Woman found dead ‘in an object’ after she, boyfriend go missing from Orange County

By Hayley Crombleholme & Leah Sudhir

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    ORANGE COUNTY, Florida (WESH) — A woman’s body was found in an object Halloween night after she and her boyfriend went missing, leading Orange County deputies on a cross-state search in Alabama and Georgia.

It all started with a well-being check in a neighborhood off of Lake Underhill Road on Oct. 29.

“I came out to go leave to go to work and there was about a dozen sheriff’s cars in the neighborhood,” Claudia Swonger, who lives in the area, said she saw the scene last week.

She said she and a neighbor asked deputies what was going on.

“They said that it was a missing person that had mentioned perhaps that there was a suicide note,” Swonger said.

According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, they were called to the neighborhood to do a well-being check on 41-year-old Jorge Javier Quintero. But when they got there, they couldn’t find him or his girlfriend. 29-year-old Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera.

“They were coming around to check on all the ring cameras around to see if anybody caught any glimpse of that person and what had happened,” Swonger said.

The sheriff’s office said they were able to figure out that Quintero had gone to Alabama and was in a rented truck.

Quintero was confronted by the U.S. Marshals in Saraland, Alabama — and then there was a shooting.

Quintero was shot. There were more than a dozen bullet holes in a white truck at the scene, and more in another car nearby.

Orange County deputies contacted law enforcement in Alabama and Georgia to continue the search for Carrera.

On Oct. 31, Georgia authorities found an object suspected to have a body inside, and OSCO detectives headed to Georgia to continue their investigation.

Over the weekend, detectives determined that the body was Carrera. OSCO detectives are in the process of securing a first-degree murder warrant for Quintero, who remains in the hospital in critical condition.

Detectives said the investigation is still in its early stages.

If you or someone you know needs help, you can talk with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or sending a text message to 988, or you can chat online.

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