JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 42-year-old man who flagged down police to report he’d shot two people in an Arlington home last week has been charged with their murders, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said.
Daton Haggary stopped an officer around 12 p.m. Aug. 1 on Cesery Boulevard and said he’d shot two people in a home on Whitlock Avenue, police said.
Officers found a man and woman, later identified as 44-year-old Bryan Gates and 40-year-old Shilea Curtis, dead from apparent gunshot wounds in the home.
Investigators said the two victims were shot multiple times.
Shilea Curtis’s cousin Diane Brown said Shilea had an infectious smile.
“She was always willing to go the extra mile to help family and friends. She had a kind spirit. When she loved, she loved hard,” Brown said
Initially, Haggary was detained and arrested on a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Investigators said evidence later led to the two murder charges, which were filed Thursday, a week after the shootings.
Family members told News4JAX that Gates owned the home and that Curtis was his girlfriend. She was also the mother of a small child, they said.
Detectives told the family on the day of the shooting that Gates’ roommate had been detained after flagging down officers and reporting the shooting.
They said Gates had known Haggary for years and was trying to help get Haggary back on his feet by allowing him to live in the home rent-free.
Moments before the Arlington block became a crime scene last week, a friend of the family said he was on his way to work and called Gates’ mother to report seeing Gates’ roommate on the sidewalk acting strange.
“I happened to notice the guy on the sidewalk pounding the sidewalk, beating his head like he was just hysterical and out of it. I called his mother and said ‘Bryan’s roommate is back on that stuff. He seems like he’s having a hissy fit,’” the family friend said.
He said two hours later he got the call to come back to the area because police were investigating a homicide at the house.
What led up to the shooting remains unclear, but relatives and friends of Gates told News4JAX there had recently been some tension between the two men.
A neighbor who spoke to police said they heard a loud noise from inside the house but did not realize it was gunfire. That neighbor said they walked outside and saw Haggary slam a handgun onto the roof of an old Chevy Impala.
Then moments later, he was seen walking in a direction away from the house.
Police said they found the murder weapon on top of the car.
Haggary was convicted of cocaine possession charges in a 2015 case, which is why he’s not allowed to have a gun.
News4JAX learned that many people in the area knew Gates.
An employee of a seafood shop that’s about 300 feet from the house told News4JAX that Gates would volunteer to help out with the shop’s landscaping.
Gates’ son, Bryan Gates Jr., was not surprised by his father’s popularity.
“He was very famous, and he was very friendly. Everywhere I went, even when I was little, hanging out with him, he always knew someone, dapping them up, all smiles. He was a great person,” Gates Jr. said.
Gates Jr. has many memories of his dad but said the memories that really stick out are those of him and his dad battling each other on the basketball court.