Sheriff Investigating Death of a Man in an RV at Kohl’s Shopping Center

The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and the medical examiner are investigating the death of a man in his 40s in a recreational vehicle that had parked in front of Auto Zone in Palm Coast’s Kohl shopping Center off Belle Terre Parkway early this morning. The report drew a swarm of law enforcement officers to the scene, but the sheriff is not considering the death suspicious.

“About 5 a.m. this morning the sheriff’s 911 center received a call of an individual that was cold to the touch,” Sheriff Rick Staly said at the scene  “Our deputies responded and found an individual had died inside this RV. There is no trauma to the individual, and of course the medical examiner is here, conducting their investigation.” 




The sheriff’s Crime Scene Investigation unit was also at the scene. Nothing inside the RV was out of the ordinary. “From what we understand is this vehicle and a female occupant had been in South Florida, they were on their way back Upstate to New York, and the vehicle was having mechanical problems, so they got off the Interstate, stayed here until the store opened,” the sheriff said. The RV was pulling an old Harley Davidson on a trailer. “There’s no concern to the community. We’re obviously investigating this, which we do all unattended deaths. But there’s no visible trauma to the individual, so at this point it would be speculation on my part what happened.”

From all appearances, the sheriff said, the individual may have suffered a medical episode. The woman the individual was traveling with, who sat on a curb this morning a few feet from the RV as senior officers spoke with her, had not provided much information to the deputies. “She was somewhat incoherent, that could be shock,”  the sheriff said. “Obviously this is a pretty busy intersection in Palm Coast so we knew the community would be speculating or knew something was going on, so we wanted to put something out so there was no unnecessary concern.”