NEWS

SRSO names shooting victim, details drug arrest

Annie Blanks
Northwest Florida Daily News
Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson stands in front of a table of drugs, guns and money confiscated from the home of Antonio Dewayne Davis, who was arrested Friday for his role as a "key player" in a countywide drug ring. [ANNIE BLANKS/DAILY NEWS]

MILTON — Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office authorities held a press conference Monday afternoon to give more information on two incidents over the weekend.

In the first, Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson identified the man killed in an early morning shooting Saturday as 39-year-old Marcus Mulinix, who had no known address.

Mulinix was shot at a home on the 5000 block of Bent Tree Road at around 12:45 a.m. in what authorities are describing as a possible "stand your ground" incident.

According to the SRSO, deputies initially responded to the home in reference to a suspicious person. The 911 caller told the dispatcher than an individual was screaming at the front door, and at some point during the call, a shot was fired.

When deputies arrived, they found Mulinix with a gunshot wound to his chest. He was pronounced dead on scene.

Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson said at a press conference Monday there was no known relationship between Mulinix and the person who shot him, but the State Attorney’s Office was investigating the incident. He would not identify the shooter, citing an ongoing investigation.

“We don’t think charges are pending at this time, but that’s going to be their (the State Attorney’s Office) call,” Johnson said. “They are looking at it as a possible ‘Stand Your Ground’ incident.”

Florida's stand your ground law states "a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

Johnson said Mulinix was found with a baseball bat next to his body and a bag of crystal meth in his pocket, and had been banging on the person’s door and acting in ways consistent with crystal meth usage, Johnson said.

In the second incident, the SRSO made a major drug bust following a months-long narcotics investigation that came to a head Friday with the arrest of 35-year-old Milton resident Antonio Dewayne Davis.

According to Johnson, Davis was a “key player” in a drug ring that investigators had been following for the past eight months. In an early morning raid of his home on Oct. 20, authorities confiscated over $46,000 in cash, approximately $50,000 in drugs including marijuana, Xanax, crystal meth, hydromorphone and hydrocodone, two AR-15 rifles and a Saiga-12 automatic shotgun.

"You can't really quantify what the drug unit does ... you don't know how many lives they saved cause obviously these drugs are never going to be on the street, so you don't know how many overdoses they prevented," Johnson said. "It's a definite benefit for the citizens of Santa Rosa County."

Davis, a convicted felon who spent seven years in state prison for a previous drug conviction and was released in 2015, now faces charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession with intent to distribute and trafficking in methamphetamine. The Drug Enforcement Administration assisted the SRSO with the investigation.

Johnson said “multiple” other arrests in connection to the drug ring are expected, including Davis’ wife, Terran Davis.

He added the case was significant because of the amount of cash and drugs seized.

“You don’t see that that often in Santa Rosa County,” he said.