BY DAN HILDEBRAN
According to a document found by investigators at the crime scene, the 50-year-old deputies say murdered his wife before taking his own life was looking for details about the woman’s affair.
The Bradford County Sheriff’s Office said Loyd Alan Kerr, 50, shot his wife in the neck, resulting in her death, before taking his own life on Thursday, January 29.
Sheriff’s Col. Brad Smith said that after receiving a 911 hang-up call, deputies responded to Northeast 6th Lane, off State Road 230, just west of the Bradford-Clay County Line. There, near a double-wide deputies found the 50-year-old with a gunshot wound to the head.
A neighbor told deputies that a female lived in the trailer, and officers searched the residence, but found no one.
However, the couple’s 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son told investigators they saw their mother run toward a pond, south of the home.
They then discovered Kerr’s estranged wife, Rachael Renee Kerr, 43, about 50 yards away from the double-wide with a gunshot wound to the neck.
She was pronounced dead by EMS personnel shortly after they arrived and after deputies and medical personnel had attempted life-saving procedures.
Deputies say the 50-year-old likely entered the home, tied up his wife, then escorted the couple’s two children to Rachael’s GMC Yukon. He then returned to the home to question his wife.
‘How long, or when did the affair start?’
During the investigation, deputies discovered a list of questions and a checklist of items the husband brought to his estranged wife’s home.
Sheriff Gordon Smith said the document outlined the intruder’s plan for the encounter. The single page, double-sided, handwritten list appears to lay out questioning that would extract from Kerr’s wife details about her new relationship, passwords, banking and accounting information about her business, and clues to how he intended to end her life.
“I’m not here to hurt you. I just need answers for closure.”
Before getting into the questions, the first statement in the document appears to attempt to ease Rachael Kerr’s mind about Loyd’s intent. The husband then launches into a series of questions and accusations about their marriage and her subsequent relationship.
“Why do you hate me to do something like this to me?
What did I do to you that was so bad that I deserve this?
How long, or when, did the affair start?
Did y’all do something when we were at the Mayo Camp?
Did he help you move out of the house on Richard Lee?”
(Likely a reference to Richard Lee Street in Orange Park, not far from Rachael Kerr’s Herbalife Loaded T Nutrition of OP)
“Why do you want to keep the kids from me?
Why all the lies on the injunction petition?
Why did you think it was OK to play family with the first guy you were with? Yes, I know it was just a rebound!
Why did you let Cameron near the kids?
What bad things have you told people about me at church, your family and friends, and at Loaded T?
Why did you take him to an event with Herbalife, knowing that we started this together?”
Kerr then went into a series of questions, indicating he could have intended to take over the Herbalife beverage business on Orange Park’s College Drive.
What is the PW (password) for Loaded T wifi?
What is the PW for phone?
What is the PW for My Herbalife, and all related to Herbalife?
What is the PW for QuickBooks?
What bank accounts do you have? All passwords and logins? Who is beneficiary?
Only after obtaining the passwords and information on the bank accounts and the business’s accounting software, did Loyd Kerr reveal his true intent.
“Do you want to leave the kids a suicide note?
Now you have two choices. Get back together or the other choice.”
Do you want to go to heaven with Dad?
It is unclear how far down Loyd Kerr got through his list of questions before a neighbor interrupted his plan.
Sheriff Gordon Smith said that when Rachael Kerr first heard someone in her home, she called the neighbor and then her boyfriend before calling 911, which resulted in a hangup.
When the neighbor entered the home, Kerr reacted to the interruption by chasing the woman away with a gun, which allowed Rachael to run out of the doublewide and toward the pond.
The husband caught her about 50 yards away from the home, near an auto transport trailer. There, he shot her in the neck at close range, and then returned to her GMC Yukon, where he had placed the children.
According to Sheriff Smith, when their father returned to the GMC he took the kids to the back of the vehicle.
“He brings them out and says something to them, I don’t know the exact words, but it was something similar to basically, ‘Do you want to go to heaven with Dad?’” the sheriff said, adding that while asking the question, Kerr pointed his weapon at one of the children. “And the first child says no, then he points the gun at the other one and asks, ‘Do you want to go to heaven with Dad?’ and the second child says no, and then he takes his own life right there in front of the children.”
Accused of putting trackers on wife’s GMC
The shooter was arrested by Bradford deputies on January 20 for putting tracking devices on Rachael Kerr’s GMC Yukon in October 2025.
When deputies contacted Loyd Kerr about the tracking devices, he was incarcerated in the Clay County Jail for violation of an injunction for protection against domestic violence, a probation violation, and resisting an officer without violence.
The 50-year-old was released on a $200,000 bond the day following his arrest by a Levy County judge, who presided over Bradford County first appearance hearings on January 21.
