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Credit: SeaWorldAn employee for SeaWorld Orlando was killed late last month.
Theme parks are nothing without their employees, whether customer-facing or dealing with all aspects of business behind the scenes. It’s a devastating blow whenever any theme park loses one of these employees, but especially when it’s in circumstances as tragic as these.
Related: Guest Violently Attacked During SeaWorld Dolphin Show, “Serious Injuries” Sustained
According to NOLA.com, SeaWorld Orlando employee Christopher Oatts Jr. was killed after being shot as an innocent bystander in a gunfight between two women – Mia Lindsey, 22, and Mariah Campbell, 26 – just after 4 a.m. on June 22, 2024.
Oatts Jr. had reportedly been standing on the 600 block of Bourbon Street when he encountered the conflict. He’d come to New Orleans for the weekend to see his siblings and cousins, who had only recently left his hotel on Bourbon Street. After they left, Oatts Jr. went outside for unknown reasons and was looking at something on his phone when the bullet was fired.
As per an affidavit for an arrest warrant against Lindsey, the incident occurred when four women and a man were walking together down Bourbon Street. One man in the group started fighting with a man on the street, and when the group was followed, Lindsey opened fire, striking Oatts Jr. in the head.
While the group fled the scene, their car was tracked by police to Columbia, Mississippi, where Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested both Lindsey and Campbell.
Oatts Jr. reportedly grew up in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He was a father of two sons, Keiston and Khamir, and lived in Orlando, Florida, where he worked at SeaWorld – the marine park known for its array of killer whales, dolphins, and iconic roller coasters – as a warehouse manager.
Related: Family Humiliated, Forced Out of SeaWorld After 10-Year-Old’s Ride Seat “Malfunctioned”
His father, Christopher Oatts Sr., later shared a statement with NOLA, noting that “they took a good one. A kid with no trouble, never been to jail, never smoked, no history with police, no violence … a good one.”
Sadly, this isn’t the first theme park employee fatality this year. In June 2024, Disneyland Resort employee Bonnye Lear – who worked as a Club 33 administrator – fell from a moving golf cart backstage in the Critter Country area of Disneyland Park and died from her head injuries two days later. The vehicle was reportedly moving at 20 mph at the time.
“She went to grab the handrail, it gave way and sent her out of the vehicle,” a fellow employee later wrote in a now-deleted post on Facebook (via New York Post). “We do not know if the passengers were aware that she had fallen out.”
Inside the Magic sends our condolences to Oatts Jr.’s friends and family during this time.