- April 18, 2024
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A local man who owns a landscaping company was preparing to mow a lawn on Blare Castle Drive the morning of May 16 when a man wearing camouflage shorts and carrying a machete walked onto the property and offered him a hit on a marijuana joint.
The incident occurred at about 9:39 a.m. at 88 Blare Castle Drive, according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office case report.
The machete-toting man had entered the property from the area of Blakefield Drive and was wearing a gray tank top and a backpack.
He appeared to be mid-20s to 30 years old. The landscaper declined the offer of the joint, and the man walked back toward the rear of the property, taking the machete in hand as he walked to the woodline.
The man who owned the landscaping company flagged down a passing Sheriff's Office deputy. He told the deputy about the man with the machete. The landscaper said he'd been working in the area for a while, lived around the block and thought the machete man suspicious.
The deputy checked the back of the house and could hear "what sounded like rustling in the bushes further into the woodline," according to the case report.
Another deputy arrived, and the two headed into the woods. About 100 feet in, they heard someone walking and then saw a man wearing a camouflage jacket and shorts with a backpack, carrying a large, black machete.
A deputy announced, "Sheriff’s Office, turn around." The man stopped and turned toward the deputy. But when a deputy told him to put the machete down, the man paused, turned and began running into the woods.
"Due to the thick bushes and vines, I only had a visual on the subject from shoulders to knees before he turned away from me and ran further into the woods," a deputy wrote in the case report.
The two deputies couldn't catch him. More Sheriff's Office units arrived and set up a perimeter, but they couldn't find him either.
If deputies find and identity the man, charges are pending against him for loitering and prowling and for resisting arrest without violence.
