Palm Coast 16-year-old charged with murder of teen in drug ripoff, sheriff says

PALM COAST — A 16-year-old Palm Coast boy has been arrested in the killing of a 17-year-old during a drug ripoff for $120 worth of marijuana arranged through Snapchat, according to the Flagler County Sheriff.

Benjamin Sean Allen was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Elijah Rizvan on Friday night on the street in front of 7 Westford Lane, Sheriff Rick Staly said during a press conference Sunday.

"We believe this was a planned and deliberate murder,” he said.

Allen was picked up by deputies at his home in an apartment in the Tidelands, a gated community at 70 S. Riverview Bend Drive, and brought in for questioning Saturday afternoon accompanied by his mother and stepfather, Staly said.

Allen admitted to being in a vehicle with three witnesses to the shooting but then requested an attorney and all questioning stopped, Staly said.

Allen, who will turn 17 on Aug. 22, denied being involved in the shooting, according to a charging affidavit.

He was arrested at 3:48 a.m. Sunday and transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice detention facility near Daytona Beach.

Staly said he hopes the State Attorney's Office charges Allen as an adult in the killing of Rizvan, who paid a high price trying to make a drug deal.

"He was trying to sell it for $120 so he lost his life for a bag of weed, but he was hoping for 120 bucks," Staly said.

The sheriff said his office had had no prior contact with Allen. He said he did not know what school Allen attended or if he was in school.

Allen initially contacted another individual through Snapchat. That other individual contacted Rizvan because he knew that Rizvan had marijuana to sell.

Staly said he did not know whether Allen and Rizvan knew each other before the murder, which is still part of the investigation.

The sheriff praised the work of investigators who he said worked tirelessly on the case. He said they questioned three witnesses after tracking a grey Ford Focus from the scene of the shooting to a home in Island Estates, a gated upscale community in the Hammock.

Allen and three other people, all male teenagers, drove to Westford Lane in the Ford Focus.

A witness told investigators that Allen and another male got out of the Ford and grabbed Rizvan's arms, Staly said.

Allen shot Rizvan in the chest with a .380-caliber handgun, Staly said. Then they drove off. A shell casing of that caliber was found near where he was shot.

Rizvan's girlfriend called 9-1-1 while he was dying on the street with multiple baggies of drugs in his pockets, Staly said.

She told investigators that Rizvan asked her to take the drugs from him and hide them, which she did.

"But she didn't get it all and we later found what she had taken out," Staly said. 

The firearm used in the killing has not been found, the Sheriff's Office said.

Rizvan had withdrawn from Flagler Palm Coast High School, but the sheriff said he did not have other details about that.

Staly said that the witnesses initially said mostly the truth but tried to cover up the actual shooting "to some degree." But they came clean when police confronted them with video from a Ring security camera provided by a resident, he said.

More arrests are likely, the sheriff said.

It was the fourth shooting of a teenager in Flagler County since December 2018 and the second fatal one.

“This is the second young man murdered in Palm Coast this year,” he said.

[READ MORE: 176 people were shot in Volusia and Flagler counties in 2018]

[READ MORE: Flagler high school senior shot to death]

On April 13, Curtis Israel Gray, 18, was found shot dead in the parking lot of a Palm Coast smoke shop. Marion Gavins Jr., 17 at the time, was arrested and the State Attorney's Office announced in May that he would be tried as an adult.

[READ: Teen suspect in Palm Coast shooting to be tried as adult]

Staly on Sunday urged parents to keep an eye on their kids' use of social media: "Parents get involved with your children’s life. Know what they are doing on Snapchat. Know what they are doing on all the different social media that they are using."

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