Degenerate Upset Over His Neighbor's Basketball Hoop Ends Up Murdering The Couple

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.