A Florida man who was critically injured in a shootout with federal marshals has been charged with killing and dismembering his girlfriend and packing her remains in a suitcase.
The crime was traced beginning last month after Jorge Quintero, 41, began sending suicidal text messages from his home in Orange County, Florida, to his family and friends, according to court documents detailing the investigation.
Friends, concerned for his wellbeing, went to Quintero's house, where they found a bathtub covered in blood, with a knife teetering on the edge. Quintero was not home, and one of the friends immediately notified police, reported News 6 Orlando.
Orange County sheriff's deputies arrived a short time later and reportedly found clothes covered in blood, notes that they believed to be suicide messages, and information about an apartment complex.
Security footage reviewed by law enforcement showed a "male figure" leaving the back door of the home and driving away in a white truck, officials reported.
Deputies later learned that Quintero had been leasing an apartment to move in with his girlfriend, 29-year-old Carmen Carrera. Deputies searching that apartment found bloody towels and blood stains on the walls, as well as Carrera’s clothes, wallet and keys, according to the court documents.
Investigators traced Carrera's cell phone to a location in Seminole County, Georgia, near where Quintero had been driving a rented truck days earlier, according to reports by law enforcement officials.
Deputies who located the truck reportedly discovered a garbage bag in the bed of the vehicle that appeared to be in the shape of a human body. Tests from the apartment, meanwhile, linked spatterred blood there to both a male and female, according to officials.
Investigators reportedly also discovered on security footage that after Carrera’s disappearance that Quintero charged gas purchases to her bank account, and was wearing a blue cloth around his neck that may have served as a bandage.
Deputies and federal law enforcement officers eventually tracked Quintero's white truck to Saraland, Alabama, where they confronted him on Halloween, triggering a shootout. Quintero was critically wounded and transported to a nearly hospital, and has survived.
Investigators in Georgia, meanwhile, found a discarded suitcase with Carrera's remains inside.
Quintero has denied knowing anything about the whereabouts of his girlfiend, officials said.
An autopsy determined that Carrera had been strangled with a power cord. Investigators have accused Quintero of taking the suitcase with her remains to the Alabama-Georgia state line and discarding it off Highway 84, where it was later recovered by law enforcement authorities.
Quintero was booked into the Orange County Jail on Monday, and has been charged with first-degree murder. He’s being held without bail.
