A missing persons case in Orange County, Florida, took a horrifying turn last month when the dismembered body of 29-year-old Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera was discovered in a suitcase along a Georgia highway.
Her boyfriend, 41-year-old Jorge Javier Quintero, is the prime suspect who was booked into the Orange County Jail on Monday.
The investigation began on October 29th with a welfare check at the couple’s home in the Waterford Lakes area after a friend received concerning texts from Quintero.
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Deputies arrived to find a disturbing scene: a bloody bathtub, a large kitchen knife, blood-soaked clothes, and what appeared to be suicide notes. Security footage showed Quintero leaving the home in a rented white truck.
The trail led investigators to another apartment complex where the couple was reportedly moving. Inside the unit, they found more bloodstains and Escalante Carrera’s belongings, but not her phone.
Her phone was tracked to Seminole County, Georgia, with license plate readers capturing images of the white truck traveling in the same direction. Disturbingly, the photos seemed to show a trash bag shaped like a human body in the truck bed.
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Quintero was eventually located in Alabama on October 31st, where he engaged in a shootout with U.S. Marshals and was critically injured.
Hours later, Escalante Carrera’s remains were found in a suitcase along a Georgia highway. She had been strangled and dismembered.
Authorities secured an arrest warrant for Quintero, and he was extradited back to Florida for prosecution this week.
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