Stabbing on Palm Coast’s Kaywood Place Sends Man to Hospital and Another to Jail

Harold “Doug” Cook, a 50-year-old resident of 28 Kaywood Place, was jailed on a felony charge Sunday after he allegedly stabbed Jarret Register, 25, at the end of a fight that had started earlier the previous night. Register was trauma-evacuated to Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach.

Cook, according to his arrest report, admitted to stabbing Register in front of his house on Kaywood Place, but that he felt he had to.

The fight had begun at the Florida Cracker Ranch off County Road 200 in west Flagler Saturday night, where both men “threw hands” at each other, in Cook’s words. The two men separated and Cook returned home to Kaywood Place. But Register, he and witnesses said, was “blowing up” his phone. One of the witnesses, a relation of Cook’s, told deputies that she told Cook at the time to “let it ride.” Both men were threatening each other over the phone. Cook told deputies that Register was threatening to “kill his family,” while at one point, one of the witnesses told deputies, Cook “threatened [Register] with violence that would leave him ‘pissing out of a bag,'” according to the arrest report.

Several minutes after the phone calls, Register, of 200 Riverfront Drive in Bunnell, showed up in front of Cook’s house and the two men fought physically and violently. Cook would later suggest to a deputy that he “wanted” Register to show up in order to confront him, according to the arrest report.

According to Cook, Register threw the first punch and had him in a choke hold, when Cook felt himself about to pass out. Cook said that’s when he reached for his knife, a folding knife with a blade about 4 to 5 inches long. “Register told him not to stab him, but he felt he had to,” the arrest report states, based on Cook’s account. At one point an other witness, a 19-year-old whose given address is also 28 Kaywood Place, told deputies he tried to get between the two men, a detail Cook doesn’t remember.

That witness told deputies “he saw Harold Cook pull a knife out of his pocket and stab [Register] in the side of his torso,” and that Cook “attempted to stab [Register] again after [Register] had disengaged with him.” According to that witness, he physically and verbally forced Cook to get away from Register. He then saw Cook walk into the garage with the knife. Cook told deputies he threw away the weapon in the garage.

When a detective arrived at the scene–Det. George Hristakopoulos–Cook was not in handcuffs, according to his arrest report, though he was detained. (The same arrest report states in another part of the report that Cook had been secured in handcuffs upon the previous arrival of a deputy.) A red Ford truck was parked in the median of Kaywood Place. There was a significant amount of blood on the front passenger side bumper and in the grass directly in front of the Ford as well as near the driver’s side door of a vehicle closer to the house.

Cook waived his right to an attorney at the scene and spoke with the detective, who determined that “the physical altercation in question was mutual combat,” according to his report. “A primary aggressor does not appear to have existed until Mr. Cook stabbed Mr. Register.” Hristakopoulos added: “Had Mr. Hairston not physically intervened, Mr. Cook would have stabbed Mr. Register a second time after the two had disengaged.” He was referring to Anthony Hairston, the 19-year-old witness.

Cook faces a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony. He was booked at the Flagler County jail in late morning Sunday. By late this morning, he had posted bail on $20,000 bond.

Register twice had run-ins with the law last year. Charges of battery and criminal mischief in April were dropped. Charges of disorderly conduct and threatening police (he had threatened to shoot a deputy while being driven to jail) were reduced to a pre-trial diversion program, which he successfully completed last June.