- November 17, 2024
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An 18-year-old was shot in the leg Friday afternoon in what others told deputies was an accidental, self-inflicted shooting.
Dylan Michael Alves, a resident of Arena Lake Drive in Palm Coast, was sitting on the front porch of a garage apartment on Burning Wick Place bleeding from a “circular hole approximately five inches above his right knee” when Sheriff’s Office Deputy George Hristakopoulos arrived, according to Hristakopoulos’ case report.
“The front porch appeared to be covered in blood. I observed blood leading into the residence, and on the front door,” Hristakopoulos wrote. A woman, 46-year-old Susan Anne Paulsen, was tending Alves’ injury.
Another woman, 18-year-old Lauren Paulsen, stood nearby, watching, and two small dogs and a cat walked “in and around the crime scene.”
Susan Anne Paulsen, a resident of the home to which the garage apartment was attached, told Hristakopoulos “that Mr. Alves ‘found a gun’ and accidentally shot himself” while in the presence of a third man — 20-year-old Keith Marvin Pereira, who is listed on the case report as residing at the same address as Paulsen — in the garage apartment.
But Paulsen didn’t say where he’d gotten the gun.
As rescuers took Alves to Halifax Hospital and more deputies arrived, Hristakopolous began searching for the it, but was told that it was already “on its way” to the Sheriff’s Office to be turned over to deputies there. It wasn’t: Instead, Hristakopoulos discovered, Lauren Paulsen had taken Pereira, along with the gun, which was in a plastic bag in the car they used, to the Papa Johns on Palm Coast Parkway.
She dropped off Pereira and returned with the car. Deputies recovered the gun.
Hristakopoulos roped the house and apartment off with crime scene tape and ordered everyone out, over the objections of Susan Paulsen, who “advised me that her residence was not part of a crime scene, and that only the garage was,” but eventually complied.
Hristakpopoulos spoke with Lauren Paulsen about the shooting, and “Susan Paulsen approached her and ordered her not to speak with law enforcement,” according to the report.
Hristakopoulos ordered her not to interfere with an active investigation, and she “reluctantly complied” as more deputies, two detectives and a crime scene technician arrived.
Lauren Palsen’s story was “difficult to follow,” Hristakopoulos wrote. She said she’d arrived at the house with another woman and that she saw Susan Paulsen tending to Alves. The she said Pereira told her to take him to a gas station with the gun. Then she said that his intended destination had been the Sheriff’s Office. But she’d dropped him off at Papa John’s before returning to the crime scene.
Someone — the report does not state who — told Hristakopoulos “that the firearm in question had been reported stolen from within Flagler County,” but did not tell him any details about the theft or the gun’s make or model.
The case remained active as of the afternoon of April 20.
Just two days later, at about 5:28 p.m. Sunday, April 19, deputies were called out to the same house when a 911 caller said they saw about 20 people fighting behind the home.
Several people tried to flee in their cars when a deputy arrived, and a witness told deputies that several more fled on foot through the backyards of neighboring homes.
The deputy stopped people who were trying to flee in their cars, who “advised that two males agreed to fight at the residence, and they came to watch the fight,” according to the deputy’s incident report.
A 17-year-old, Daniel Paulsen, told the deputy that the home belonged to his mother and that “a large group of people arrived to watch Austin Flores and another male, known to Daniel as ‘Sweet Pea,’ fight in the back yard of the residence” over a girl.
Flores was also 17.
Daniel Paulsen told the deputy that the fight was mutual and that “he made sure no other subjects joined the fight.” Flores also said he’s agreed to fight “Sweet Pea” and that he did not wish to file charges.
Deputies couldn’t find “Sweet Pea” or the people who fled the scene on foot.
