2 Found Dead at Slowdrift Turn Home in Palm Coast, Where Homeowner Had Threatened to Kill Cops

Last Updated: 7:37 p.m.

Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies making a “welfare check” Thursday afternoon found two people dead at 4 Slowdrift Turn in Palm Coast. The sheriff’s office is calling the deaths “suspicious.”

In late afternoon, the sheriff’s office confirmed that the homeowners, Kyle Eyrich, 58, and Colleen Eyrich, 60, were the deceased.

A little over a year ago, Colleen Eyrich told a deputy who was responding to one of many 911 calls at the house over the past two years told him she wanted him to shoot her with his gun–and later pledged to get a gun and kill any cop she encountered, prompting 911 to add an alert to any subsequent requests for police assistance at that home.

Neighbors of the homeowners had called 911 at 4:36 p.m. out of concern after not seeing their neighbors for several days, a sheriff’s spokesman said. Deputies frequently carry out “welfare checks” intended to check on the well-being of residents who don’t appear to follow their normal routines. An incident report released later this morning states the neighbors had not seen the couple at the house for two weeks, and that mail was piling up in the mailbox. A neighbor had received some of the couple’s mail by mistake, and noticed the piled-up mail in the box when he went to place the mis-delivered item there.

All area hospitals were checked. Neither resident was reported there.

“We made entry into the home, we found two people inside the house,” Jim Troiano, the sheriff’s chief spokesman, said this morning.

“It certainly had the appearance last night of something,” he said. “As of last night we were not considering it a homicide, but a death investigation.”

But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s crime scene analysis were called in, which is not usually done with mere death investigations. And the situation was handled as a crime scene. The medical examiner later removed the bodies.  “We had to wait for a while to get a warrant to get into the house to finish up the crime scene,” Troiano said.

Troiano had little additional information: he did not confirm the identity of the people, nor the manner of death.

“There’s a lot of investigation going on, we’ve called in resources, it’s not clear to us right this second exactly what went on in that house. There’s nothing to report until we get more results from the investigation that’s being conducted,” Sheriff Jim Manfre said this morning. Asked of the manner of death, he aid: “As of the last report we got, no, we did not know. Nothing has been verified. That’s why we called FDLE. It’s not clear from observation what exactly went on in that house.”

Manfre added: “There’s nothing that we observed so far that indicates there was an invasion into the home, but that’s not been determined yet.”

The Eyerichs are well known to the sheriff’s office. Both have been arrested by police several times in the past two years. They have owned the 1,300-square-foot house on Slowdrift for 10 years.

911 records indicate that in the past two years alone, the house was the scene of eight arrests and four Baker Act interventions, as well as the scene or the origin of some 60 incidents, calls for service, welfare checks, warrant service and 911 investigations.

Colleen was known to deputies as being allegedly aggressive toward police. Kyle was arrested several times on domestic battery charges, once on a felony domestic by strangulation.

On May 3, 2015, for example, a deputy responded to the home to assist Flagler County Fire Rescue paramedics-firefighters, whom Colleen had called for, as she was “being aggressive on the phone with Flagler County Communications employees and there being an extensive history of domestic violence at the residence,” her arrest report at the time stated. The deputy found her “extremely intoxicated” and described her demeanor as “overly aggressive.” The deputy was trying to determine the cause of the redness on her right cheek because of the long history of domestic violence between Kyle and Colleen. But when he asked questions, she tried to get back in the house and shut out the deputy. She became so aggressive that she was handcuffed and, when paramedics arrived, restrained with a waistband “to limit her movements,” and another restraint of her feet to the gurney, the arrest report states.

Because of her condition, a deputy rode with paramedics to the hospital. On the way, the deputy reported, she “continued to be aggressive and at one point was able to free her hands from the handcuffs. Colleen was successfully re-secured within moments,” the deputy reported, “but actively resisted my efforts to do so through the process. It should be noted that Colleen stated multiple times that she wanted to die and requested that I shoot her with my service weapon.”

At the hospital, she was equally aggressive with staff, she refused treatment, was discharged, but was instead Baker Acted, because of her statements about wanting to die. Back in the patrol car, she became increasingly violent, kicking the fiberglass partition and requiring further restraining procedures. She slipped out of the restraint on the way to Ormond Beach and became so violent in the patrol car that the deputy requested assistance from Ormond Beach police. During the drive, Colleen told the cop that “she intended to gain possession of a gun by unknown means so that she could kill me and along with any other law enforcement that she encountered in the future.”

Her threats were deemed credible, and an alert was added to her residence through the county’s 911 system “for all units to use due caution when responding to any future calls for service in response to her aggressive actions” and threats to police, the arrest report states.

Colleen Eyrich pleaded no contest to a charge of obstructing an officer without violence. Adjudication was withheld.

Four months after her arrest, on Sept. 2, 2015, both Kyle and Colleen were arrested: Kyle Eyrich was arrested on a felony charge of domestic battery by strangulation, and a count of domestic violence, and Colleen was arrested on a probation violation and for abuse of 911. When cops responded to the house, Colleen was again “belligerent” and intoxicated, yelling at deputies that she would not allow them to enter the house. She was bruised under the right eye and had large bruises on her left arm and shoulder area. When a cop asked her about the bruises, she said her husband “beats the shit out of me.”

“If she says I hit her then I must have hit her,” Kyle told deputies, “because she doesn’t lie about things like that.” Kyle had just left the hospital, he told the cops, after which the couple started drinking, and he believed they got into an argument the evening before. He conceded that that was probably when he became violent toward her. He openly admitted to a deputy–according to his arrest report–that he strangled Colleen “because she was yelling.” When deputies followed Kyle inside so he could get his shoes, Colleen told them to “get the fuck out of her house.”

Both charges were eventually dropped.

Colleen had been arrested because she’d made six calls to 911 without needing emergency assistance. Rather, she was asking for a lawyer, and asking where her husband was. She was also intoxicated. Being on probation for an earlier conviction of abuse of 911, one of the conditions of her probation had been to abstain from drinking.

In January 2014, Kyle was arrested after admitting to a deputy to striking his wife in the face. But when deputies tried to get information from Colleen, she told them that if they were going to take her husband to jail, she would lie and claim she hit him instead, so she would be taken to jail, though cops had been alerted to the altercation when Colleen had dialed 911 and hung up. Hang-ups to 911 automatically trigger a response to the address from which the call is placed.

Last November, Discover Bank sued Colleen Eyrich for defaulting on a $1,900 credit card bill. Eyerich did not appear in court as required, and a judgment was entered against her last March, enabling Suntrust Bank to garnish her wages. In September 2015, Discover sued Kyle Eyrich for $14,305.

By early this morning, all law enforcement officials had cleared the scene but for one deputy, Troiano said.

The autopsy of both bodies was scheduled for 10 a.m. today.

“There’s no indication at all that they need to be concerned for their safety,” Troiano said of the neighbors.

“This is not going to be a quick investigation. It’s going to take some time for us to figure out,” Manfre said.

[This is a developing story.]