Detectives Investigating Alleged Home Invasion Robbery and Shooting on Palm Coast’s Coral Reef Court

Last Updated: 2:35 p.m.

Early Monday morning a 36-year-old Palm Coast resident of 14A Coral Reef Court North reported to Flagler County Sheriff’s detectives that he was the victim of a home-invasion robbery, in the course of which he fired a gun belonging to one of the assailants, but missed.

A 19-year-old woman who had been in the house–the 26-year-old-man’s sister–fled the scene and reported the incident to authorities, if at first with conflicting stories.




According to a sheriff’s report, deputies encountered the woman not far from her home. She described being in her room at 1:30 Monday morning and hearing her dog growling “as if the dog was attacking someone.” She went to check on her brother but the door was slammed shut. The dog was trying to get inside. She was in fear enough that she left the house through her bedroom window (the dog’s fate is unclear), got in her car and drove off to Clubfield Drive and Palm Harbor Parkway. She saw a dark-colored truck traveling south on Palm Harbor–the same truck she’d seen at 10 p.m. earlier that night, behind her residence.

When deputies arrived at the Coral Reef Court house the 36-year-old man had some injuries–a laceration above his right eye–and was visibly startled. He was “unable to provide a sworn written statement,” according to the report. But he spoke to deputies, and provided this narrative of events: he had walked out on the porch at some point in the night. He didn’t see anything out of place. He went back to his room and got in bed. At that point he said two Black men dressed in all-black clothing and wearing face-covering ski masks entered his room. One of them stood in the doorway. The other, who was armed with what appeared to be a Glock pistol, rushed to him, ordered him out of bed and tried to put him in a chokehold.




The 36-year-old says he “grabbed the gun away from the male and fired a single round at the male standing in the doorway.” The man was not hit, but came at him and pepper sprayed in the face while the other ordered him on the ground, on his stomach. The report doesn’t explain how or whether one of the assailants took back control of the gun. Rather, the men then demanded to know “where’s the money at.” The alleged victim said he had $700 in his pocket, which one of the men took, ordering him not to move. He alleges that one of the men struck him in the face, above the eye, during the altercation. The victim says he thought the men then rummaged through the room, but he wasn’t sure.

They then left. The 36 year old got out of the house through the bedroom window, but spotted no vehicles or anyone fleeing on foot.

The 36-year-old is a convicted felon who was sentenced to a 24-month probation term on Nov. 12, 2019–he was found guilty of tampering with a witness in 2019–and whose probation was revoked last year over three violations, resulting in his serving an additional 140 days in jail (he’d already served 70 days).

The alleged victim told deputies he did not know the men, only that someone by a certain name that he gave authorities owed him money, but he wasn’t sure if that man was involved in Monday’s altercation. The report does not state whether a bullet mark or a shell casing was found in the room. But the investigation was turned over to detectives, and is ongoing.