VERO BEACH – At approximately 9:30 PM last night, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office received a call of a shooting in the 4400 block of 34th Drive in Gifford.
Deputies located Eric Roberts, 39, with pellet wounds from a shotgun. Through investigation, detectives determined that Roberts had threatened customers at Guy Colley’s convenience store with a knife before a 58-year-old male discharged a .410 caliber shotgun at Roberts.
The male was located and admitted to firing at Roberts in self-defense. No charges are expected for the male subject at this time, but detectives continue to investigate this incident.
At 5:30 AM, deputies were called to the 2600 block of 68th Square in Vero Green Apartments, in reference to a stabbing.
Debora Jackson, 66, was located in the parking lot with fatal stab wounds. A description of the suspect was provided to deputies, who quickly located the vehicle northbound on 58th Avenue.
The vehicle fled from deputies at a high rate of speed. Stop sticks were deployed causing the vehicle to crash in 4500 block of 43rd Avenue in Gifford.
The suspect fled on foot as K-9 was called in to track. Detectives located the suspect, Davalon Brinson, 31, and are currently interviewing him. Brinson is being held on charges of fleeing to elude with homicide charges pending processing of the crime scene.
Indian River County Sheriff Deryl Loar stated, “We are proud of the hard work of our team to immediately locate those involved in both of these cases. Our patrol section had an excellent response with great investigative follow-up by our detectives. Law enforcement is like no other profession; The same deputies that started their evening responding to a shooting went home late this morning after handling a fatal stabbing. They are to be commended for their efforts to keep Indian River County safe every night while everyone else sleeps.”