Palm Coast Man and Woman Are Arrested on 2nd Degree Murder Charges in Killing of Zaire Roberts

Moultrie had been out on bond in connection with a charge of raping a minor (he’d posted $10,000 bail on the $100,000 bond).

Remarkably, Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark in January 2021 had filed a motion arguing to the court that Moultrie’s bond should be revoked, since Moultrie, after his release, had been arrested on an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge in Volusia County, in addition to a fleeing and eluding cops charge. Both are felonies. Clark pointed out that the incident in Volusia involved Moultrie allegedly threatening another person’s life: he’d allegedly pointed a gun at a woman who was taking a cigarette break outside a 7-Eleven. A violation of his pre-trial release orders justified his bond revokation.

The court denied the motion.

Moultrie’s and Manjarres’s bookings in mid-afternoon today were for second degree murder and armed burglary on an “offense date” of Dec. 29, according to the Sheriff’s jail site–the date of the late-night incident at 8 Regent Lane in Palm Coast.




Less than two months ago–the night of Dec. 29–before 10 p.m., 911 dispatchers got a call from a Daniel M. at 8 Regent Lane. Screaming, the caller said he’d been shot in the hip and in one leg. He survived. Roberts, who had been let out of prison on weeks before, did not survive. Alleged assailants sped away from the house. The incident appeared to be the culmination of a party involving one of the victims (Daniel) earlier going to Daytona Beach and returning to the house with a stripper.

Moultrie and Manjarres are not being charged with attempted murder, only un-premeditated second degree murder, according to their Flagler jail bookings. That suggests neither is implicated in the shooting of Daniel M., and therefore that Daniel M. may have been shot either by Roberts or by yet another assailant who remains at large.

It is the Sheriff’s Office’s second arrests in 48 hours in connection with three apparently unconnected high-profile murders of young men in Palm Coast or Bunnell since the end of December. Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly on Thursday announced at a news conference the arrest of 15-year-old Da’Mari Barnes, who faces a manslaughter charge in the shooting death of Jamey “JuJu” Bennett, 19, in north Palm Coast on Feb. 5.

“Those investigations that we still have outstanding are progressing very well, but we’re not ready to make arrests yet or bring them to conclusion,” Staly said during a news conference Thursday, addressing the R-Section killing and the killing of FPC Student Noah Smith, 16, in mid-January in Bunnell. (There are unconfirmed reports that the 15 year old arrested this week is Smith’s cousin.) Staly’s confidence in previous high-profile cases in the past five and a half years of his tenure has invariably corelated with eventual arrests. The sheriff had credited the detectives of the agency’s Major Crimes Unit for the case resolution on Thursday, and for eventual resolutions of the two other cases.

Moultrie had been arrested in 2014 in connection with vandalism at Indian Trails Middle School. He was attending Matanzas High School at the time, though he was trespassed from that school the same year.




In May 2020, Moultrie was arrested on a charge of raping a 16 year old girl in June 2019. The arrest warrant details him allegedly forcing himself on the girl, who had been intoxicated, had gone to sleep, and woke up finding him forcing himself on her. She had repeatedly told him to stop, she told authorities. He was 21 at the time. The girl went to the hospital the next day, and law enforcement was notified. The victim’s sexual assault kit produced DNA evidence that matched that of Moultrie, which had already been entered in a Florida Department of Law Enforcement database because of his previous arrests.

Moultrie immediately posted bond upon his arrest in May 2020. That first-degree felony case is still pending. The case had been set for docket sounding repeatedly, the last step before trial. That trial is now scheduled for March 21. Moultrie faces a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The second-degree murder charge is punishable by up to life in prison. So is the armed burglary charge. It isn’t clear how, if at all, the latest arrest would change the trajectory of the rape case, though it is possible that Moultrie would decide to plead out both cases.

Bond for both Moultrie and Manjarres is currently set at $350,000 each, though that may change after their first appearance before a judge. It is almost certain that Moultrie’s bond on the rape charge will, this time, be revoked.