FLORIDA
News4Jax
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A cousin of Fred Laster, the 16-year-old whose dismembered remains were found 23 years ago outside a Lake City gas station, said he is not one bit surprised that Ronnie Hyde was charged with killing the boy.
“I’ve always from Day 1 blamed him,” John Kirkland said. “I never said he killed him, but I said he knew what happened to him.”
Kirkland said there were five siblings in the Laster family and that he lived next to them in Yulee. Family members told News4Jax Fred was one of six children being raised by elderly grandparents living on Social Security after their mother died of cancer and their father left the family.
“My grandma passed away brokenhearted,” Kirkland said. “She died on her deathbed saying she wanted Freddy.”
Fred Laster’s immediate family has asked for privacy, issuing a statement Wednesday saying they “have gathered together at this time to support each other as we experience the intense emotions caused by the heartbreaking loss of ‘Freddy’ and the arrest of his killer.”
Hyde, who Kirkland called Ron, was a youth pastor at the Oceanway church that the Laster family attended in the early 1990s. Kirkland said Hyde always wanted to hang out with the young boys — never the girls. He also tried to be with the boys one-on-one, never in a group.
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