More details have emerged in one of the worst killing sprees the Tallahassee area has seen in years and the criminal history of the suspect, a man with a long rap sheet who was out on bond at the time in a separate attempted murder case.
Flay Rollins Jr., 54, was apprehended by the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force on Jan. 16 after officers found him at Tony’s Quick Stop gas station on Lake Bradford Road sitting inside a black Chrysler. Investigators found a firearm in plain view and seized it as evidence.
Rollins was wanted on an outstanding warrant for murder with malice out of Valdosta, Georgia, which was listed in arrest records as his permanent residence. State Attorney Jack Campbell told the Democrat that the victim was a male co-worker, though it wasn’t clear where they worked.
After he was taken into custody, Rollins confessed to two other murders, both of them women with whom the suspect was involved romantically, Campbell said.
The body of one of the women was found that same day after someone discovered it at Richardson Recreation & Retreat Center, formerly known as Bethel-by-the-Lake, off Woodville Highway.
Rollins told detectives where they could find the body of the other woman, who was pregnant, in the Apalachicola National Forest.
He has been charged with two counts of murder in Leon County and a single count of murder in Lowndes County, Georgia. Campbell told the Democrat that the state is pursuing another murder charge in the death of the unborn child
“It’s horrible,” Campbell said. “A single murder is horrible. The murder of an unborn child (who) couldn’t be more innocent — that baby never had a breath. Domestic violence is always particularly dangerous and … horrible.”
All three of the victims were shot, according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, which identified the male victim as Walter “Bo” Pettiford of Valdosta, Georgia. Pettiford’s body was discovered Jan. 16 in the 3200 block of Skipper Bridge Road north of Valdosta city limits.
“Investigators from the Sheriff’s Office responded and developed the name of a suspect identified as Flay Rollins of Valdosta and Tallahassee, Florida,” the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. “Information gathered determined that the suspect was in the area of Leon County, Florida.”
The last quadruple homicide in Tallahassee happened in November 2010, when Henry Segura brutally murdered a girlfriend and her three young children. He was sentenced to life in prison after his second trial in 2019.
Suspect was awaiting trial on attempted murder charge at time of shootings
Tallahassee Democrat readers have emailed reporters asking how Flay was out on bond and whether he should be considered a serial killer if convicted. A Leon County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said because the murders “weren’t random,” the cases are not being investigated as serial killings.
Rollins, a registered NCIC “career criminal,” has a history of arrests and convictions spanning three decades at least on charges from selling cocaine and possession of a firearm by a felon to aggravated assault and battery.
He served seven different stints in Florida prisons totaling roughly 18 years, according to Florida Department of Corrections records.
In 2018, he was arrested for attempted murder after allegedly stabbing a woman in front of her teenage son. Jurors convicted him of a lesser crime, attempted manslaughter, and he was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison. According to DOC records, he served less than three years and was released in early February 2022.
In May 2024, he was arrested on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after allegedly attacking a girlfriend with a box cutter and punching her multiple times in October 2023. Campbell said the victim in that case was not a victim in the recent murders.
During his first court appearance, Leon County Judge Augustus Aikens Jr. set bond at $10,000 and ordered him to have no contact with the victim and no weapons or ammunition. He bonded out of the Leon County Detention Facility later that day, according to court records.
In July 2024, the State Attorney’s Office upgraded the charge to attempted second-degree murder. A trial date was set for May 2026.
Campbell defends handling of suspect’s 2024 case
Court records don’t show whether the state asked for a higher bond amount during Rollins’ first appearance on the 2024 charge.
“But every day we have people going to first appearance, and if you go and watch it … we have lawyers asking for high bonds and low bonds,” Campbell said. “This is an example of what happens when somebody gets out who shouldn’t have.”
Campbell didn’t second-guess Aikens’ decision to set bond at $10,000, calling him an “extremely experienced jurist.” He said if Aikens, who retired in 2024, had set a higher amount, the defense would have almost certainly filed a motion seeking to lower it.
“In my experience … he knew what he was doing,” Campbell said. “I’m pretty confident the judge had more experience than the prosecutor or defense attorney. So no matter how great our arguments would have been, Judge Aikens probably was going to set bond.”
Rollins’ bond in that case was revoked after the string of murders. He is being held without bond at the Leon County jail.
He said prosecutors couldn’t have asked for no bond given the nature of the initial charge and that once it was upgraded, they couldn’t have asked for a higher bond because of case law stemming from an unrelated crime Campbell prosecuted earlier.
“I obviously, as soon as this happened, looked at our case to see if we had dropped the ball or something had gotten past us,” he said. “I can’t find anything that we could have or would have done differently.”
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: One of the worst Tallahassee area killing sprees in years sparks questions
Reporting by Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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