- December 18, 2024
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A Palm Coast man — upset that he wasn't able to reach his wife by phone during a shooting-related lockdown at her workplace — took a handgun behind the couple's home and began firing it into a canal, prompting deputies to surround the home and arrest him, according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office report.
The gunshots the evening of May 3 prompted 911 calls, and the Sheriff's Office set up a perimeter around the house before arresting the man, 55-year-old Gregory Joseph Marr, at about 5:13 p.m.
When they arrived at the house, on the first block of Chelsea Court, deputies could hear an argument inside, according to a Sheriff's Office case report. Twice, a man — Marr, they later discovered — came outside without a gun, then went back in.
They used a public address system to order him outside, and he complied. Deputies placed him in a patrol car.
His wife, Janet Marr, 56, worked at the Putnam Health Department, which went into lockdown that day after a man shot and killed a woman in the parking lot. (A suspect was arrested in connection with that shooting, according to multiple local news reports.)
Marr's husband was upset because he couldn't reach her by phone during the lockdown, according to the case report.
When she got home, Janet Marr heard gunshots behind the house, and found her husband shooting her .38 Smith and Wesson revolver in the backyard.
When she asked him what he was doing, he told her he was testing the gun, and told her to take a few shots so she could take the gun to work to protect herself in case of a shooting.
She told him it was not OK to shoot a gun in the yard into the water, and he said he was just shooting at a log across the canal, according to the case report.
They argued. She asked for the gun, and he gave it to her. She hid it, and he then ordered her to give it back, then pushed the table at her "in a rage" when she said no.
A witness who spoke with deputies said she heard the gunshots while she was in her kitchen, and then "saw her neighbor shooting a handgun outside and waving it around randomly and spinning it between shots,"according to the case report.
One witness saw Gregory Marr point the gun in his wife's direction, and photographed it, according to a charging affidavit.
A deputy who viewed the photos wrote in the affidavit that it looked like Marr "did have the gun pointed in Janet's direction with disregard to her safety."
Janet Marr said he hadn't threatened her, but was being careless with the gun because he'd had alcohol that day.
A deputy decided to "charge (Gregory Marr) with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon due to the disregard of his surroundings." He was also charged with improper exhibition of a firearm.
Marr had fired six shots into the canal, according to the report. No one was injured and no property was damaged.
