Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera, 29, of Orlando, was found dead on October 31, 2024, after an investigation that began with a well-being check on October 29. Deputies responding to a home off Lake Underhill Road found no one there but saw a large kitchen knife in the bathroom, a blood-filled bathtub, bloody clothes, and handwritten suicide notes. At a second residence where the couple were moving in together, investigators found bloody towels, blood spots on a wall, women’s clothing, and Escalante Carrera’s wallet and keys.

Surveillance captured a man later identified as 41-year-old Jorge Javier Quintero leaving the first apartment in a white Dodge Ram pickup he had rented on October 27. License plate readers tracked the truck through Georgia and Alabama. On October 31, Georgia authorities located an object that was confirmed to contain Escalante Carrera’s body; she had been strangled with a power cord and was dismembered, with her right arm cut off and placed in a separate bag and other limbs showing attempted cuts.

U.S. Marshals confronted Quintero in Saraland, Alabama, where a shooting left him hospitalized in critical condition. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is securing a first-degree murder warrant for Quintero as the investigation continues. If anyone knew Carmen, her movements in late October, or saw the white Dodge Ram in the region, please come forward with information.