John Jefferson
Inset: Jorge Quintero (Orange County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Quintero’s home in Orlando, Fla. (Google Maps).
A Florida man is under arrest after strangling his girlfriend to death, dismembering her body, and then hiding her remains in a haphazardly tossed-away suitcase, officials in the Sunshine State say.
Jorge Javier Quintero, 41, stands accused of one count each of murder in the first degree and fraudulent use of personal information, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
But it was concern for the alleged killer’s own well-being that led law enforcement to the grim circumstances of a weekslong missing persons case that came to a gruesome denouement this week.
On Oct. 29, a friend asked law enforcement to perform a wellness check on Quintero after allegedly receiving a string of unusual text messages that led him to believe the defendant was attempting to kill himself, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime.
“When [the friend] arrived at Jorge’s home, he went inside and found the bathtub was covered in blood, there was a knife on the edge of the tub, and Jorge was not present,” the affidavit reads.
After following up with the friend and family, authorities say they learned Quintero had sent several such messages “possibly indicative of suicidal thoughts” beginning at around 5:40 a.m. until 7:12 a.m. when he texted his ex-wife, according to the court document.
First, deputies tried Quintero’s house on Maribou Circle near central Orlando. There, investigators said they found documents that led them to a second residence — where Quintero and Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera, 29, were in the process of moving in together.
By the end of the initial search, however, the law enforcement presence swelled.
“I came out to go leave to go to work and there was about a dozen sheriff’s cars in the neighborhood,” a neighbor told Daytona Beach-based NBC affiliate WESH earlier this month. “They said that it was a missing person that had mentioned perhaps that there was a suicide note.”
Investigators took note of a large kitchen knife in the bathroom, a blood-filled bathtub, “bloody clothes,” what appeared to be handwritten suicide notes, and information for a newly-leased apartment unit in the nearby census-designated place of Alafaya.
At around 8 a.m. that same morning, sheriff’s deputies entered the second residence located roughly two miles away.
“Deputies went to the complex and discovered that Jorge was already leasing the apartment and attempted to contact him there,” the affidavit reads. “Upon arrival, Deputies discovered the back door was unlocked and there was a piece of cloth with what appeared to be yellow liquid on it. Based on the large amount of blood found in the home at Maribou Circle and the suicide notes, Deputies entered the apartment and cleared the inside to determine if Jorge was present and in need of emergency medical care.”
But once inside the new apartment, the investigation shifted.
There, deputies allegedly found what they termed “bloody towels” and “blood spots on the wall,” along with the presence of women’s clothing as well as Escalante’s wallet and keys.
Investigators then went to the first apartment for a second look.
“[A detective] observed the large amount of blood in the bathtub, the kitchen knife, a shirt soaked in blood, shorts soaked in blood, the notes, and Jorge’s cell phone on the bathtub,” the affidavit reads. “He observed that Jorge’s phone was still on, and he received several text messages and phone calls. He observed the phone to be a dark Apple iPhone, most likely an iPhone 14 pro max based on its features. He also observed two Ring cameras.”
Law enforcement consulted those surveillance cameras and others — ascertaining that a “male figure” left the first apartment around 7:30 a.m. on the October morning in question in a white truck.
Other incongruities slowly added up to something macabre.
While “[i]t appeared as if [Escalante] had moved into” the second apartment, the door was unlocked when law enforcement arrived. Staff at the complex would reveal that the last time the door was used was at 8 p.m. the night before.
Repeat efforts to contact Escalante went nowhere. Finally, a ping to the woman’s cellphone placed her in Seminole County, Georgia — over 300 miles away — on Oct. 29, at 1:30 p.m.
Investigators also learned Quintero had rented a white Dodge Ram pickup truck on Oct. 27, which was due back on Oct. 28, but had not been returned, citing a local Enterprise Rental Car outlet.
“Jorge Javier Quintero’s suspicious activities were concerning and gave me pause,” a detective wrote in one court document. “With every hour that passed, it seemed more likely that homicide was the reason for the disappearance of Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera.”
Then, in the following hours, authorities pored over photographs taken by license plate reader (LPR) cameras along highways in Georgia and Alabama corresponding with the tag of the rental truck.
“In certain LPR captured photographs, a trash bag can be seen in the bed of the truck,” the affidavit reads. “The trash bag appears to be in the shape of a human body, which makes the suspicious circumstances appear consistent with the crime of murder.”
On Oct. 31, U.S. Marshals located the defendant in Saraland, Alabama — still in the rented pickup truck, authorities say.
A shootout ensued and Quintero was wounded. He is currently recuperating at a hospital in critical but stable condition.
Without saying exactly how, investigators allegedly learned the white pickup truck was seen with a suitcase in the bed — traveling a certain 7-mile stretch of highway in the Peach State.
That suitcase, however, was not in the truck when Quintero was arrested, authorities say. Then, about three hours after the arrest, Georgia authorities found a suitcase containing a black bag and female human remains near the Alabama state line.
Escalante had been visibly strangled with a power cord, authorities allege. Her right arm had been cut off and placed in a separate bag. Her left arm and left leg had wounds that looked “as if someone tried to cut them off but quit during the process,” according to the affidavit.
A detective sat in on the autopsy.
“The first observation I made was that the suitcase appeared identical to the one I had observed in the bed of Jorge Javier Quintero’s rental pickup truck,” the detective wrote. “It still had ratchet straps around it, just like it did in so many of the traffic camera pictures. I then observed a Spirit Airlines ‘Self-Tag’ affixed [to] the handle of the suitcase. It appeared to be from a flight out of Fort Lauderdale, FL in March of 2024. The name on the tag reads, Carmen Escalante.”
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