- October 17, 2024
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A Palm Coast man wanted in connection to a Flagler Beach shooting shot himself instead of surrendering to Flagler County Sheriff Office deputies.
A FCSO SWAT team arrived at a home at 15 Lake Charles Lane at 9:20 p.m. on. Oct. 16 to serve an arrest warrant to Yairton Garcia, 54, for aggravated battery and a search warrant for the home. Using a public address system, SWAT asked everyone inside to leave the home.
Everyone but Garcia did, according to a FCSO press release. For several hours, FCSO deputies attempted to get in contact with Garcia, who refused to speak to them. At 12:50 a.m., the FCSO used a remote-controlled robot to search the home, and found Garcia dead inside the bathroom with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Garcia was the suspect in the Oct. 5 shooting in Flagler Beach where a 54-year-old Palm Coast man was shot in his right arm. According to a press release from Flagler Beach police, the victim was shot after leaving Finn’s Beachside Pub’s Latin Night event at 1:27 a.m. by Garcia.
Surveillance footage showed the victim arriving at Finn’s at around 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 4 with a friend. Inside the restaurant, the victim had been dancing with a woman who had arrived earlier in the evening with Garcia.
When the victim and his friend were leaving at 1:27 a.m., the two stopped outside the restaurant to talk to the woman and Garcia approached them and began arguing with the victim. The victim and his friend left to go back to their car, only for Garcia to follow them, the press release said.
Garcia then shot the man in the arm and the victim and his friend fled the scene. Garcia tried to follow the two but was pulled away by the woman.
Garcia and the woman left the scene and were later identified by locals, though a link between the two was not found until Oct. 16 when the woman’s car was found at the Lake Charles Lane address that was registered to Garcia, the press release said.
When deputies interviewed the woman during a probable cause traffic stop on Oct. 16, she confirmed that she and Garcia were at Finn’s for the Latin Night event. Contradicting what investigators saw on the surveillance footage, the woman said she and Garcia were afraid of being attacked and that Garcia acted in defense, attempting to fire a warning shot.
The evidence was enough for investigators to obtain the search and arrest warrants. Sheriff Rick said Garcia’s family members said Garcia had made several comments that “he was not going to go to jail.”
“Unfortunately, he chose a different method to end this situation,” Staly said. “Had he allowed us to arrest him, he would have had an opportunity to turn his life around, but his decision made the situation irreversible."
