- November 16, 2024
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A 15-year-old boy was just looking for one of his friends when he knocked at the door of Candance Ashley McCall and Letitia Cicely-Renee Crimes the evening of Sept. 17, but the two women came to the door with handguns and threatened to kill him, then threatened his friends, he told Sheriff's Office deputies.
The incident happened at about 7:18 p.m. in the Integra Woods apartment complex in southern Palm Coast. The 15-year-old knocked on the women's door, and the two women — McCall is 28, and Crimes is 33 — appeared, saying they had a gun. The boy ran to his friends, who were fishing at a nearby pond.
The friends, a 14-year-old and a 13-year-old, later told deputies that the 15-year-old came running up to them looking scared and saying that two armed women were following him.
Then McCall and Crimes walked up and pointed their handguns at the two boys. "The women stated something to the effect of, 'You all ready to die. Why you knock on my door,'" then racked the slides on the guns, a deputy wrote in an arrest report, summarizing the boys' statements.
Another witness, a woman, also told deputies she saw McCall yelling at a group of boys, "Stay away, I have a gun."
The 14-year-old told deputies that Crimes removed the gun's magazine, pulled out a bullet and showed to to the boys, then put it back in the gun. The two women had started walking away as another boy, a 13-year-old, arrived; the women turned around and started walking toward the boys again.
The boys ran into one of the 13-year-olds' apartments and called the police as the two women banged on his door.
McCall and Crimes were still in the parking lot when deputies arrived and told them to put their hands in the air. Crimes had a 9mm SCCY handgun in her rear pocket, and McCall had a .25 caliber Beretta in her pocket. Neither gun was loaded, and neither woman had a concealed weapons permit.
The women agreed to talk to deputies. They "explained that they were on edge because of a recent scam McCall became the victim of on Craigslist," and said the suspect in that case, though out of state, had their address.
So when they heard pounding at the door, they told deputies, they "thought it might be related to the Craigslist incident, and armed themselves with guns," according to the report.
They confronted the 15-year-old — McCall told a deputy she'd thought he was 10 or 11 — and then followed him. McCall told a deputy she "told the boys she had a gun and they would end up getting shot, if someone did not know they were a child," according to the report.
Both women denied pointing the guns at anyone.
"It should be noted that McCall and Crimes stated they were scared which is the reason they had guns; however, their actions did not corroborate this statement," a deputy wrote in an arrest report. "McCall and Crimes left the safety of their home with firearms to confront the boy with, as they claim, unloaded guns."
The deputy noted that neither woman called 911, and that the pair went to confront the boys twice, although "Neither McCall or Crimes stated they saw the boys with any weapons."
Deputies charged each woman with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and with one count of carrying a concealed firearm without a permit.
