Shooting In Area of Palm Coast’s Microtel Leaves Woman in Critical Condition, No Assailant in Custody

Last Updated: 9:06 p.m.

Friday, 9:06 p.m. Update–Sheriff Rick Staly in a brief interview this evening said he was “confident the community does not need to be alarmed” regarding the shooting that left a woman in critical condition earlier today in the area of the Microtel in Palm Coast. But he said he could not release additional information at this time. When asked if he was confident that the case would be close to resolution within 24 to 72 hours, as has been the case with numerous high-profile crime investigations by the Sheriff’s Office in recent years, Staly said he was “hoping that will be in that time frame,” but cautioned: “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

A shooting in the area of Palm Coast’s Microtel on Kingswood Drive, off Old Kings Road, left a woman in critical condition and mobilized a large number of Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies, detectives and crime scene investigators, who are hunting for clues about the incident. No assailant is in custody. No arrests have been made.

The incident took place around 11:30 a.m. Sheriff’s Office posted a message on its Facebook page asking residents to avoid the area, and that there was no danger to the community. But Sheriff Rick Staly took a more nuanced approach.




“At this point until we have further information, I’m not going to say that,” he said shortly before 2 p.m. “Do we have a gunman running around? We don’t believe so.” 

The exact location of the shooting and the motive are not known, or at least have not been disclosed. “This is a developing investigation, we have received some information and we are working to determine exactly what happened and exactly where,” Staly said. “We’re investigating a suspicious incident that resulted in a female being shot. Deputies and detectives and our CSI and our Real Time Crime Center  are working multiple possibilities and locations to determine what exactly occurred.”

The area law enforcement is covering stretches from the area of the Microtel down to Graham Swamp along Old Kings Road. The road itself has not been closed to traffic, but has since become very congested. An actual search, or manhunt, is not in progress, nor has Fire Flight, the county’s emergency helicopter, been called in to assist in an air search, though it may have been used to evacuate the victim.

A sheriff’s spokesperson had described the incident as “a robbery of some kind at the Microtel, and it’s an active scene,” and said there was “no threat to the public.” The sheriff explained that the statement about a threat to the public was issued at the request of chiefs at the scene. 




The sheriff is often circumspect in the immediate aftermath of an incident as it’s being investigated, but only so as not to endanger the integrity of the investigation. He has typically been forthcoming with information swiftly, sometimes within hours, once detectives are more confident in the nature of the incident and those involved.

“We know how it was reported, but often times things that are reported through investigative processes, you find variations, so at this point any possibility is open until we can confirm with our evidence and investigation what occurred,” the sheriff said. “There’s not an active search, there’s an active–what I would call crime scene, possible locations that we are controlling to make sure that once we can determine exactly where this incident occurred, we just want to make sure we don’t take any risks of losing any evidence or have it contaminated by citizens.”

Between its trove of technology and ranks of detectives, who have amassed a considerable record of closing cases, “I think we’ll get to the bottom of it,” the sheriff said.