ahead in Manatee County and a second homicide investigation continues in Tampa.
Susan Erica Avalon, 51, has pleaded not guilty in the Manatee County case tied to the death of David Scott, a 54-year-old man shot at his Bradenton home on Dec. 17. Investigators say the same day also included an earlier killing in Tampa, where another former husband was found dead after police were asked to check on him. The case matters now because prosecutors still have not fully shown how they plan to divide charges between the two counties, and Avalon’s next known court date in Manatee County is set for March 26.
Investigators say the day started in Tampa and ended with a wounded man in Bradenton, a second body in Hillsborough County and a suspect back home in Citrus County. According to law enforcement accounts released after the arrest, officers later found a Tampa man dead inside a home in the 1200 block of East Frierson Avenue with multiple gunshot wounds and damage to a rear door that suggested forced entry. After that, detectives say Avalon went to a Panera restaurant, took a food order that was not hers and drove south to the 7000 block of Chatum Light Run in Bradenton. Deputies were called there at about 2:55 p.m. after Scott was shot when he answered his front door. Sheriff Rick Wells later called the case “brazen” and said it unfolded in broad daylight in a neighborhood where children were coming home from school. Scott was taken to a hospital, where authorities say he died later that evening.
What turned the Bradenton shooting into a two-county homicide case was the evidence gathered in the first hours after Scott was found. Deputies said Scott was still able to speak and told them 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. Investigators said surveillance video showed Avalon at the Panera shortly before the Bradenton shooting and that license plate readers tracked a silver Honda Odyssey from Citrus County into Hillsborough County, across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge into Manatee County and then back north again. Detectives said they found Avalon later that night at her Inverness home cleaning the minivan with bleach and rags. Wells said the case widened when detectives told Avalon they were there about her ex-husband and she replied, “Which one?” By then, investigators said, they had only confirmed the Bradenton shooting. That answer led Manatee detectives to ask Tampa police for a welfare check, which uncovered the second death.
Court records and interviews described a long trail of domestic court conflict before the shootings, though those disputes do not answer the central criminal question of what happened inside each home. Investigators said Avalon and Scott had been divorced for about 11 years and were still fighting over custody and money tied to their children. Local reporting based on court documents 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. Detectives 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 investigators she came home after the shootings, got into the shower and was still wearing the same gray sweatshirt seen on surveillance video. Authorities have said about five children are tied to the two marriages. The gun used in the killings had not been publicly described as recovered in the reports reviewed this week.
The Bradenton victim has been publicly identified as David Scott, but the Tampa victim had not been publicly named in the reports reviewed for this story. That has left one part of the case more visible than the other. In Heritage Harbour, neighbors spoke openly about the man they lost. Ronald Andriano, who lived nearby, said Scott walked the neighborhood most mornings and was “such a nice man.” In a recent local television interview, Scott’s daughter described him as a father who loved his dogs and kept a steady routine in the park near his home. Those details gave the Bradenton case a clear human outline even as investigators kept many specifics sealed or unnamed. Tampa police, by contrast, said only that the dead man and the suspected shooter were known to one another and that the case appeared linked to the Manatee County investigation. Officials have not publicly laid out a full minute-by-minute timeline for the Tampa shooting, and that remains one of the largest unanswered parts of the case.
The legal track is clearer in Manatee County than in Hillsborough County. Avalon was arrested on Dec. 18 at 1:48 a.m. on an out-of-county warrant and initially faced a second-degree murder charge in the Scott case. A judge later ordered her held without release. On Jan. 27, court records showed that Avalon waived formal arraignment, entered a written plea of not guilty, demanded a jury trial and filed notice that she would take part in discovery. A case management conference is scheduled for March 26. In the days right after the arrest, Wells said his office would work with prosecutors to seek a more severe charge and possibly the death penalty, pointing to what he called evidence of planning, including the stolen food order and the long drive between scenes. But as of Friday, public reports still described the Manatee case as a second-degree murder prosecution. Tampa police said they were working with the State Attorney’s Office on the Hillsborough County death, but no separate charge had been publicly announced there.
What the public can see so far is a case built on movement, timing and small details that detectives believe show planning rather than sudden violence. Authorities say the route crossed three counties in a single day. They point to the stolen food bag, the surveillance images, the minivan seen leaving the neighborhood, the bleach used after the trip home and the statement detectives say Avalon made when they reached her driveway. Defense arguments have not yet been tested at trial, and the public filings reviewed for this story do not lay out a detailed alternate account from Avalon. That means several key facts remain unsettled outside court, including the exact order of the two shootings, whether the same weapon was used at both scenes and how prosecutors may eventually split or combine theories of intent across county lines. For Scott’s family and neighbors, though, the legal unknowns sit beside a much simpler fact: one man is dead in Bradenton, another is dead in Tampa, and a case that began with one doorstep shooting has grown into one of the region’s most closely watched homicide prosecutions.
As of March 7, Avalon remained in custody, the Manatee County case was headed toward a March 26 conference and the Tampa investigation had not yet produced a publicly announced charge. The next clear milestone is in Bradenton, where the first known court hearing on the calendar is expected later this month.
Author note: Last updated March 7, 2026.