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PALM COAST, Florida (WESH) — A Flagler County man is accused of strangling his girlfriend on a sidewalk, and the sheriff’s office is praising a witness who drove by, saw what was happening, and called 911.
WESH 2 spoke exclusively with that witness, 33-year-old Symone, who said she initially did what most people would do when she saw a couple arguing on the side of the road in the middle of the night.
“I was like, ‘Let me just mind my business. I’m going to keep going.’ So I kept going,” Symone said. “That’s when the voice came to me. ‘Turn around.’ I’m like, ‘No, I am not gonna turn around. That ain’t got nothing to do with me,'” Symone said.
But then, she said, something told her one final time to turn around.
“I think it was the Lord, to be honest. It was like, ‘Turn around. She needs you,'” Symone said. “Within that split second, he had her on the ground, choking her.”
The ordeal unfolded around 1:40 a.m. Sunday on Old Kings Road near Town Center Boulevard in Palm Coast.
“As I’m busting a U-turn, I am like, ‘Hey, let her go. Turn her loose.” So he let her go,” Symone said. “She got up. She ran to me crying. She’s like, ‘He’s trying to kill me,’ gasping for air.”
Symone said the victim was hysterical and begging her to call 911 as the suspect sat on the sidewalk. Deputies arrived shortly after and took him into custody without a fight.
He was identified as 44-year-old Eulices Soto. According to an arrest report, they found a knife in his back pocket.
“I’m not going to fight. I’m on probation,” Soto can be heard saying in body camera video from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.
“This individual suspect spent 17 and a half years in federal prison for trying to bring in a kilo of heroin into this country,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said. “Obviously, he didn’t learn anything, because he was recently released.”
Staly praised Symone for not just turning around, but for seeing something and saying something.
“Even if it turns out to be nothing, we’d rather come and check it out and know that it’s nothing serious or, in this case, determine it was something very serious,” Staly said.
Deputies said the victim had marks around her neck, as well as blood on her lip and behind her ear. Symone said she is thankful the victim’s injuries weren’t worse.
When asked if she would do it again, she didn’t hesitate.
“In a heartbeat,” she said.
Soto was arrested on a charge of domestic battery by strangulation and bonded out of jail Monday afternoon on a $35,000 bond. He is not allowed to have contact with the victim and is due back in court next month.
If you are a victim of domestic violence and need help, resources are available. In the event of an emergency, call or text 911.
To contact the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office in a non-emergency, call 386-313-4911, or call the Family Life Center’s 24-hour confidential domestic violence helpline at 386-437-3505.
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