Life, and Death, Go On: A Suicide in Flagler Beach, a 14 Year Old Stabs a Man, 21, in The Mondex

As residents of Flagler Beach were boarding up homes, evacuating the city and fearing the worst ahead of Hurricane Matthew last Thursday, authorities were called to a grim discovery in a garage at 812 South Central Avenue: Alf Peter Olsen, 53, had hung himself. His was the seventh suicide in the county since Aug. 11, a rate far higher than recorded in previous years across Flagler.

Olsen, 43, had lived at the small, 1,000-square-foot house since buying it in 2011. He loved fishing, he loved Flagler Beach, judging from his Facebook posts, he loved the sun rising over his city, and he loved his son. He had a roommate, to whom he rented a room. The 67-year-old roommate told Flagler Beach police that she had last seen Olsen the morning before, when she paid her rent.

Olsen had told her that he could not be alone just then, she told police, and that he was suffering from bi-polar disorder and was trying to rehabilitate himself, according to a police report.

The medical examiner, who was at the scene in late morning, said there was no foul play. His wallet was left in the kitchen, with almost $1,000 in cash. His body was later removed by St. Johns Family Funeral Home.

Two days later, just after Hurricane Matthew had cleared the region, a 14-year-old boy stabbed 21-year-old Donald Mays III at 4489 Clove Avenue in Daytona North, also known as the Mondex.

The boy stabbed Mays twice, according to a police report, once in the chest and once near the heart, requiring Mays to be flown by Flagler County Fire Flight, the emergency helicopter, to Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach.

Several adults were applying pressure on Mays’s wound when Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies got there at 9 p.m. Saturday. Mays was on his back on the front porch of the house.

The sheriff’s report on the incident is heavily censored, as the case is still under investigation. The 14-year-old boy was originally handcuffed but then released after the boy’s interview with sheriff’s detective Jorge Fuentes, who is in charge of the investigation: there were no arrests and no charges filed. “Not yet,” a sheriff’s spokesman said today. Asked if this was a case of self-defense, the spokesman said: “Too early to tell.”

There were other people in the house when the stabbing took place, he said. Mays has been arrested three times this year on minor charges, except for felony burglary, assault and tampering with a witness charges in August, all of which were dropped.