A Florida storage facility manager had begun walking away from two people she found sleeping inside a rented unit when one of them called her back. She turned around, heard a loud bang, and felt pain in her face.
The manager survived the October 10 shooting at Public Storage in Brevard County, although a bullet remained lodged inside her face and she was transferred to intensive care for further evaluation. Sheriff Wayne Ivey described her injuries as non-life-threatening.
Kandice Jo Pierce, 40, was identified by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office as the suspected shooter and arrested the following morning. She faces charges of attempted first-degree premeditated murder and shooting or throwing a deadly missile into a building.
The manager’s account, the recollections of the second person inside the unit, and evidence from an earlier encounter involving Pierce are detailed in Brevard County court records, which also document an unrelated arson case that was already pending when the shooting occurred.
She Was Already Walking Away
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Shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday, the manager was checking units at Public Storage, 4630 Babcock Street NE, just north of Palm Bay Road, when she noticed Unit E613 was unlocked. Inside were two women, one lying down, and she explained that customers were not permitted to sleep or live in rented storage spaces.
Pierce reportedly argued that they should be allowed to stay, but the manager told them to leave immediately. She later told investigators she had offered not to report the violation to management if the women left, giving them an opportunity to depart without further trouble from her.
As the manager walked away, Pierce allegedly called her back. When she turned toward Pierce, she heard a loud bang and felt pain in her face. Realizing she had been shot, she ran from the hallway, took cover beneath a desk, and called 911.
Deputies found her bleeding from a small entrance wound below her left eye, close to her nose. At Holmes Regional Medical Center, imaging showed a projectile remained inside her face, and she was transferred to intensive care pending further evaluation.
The Other Occupant
The second woman was Pierce’s 16-year-old daughter, whom deputies located at a nearby gas station after the shooting. The teenager said she and her mother had been sleeping inside the storage unit when the employee confronted them about violating their rental agreement, and that Pierce became angry even though the manager had offered to let them leave without consequences.
As the employee walked away, Pierce allegedly retrieved a pistol from her bag and asked where she had gone. The teenager answered that the manager was down the hallway, after which her mother fired twice at her, according to the daughter’s account.
Pierce then tucked the gun into her waistband, and the two gathered most of their belongings into a black Swiss backpack before leaving the facility. They went to nearby businesses to use a telephone and eventually separated, with the daughter telling investigators that Pierce still had the pistol when they parted.
Outside Unit E613, deputies recovered two spent .25 ACP shell casings from the second-story hallway and found an apparent bullet hole in neighboring Unit E595. When officers arrived, the rented unit had been secured from the outside with a padlock.
Two Figures on Camera
Surveillance footage showed two people leaving the storage building after the shooting, including a blonde woman with her hair in a bun, wearing a Disney “Cars” graphic T-shirt, dark pants, and Nike slide shoes. The younger person had dark braided hair and wore a Dr Pepper graphic shirt.
The two used an access code associated with Pierce’s rental account to leave the property. Facility records identified her as the renter of Unit E613, for which she had provided a Council Bluffs, Iowa, address.
Pierce’s identity as the renter did not establish which woman had fired the gun, but an earlier police encounter would help investigators identify both occupants. Their appearance in the storage facility’s surveillance footage was not the first time Pierce and her daughter had been recorded together in connection with a criminal investigation.
Trouble With a Chevrolet
Pierce’s maroon 2016 Chevrolet Equinox LT had been taken to Tire Kingdom at 1110 Malabar Road SE in Palm Bay after Jack’s Wrecker Service picked it up from Roosevelt Avenue in Satellite Beach on July 21. Pierce believed the SUV needed a fuel pump, but employees told her it needed a timing chain, a diagnosis she disputed because she said that work had recently been done. Timing-chain replacement on a 2016 Equinox can cost approximately $1,700 to $2,300 in parts and labor, according to RepairPal’s estimate for Miami.
The following morning, Pierce arrived with another woman, later identified as her daughter, and became angry over the repair diagnosis. Tire Kingdom employee Don Saracino told investigators that Pierce made an explicit threat during the disagreement: “Well you better call the police, because I’m about to burn this [expletive] down.”
Surveillance footage from Tire Kingdom and a neighboring Panda Express showed the women approaching the Equinox on the west side of the building at approximately 10:21 a.m. One was blonde, with her hair pulled up, wearing a black shirt and black pants; the other had long brown braided hair, a black jacket, and dark pants. Both entered the shop around 10:23 a.m., spoke with employees, and returned to the SUV shortly before 10:25 a.m., when they opened the rear hatch and removed bags.
At 10:25:34 a.m., the blonde woman leaned into the open front passenger doorway while her companion stood near the driver’s window. Less than a minute later, the two were walking north toward Malabar Road before turning east, leaving the Chevrolet parked outside the shop.
Saracino had gone outside to help move another vehicle when he noticed smoke emerging from the Equinox’s open passenger door. The surveillance footage showed him approaching the SUV around 10:27 a.m., running back into the shop for a fire extinguisher, and returning to spray it through the passenger doorway. He photographed flames burning on the front passenger seat before putting out the fire.
The blaze had originated in the passenger seat closest to the center console, according to Florida Department of Financial Services fire investigator Jennifer Tordini. Approximately one to two square feet of seat material had burned, with heat melting nearby console plastic. She estimated the damage at $1,000 and found no apparent ignition source other than deliberate ignition of the seat material. No injuries or damage to other property were reported.
Pierce and her daughter had also been staying at an Americas Best Value Inn on Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway in Satellite Beach. When Palm Bay police checked the motel during the fire investigation, employees reported that the women had not been seen since the preceding Sunday, although some of their belongings remained there.
An Unexpected Admission
Several weeks after the fire, Indian Harbour Beach Detective Enith Clermont spent approximately two hours interviewing Pierce and her daughter during a police encounter that included efforts to help them obtain housing.
During their conversation, Pierce reportedly told Clermont she had deliberately set fire to her Chevrolet at Tire Kingdom. According to a sworn affidavit by Tordini, Pierce explained that she had become angry when employees told her the vehicle needed a timing belt, threatened to burn it, then went outside and ignited the passenger seat before walking away.
Saracino had described the disputed repair as a timing chain, while Pierce’s reported explanation used the term timing belt. Both accounts concerned her anger over the repair the shop said her vehicle needed.
Clermont passed Pierce’s statements to Palm Bay police, who were investigating the fire. On September 15, the detective also identified Pierce and her daughter in photographs taken from Tire Kingdom surveillance footage, having verified Pierce’s identity through her Iowa and Indiana driver’s licenses during their earlier encounter.
A judge signed an arrest warrant for second-degree arson on September 18, and the case was filed in Brevard County Circuit Court on September 22. Pierce had not been arrested on that warrant when the storage facility shooting occurred less than three weeks later.
A Familiar Face
After the October 10 shooting at Public Storage, Brevard County investigators sent Clermont photographs of the two women recorded leaving Unit E613. She recognized Pierce as the blonde woman wearing the Disney “Cars” shirt and identified the younger woman in the Dr Pepper shirt as her daughter.
Investigators also searched Units E613 and E595 under warrants, recovering Pierce’s Iowa and Indiana driver’s licenses from the storage unit she had rented. Those were the same documents Clermont had used to identify her during their September encounter.
The Next Morning
After the October 10 shooting, Sheriff Wayne Ivey publicly identified Pierce as the suspect and warned residents not to approach her because she was considered armed and dangerous. Surveillance footage placed her at a RaceTrac convenience store on Palm Bay Road at approximately 1:30 p.m. that afternoon, several hours after the manager was shot.
Palm Bay police found Pierce outside a business on Palm Bay Road the following morning, October 11, and arrested her without incident. She was booked into the Brevard County Jail at 9:07 a.m., facing charges connected to the storage facility shooting as well as the outstanding warrant for setting fire to her Chevrolet.
Pierce appeared before Judge Kelly Ingram on October 12 and was ordered held without bond on the attempted first-degree murder and shooting-into-a-building charges. Her separate arson charge carries a $25,000 bond, although she remains jailed because of the shooting charges. Both cases are scheduled for arraignment on November 10.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.