Charged As Adult, Devaughn Anderson, 17, Now Faces 1st Degree Felony Over Armed Robbery

The State Attorney is charging Devaughn Anderson, the 17-year-old accused of robbing a Circle K at gunpoint on Cypress Point Circle in Palm Coast earlier this month, as an adult on three felonies and three misdemeanors. The armed robbery charge is a first-degree felony. If Anderson is convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison on that charge alone.

He also faces two third-degree felonies for illegally carrying a concealed weapon and grand theft, each of which carry up to five years in prison on conviction.

Anderson, who had been freed from a juvenile jail in Daytona Beach after his Oct. 3 arrest, was re-arrested Monday at his home on the adult charges, and booked at the Flagler County jail, where he remains on $35,500 bond.

The stacking of charges is not uncommon, nor is the reduction of those charges in plea agreements, which are likely when evidence includes video and an eyewitness: Anderson was not veiled or masked when he entered the Circle K (twice) near midnight on Oct. 2, then allegedly robbed the store clerk at gunpoint and shot out a surveillance monitor in the office, thinking that he had demolished the stored surveillance footage. The footage was intact. Anderson was later arrested within hours of the robbery, the morning of Oct. 3, when he was a passenger in a car that was pulled over in Seminole Woods.

Anderson is a resident of Bunnell’s Railroad Street.

The previous story is below.

Armed Robber Fires at Surveillance Monitor at Cypress Point Circle K; 17-Year-Old Arrested

Oct. 3, 2017–The call came in to 911 a few minutes before midnight Monday. “I just got robbed at gunpoint,” Philip Patterson, the 65-year-old store clerk at the Circle K on Cypress Point Parkway said.

The man who robbed him, Patterson explained to deputies, had initially walked in and walked to the soda fountain, then walked out, seeing that there were customers in the store. When they left, the man walked back in. Patterson described him as black, wearing a purple, button-down shirt, shorts, and carrying “a dirty pink and blue backpack.” The man placed the backpack on the counter. Then he took out a black handgun from it, pointed the gun at Patterson, and demanded all the money in the register.

He got about $150 out of that one. The man demanded that Patterson open the second register. Patterson did not have access to it, he told the robber. The man then asked him where the security system was located. Patterson showed him. The man wanted to know specifically where the video storage was located. Patterson told him the video monitor was it. The man shot out the monitor.

“He did discharge the firearm because he made me go back in the office and he shot at the monitor to our security system,” Patterson told the 911 dispatcher in a voice either naturally gravelly or shaky from the experience.

After the man fired the round, Patterson started joking with the assailant in an attempt to keep him calm, telling him the shot was so loud, he couldn’t hear anymore.

Before he left, the man demanded that Patterson turn over his cell phone, a $300 Samsung, and the store’s cordless phone, a $30 model, to keep Patterson from calling 911. He then left the store on foot and walked toward the Dunkin Donuts parking lot.

Deputies rushed to the scene with a K-9 unit and set up a perimeter around the Circle K. Tag, the K-9, was not successful. But the break in the search happened in Seminole Woods, where a deputy Daniel Parthemore was patrolling in an unmarked car. He noticed a vehicle in the cul-de-sac at Seven Champions Place. There are no houses in that cul-de-sac. The vehicle was blacked out until Parthemore approached it in his car. The vehicle’s lights came on and it pulled out, driving toward Seven Wonders Trail. Parthemore “conducted an investigative stop” at the intersection of Seven Wonders and Sesame Trail, the man’s arrest report states.

At the wheel of the car was Gracemari Hyatt, 18, of Sedgefield Path in Palm Coast. The person in the passenger seat initially gave his name as Arthur Daniel, and said he was 18. That proved to be a false name, the report states, and he was later identified as Devaughn William Anderson, 17. His possessions matched the descriptions Patterson had provided: the dirty-pink back-pack, his clothing, the gun inside the back-pack.

The individual who’d walked into the Circle K had not worn  a mask. When he was taken there to be identified, the store clerk recognized him and said it was the man who’d robbed him. Anderson was read his Miranda rights and invoked his right to an attorney, shutting down any further inquiries. But Hyatt was willing to answer questions. She said Anderson had called her earlier in the evening to ask her if she wanted to smoke some pot. She picked him up at Espanola Road and U.S. 1 at half-past midnight or 12:45 a.m., then drove to the RaceTrac gas station at Seminole Woods Parkway and State Road 100. They bought some “blunts” (it’s not clear where, or from whom) and went to the cul-de-sat at Seven Champions Place to smoke them. They tried to leave when they noticed someone coming down the road, and were pulled over.

Devaughn was arrested on charges of armed robbery with a deadly weapon, felony petit theft, grand theft, discharging a firearm in public, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a firearm by a minor. Hyatt was not arrested. Anderson was booked at the county jail then remanded to the juvenile justice facility in Daytona Beach.

“I’ve tasked our team with finding ways to reduce crime and as a result of that, our intelligence unit identified a trend which allowed us to deploy special resources last night,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release issued today. “Ultimately that is what caught this suspect. I’m proud of our team for taking a proactive approach to crime and catching this violent offender in just over two hours. Now that we have done our job, I hope that DJJ will keep him in custody so he doesn’t hurt anyone the next time.”