A Glock 9mm handgun, bullets and a list of addresses were found in the suspect’s car. Photo provided
By Rich Pollack
Detective work by the Ocean Ridge Police Department combined with the use of crime-fighting technology helped lead to the arrest of a man charged with firing bullets into 16 homes and businesses throughout the county in a months-long shooting spree.
While some of the homes 29-year-old Sterling Maloney is accused of shooting up were occupied at the time, there were no reported injuries — though prosecutors have added a charge of attempted first-degree murder.
“We’re very lucky that no one was hit, killed or injured with these shootings,” said Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Col. Talal Masri, who said that Maloney kept a ledger detailing the locations he shot up and a list of 10 more places he was planning to target.
“We don’t know what was going to happen the next time,” Masri said July 31 when announcing Maloney’s arrest.
PBSO had not previously reported that police were investigating such a string of shootings involving the same handgun.
Sheriff’s investigators began looking into the shootings in February after buildings in Royal Palm Beach were struck by bullets. More shootings followed, including six in Delray Beach and four in Boynton Beach.
One of those shootings — in Boynton Beach in May — occurred at a home occupied by four people including two children under the age of 5.
In court records, detectives said that damage to the home was estimated at about $5,000 and that damage to a homeowner’s vehicle that also was struck by bullets was about $13,000.
In court documents, the resident of the home said that “he and his family were terrified after the event” and that at least one family member couldn’t eat or sleep for two days.
Delray Beach police said that at least one of the homes struck by bullets in their city was occupied at the time of the shooting.
Most, if not all of the shootings appeared to occur in the early morning hours before daylight. Several vehicles at targeted homes were also damaged by bullets.
While Maloney’s motive for all the shootings remains unknown, there appears to be a common thread.
As detectives interviewed people in the homes, they discovered that many of the residences were occupied or formerly occupied by people who went to Atlantic High School with Maloney and his brother, according to court records.
One woman, who had previously lived at a home where vehicles came under gunfire, told investigators that she had gone to school with Maloney and that he had asked her out but she declined. The woman told detectives that she and Maloney “hung out with the same group of people in high school.”
Ocean Ridge Police Sgt. Keith Ramirez investigates the scene July 15 outside a home near Thompson Street and Old Ocean Boulevard where one of the shooting episodes took place days earlier. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
A case in Ocean Ridge
PBSO and the other police agencies had used a central database and found the shell casings in all the shootings matched and appeared to come from the same Glock 9mm handgun. Who was firing that gun remained a mystery until the shooter took aim at a vacant home in Ocean Ridge early on July 11.
“They had so many shootings, but they didn’t know who was doing it,” Ocean Ridge Police Chief Scott McClure said.
In Ocean Ridge that morning, at least a dozen shots were fired at an unoccupied home on Thompson Street. One of the bullets went through a window.
The shooting was noticed the next day when a passerby saw bullet holes and contacted a police officer who was in the area on another call, McClure said.
McClure said that through the use of technology, including license plate recognition cameras, static cameras and video taken from home-security cameras in the area, his officers were able to identify a vehicle they suspected was involved.
A home security camera, McClure said, helped detectives determine what vehicle was used in the shooting, and static cameras and license plate recognition cameras helped investigators determine information about the car that was obtained from the license plate number.
Ocean Ridge police put out an alert July 17 to all the police departments in the area to be on the lookout for the blue Hyundai Sonata. Six hours later, Boynton Beach police officers pulled over the vehicle, being driven by Sterling Maloney.
A car full of evidence
McClure said Ocean Ridge police were called to the scene and met with Maloney.
“Our detectives interviewed Sterling the day of the traffic stop,” McClure said, adding that Maloney was released for lack of probable cause to hold him.
But the car was impounded because of its tie to the Ocean Ridge shooting, and after obtaining a warrant, investigators found the gun — later linked to multiple shootings of businesses and homes — ammunition and the ledger with past targets and a list of potential targets.
“It was good on our part that we got these breaks to stop them in their tracks,” McClure said. “They’d been looking for him since February.”
McClure said the investigation in Ocean Ridge was a team effort.
“Everybody had a hand in this,” he said. “It’s good detective work and I’m proud of them.”
Masri, of the sheriff’s office, said that Maloney was surprised when he was arrested July 31.
He said that sheriff’s detectives, who took the lead in building the case against Maloney, are now looking to determine a motive and are following up to see if there are any commonalities connecting all of the victims.
Besides the attempted first-degree murder charge, Maloney faces 10 counts of shooting into a building, 12 counts of criminal mischief with more than $1,000 in damage to property, and one count of discharging a firearm in public.
He is being held in the Palm Beach County Jail, with bond set at $500,000 each on 14 individual counts.
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