A Florida storage facility manager was shot in the face after discovering a woman and her teenage daughter sleeping inside a rented storage unit, according to authorities.
The horrifying incident unfolded Saturday, October 10, at a Public Storage facility in Palm Bay, Florida, where the manager was conducting routine inspections when she discovered the pair inside a unit.
Investigators say 40-year-old Kandice Jo Pierce became furious after being told that sleeping or living inside the storage facility was prohibited.
According to court documents, the manager noticed an unlocked unit shortly after 10 a.m. and found Pierce and her 16-year-old daughter inside.
The employee explained that customers were not allowed to live in storage units and instructed them to leave. She even offered to overlook the violation if they packed their belongings and departed immediately.
But as the manager began walking away, Pierce allegedly called her back.
When the employee turned around, she heard a loud bang and felt a sudden, sharp pain in her face.
Realizing she had been shot, the woman fled down the hallway, took cover beneath a desk and called 911.
Deputies arrived to find her bleeding from a gunshot wound just below her left eye, near her nose.
She was rushed to Holmes Regional Medical Center, where doctors discovered that the bullet was still lodged inside her face. She was transferred to intensive care for additional evaluation.
Despite the frightening injury, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said the manager was expected to survive.
Investigators later located Pierce’s teenage daughter at a nearby gas station. According to an arrest affidavit, the girl told deputies that her mother had become angry during the confrontation, despite the manager’s willingness to let them leave without reporting the violation.
The teenager allegedly watched as Pierce retrieved a handgun from her bag and fired twice toward the employee.
Afterward, the mother and daughter reportedly gathered their belongings and fled the property.
Detectives recovered two .25-caliber shell casings outside the storage unit and discovered a bullet hole in a neighboring unit.
Surveillance footage captured two women leaving the building shortly after the gunfire. Investigators used rental records, security footage and identification documents to connect Pierce to the scene.
But the shooting wasn’t Pierce’s first alleged brush with violence.
Authorities discovered she was already wanted in an unrelated arson investigation involving her own vehicle.
According to court records, Pierce had taken her Chevrolet Equinox to a Tire Kingdom repair shop in Palm Bay in July after the SUV developed mechanical problems.
When employees informed her that the vehicle needed timing-chain repairs, she reportedly became furious and threatened to burn it.
Investigators allege that Pierce later deliberately set fire to the vehicle’s passenger seat before walking away with her daughter.
An employee spotted smoke coming from the SUV and managed to extinguish the flames before the fire spread.
The damage was estimated at approximately $1,000, and no injuries were reported.
During a subsequent police encounter, Pierce allegedly admitted setting the fire because she was angry about the disputed repair diagnosis.
A judge issued an arrest warrant for second-degree arson in September, but Pierce had not been taken into custody before the storage facility shooting.
Following Saturday’s attack, Sheriff Ivey publicly identified Pierce as a suspect and warned residents that she should be considered armed and dangerous.
Security cameras later captured her at a RaceTrac convenience store on Palm Bay Road, several hours after the shooting.
The search ended Sunday morning when Palm Bay police located Pierce outside a business and arrested her without incident.
She was booked into the Brevard County Jail on charges of attempted first-degree premeditated murder and shooting a deadly missile into a building, along with the outstanding arson charge.
During a court appearance Monday, October 12, Judge Kelly Ingram ordered Pierce held without bond on the charges related to the shooting. A separate $25,000 bond was set in the arson case.
Both cases are scheduled for arraignment on November 10.
The incident has raised disturbing questions about how a routine confrontation over storage facility rules escalated into an alleged attempted killing.
For the injured manager, what began as an ordinary morning checking rental units ended with a bullet lodged in her face and an emergency trip to the hospital.
The investigation remains ongoing, and Pierce is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
