21 Solved In ‘21 : Day 11 : Terence Paquette
21 Solved In ‘21 : Day 11 : Terence Paquette
On February 3, 1996, 31-year-old Terence Paquette went to his job at Lil’ Champ Food Store on Clarcona-Ocoee Road in Orlando, Florida at 5:39am. When a store regular arrived just after 7a and discovered that it was closed and the lights weren’t on, he drove on. However, a nagging feeling caused him to call the local sheriff’s office.
When deputies arrived on scene, they discovered two employees of an armored car service waiting outside. Today was their cash pickup day, and the doors were locked. The deputy’s supervisors arrived on scene and discovered trace amounts of blood on the door’s exterior lock. A call was made to the store’s phone, which went unanswered.
An employee of the store was driving past the building when they noticed the growing police presence and provided a key. Upon entry to the building, authorities discovered a horrific crime scene in the store’s bathroom. Terence Paquette had been savagely murdered, having been stabbed 73 times.
The motivation was obvious, as $1,000 had been stolen from the store’s safe. The killer then took Terence’s keys and locked up before he left, allowing more time for an escape. The keys have never been located.
In 1996, detectives submitted blood samples from the front door, a lottery machine behind the counter, and the handle of a beverage freezer to a lab for testing. As suspected, the blood wasn’t a match for Terence Paquette.
In 2021, these samples were sent to Othram Labs. This led them to the parents of the believed killer. It was then determined that their suspect lived in an apartment complex across the street from Terence’s apartment.
On August 27, 2021 a GPS tracker was placed on the suspected killer’s vehicle. When he discarded a bag of trash that included beer cans, authorities used these beer cans to match the DNA found at the 1996 crime scene. He’s been arrested and charged with first-degree murder and robbery with a deadly weapon.
Not a lot of information was available on Terence Paquette. He was born in Keene, New Hampshire. He had been new to Orlando, and worked 60 hour weeks. That kind of work schedule didn’t allow much time to make friends in the area. Prior to Orlando, he lived in Daytona, FL
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https://dnasolves.com/articles/fdle_orange_county_Terence_paquette/
https://conandaily.com/1997/09/29/terence-paquette-biography-13-things-about-orlando-florida-man/