Background: Exterior of the Black Diamond development in Wellington, Florida, where Norman Scott, inset, shot a couple multiple times in broad daylight. (YouTube screengrab via WPBF. Booking photo courtesy Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.)
One man’s unprovoked rage over the placement of a basketball hoop ended with an unarmed couple being shot multiple times in broad daylight by Florida man Norman Scott, 63, according to police.
The slaying happened Saturday in the Black Diamond residential neighborhood in Wellington, a village west of West Palm Beach. A probable cause affidavit from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said deputies arrived on the scene to find husband and wife Tara Marie Jones and Taylor Glenn Jones dead in a front yard. Both had suffered multiple gun shot wounds.
Scott is charged with two counts of first-degree murder with a firearm and public court records show he is due in court for an initial case conference on July 11. He has been ordered by a circuit judge not to contact the victims’ family. He remains jailed at the Main Detention Center without bond.
According to a probable cause affidavit, police said they interviewed a witness who told them that they heard the shots on May 4 around 5:30 p.m. and came out to see what happened. Finding the Jones couple “on the ground bleeding profusely,” the witness tried to render first aid.
Scott, police said, emerged from his house as this was unfolding.
“Don’t worry, I shot them both,” he allegedly told the person crouched over the Jones’ bodies.
They had attacked him, Scott would later tell police, though no weapons whatsoever were found near their bodies.
Police said Scott told them he got into an argument with the couple over the placement of a “basketball hoop and property boundaries.”
Emergency dispatch did receive a call from Scott reporting the shooting. He stated then too that he was “attacked.”
But police obtained a warrant to review surveillance footage from Scott’s property — he had installed eight cameras in total — and two of the cameras were pointed directly where the couple ended up being shot.
According to the arresting officer, Taylor Jones was seen in the footage first walking and moving his child’s bicycle to the front of his home. Just twenty seconds later, police said a camera showed Scott exiting his front door holding an aluminum ladder and motioning toward Taylor Jones with his left hand as if he was asking him to come chat.
“In a very nonthreatening and nonchalant manner, Taylor Jones acquiesces to Norman Scott’s request, walked in his direction and stood close to the rear of Norman Scott’s BMV,” the probable cause affidavit notes.
The men were within five to 10 feet of each other, and Jones held only a bottle of Gatorade and “at no point during this encounter” was he “captured being aggressive, threatening, volatile, belligerent,” police said.
“However, the surveillance cameras capture Norman Scott, who was clearly upset and appeared to be yelling at Taylor Jones. They both appeared to be looking and pointing toward a basketball hoop resting between both residences … Norman Scott was aggressively and belligerently pointing and waving his right hand in Taylor Jones’ face. In response, all Taylor Jones was captured doing was essentially downplaying the nonthreatening hand gestures,” police said.
Scott then pulled a gun from his right pocket and started firing, shooting Taylor Jones three to four times as the man stumbled backward and fell to the ground, the surveillance footage showed, according to police. The man’s wife, Tara Jones, was less than 30 feet away, watching her husband’s apparent murder.
Footage then showed Tara Jones retreating as Scott advanced toward her and started shooting. He shot her three times, once in both of her legs and then in her upper chest.
While walking back toward his home, police said Scott was seen “passing Taylor Jones, who was lying on the ground.”
“Norman Scott proceeds to shoot Taylor Jones two additional times,” police said.
Investigators said Scott shot Jones once in his left eye, once in his back and once in his upper right leg. The firearm he used for the double murder was found on a small table inside his home, according to court records.
“The video surveillance evidence unequivocally establishes the shooting was completely malicious and unprovoked,” police said.
An attorney for Scott did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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