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Jul 18, 2023

Robert Stough Jr. gets life for murder

Kenneth Robert Stough Jr. and Terrance Paquette (Orange County Sheriff’s Office) A 56-year-old man in Florida will spend the rest of his days behind bars for killing a convenience store worker in

Kenneth Robert Stough Jr. and Terrance Paquette (Orange County Sheriff’s Office)

A 56-year-old man in Florida will spend the rest of his days behind bars for killing a convenience store worker in 1996, stabbing the unarmed 31-year-old man more than 70 times and leaving him to die in the store bathroom.

Ninth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Egan on Friday sentenced Kenneth Robert Stough Jr. to life in prison for the slaying of Terrance Paquette, authorities announced.

Following a five-day trial that ended Friday afternoon, a jury in Orange County, Florida, found Stough guilty on one count of first-degree murder with a weapon in Paquette’s death. Prosecutors said they were able to identify Stough as the killer using DNA obtained from discarded beer cans.

According to a press release from the State Attorney’s Office, Paquette was the sole employee supposed to be working at the Lil’ Champ mini-mart on Clarcona Ocoee Road on the morning of Feb. 3, 1996. However, deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call from the store at around 6:55 that morning after someone noticed that all the lights were off despite the store always being open.

Paquette was supposed to open the store by 6 that morning, officials said. Two men from an armored car company were there to pick up a cash deposit from the business, but the door was locked. Deputies got keys to the business after one of Paquette’s co-workers, who closed shop the night before, drove by, saw authorities, and let them inside with his keys.

Once there, first responders located Paquette in the store bathroom, where he died. A subsequent autopsy revealed he had been stabbed 73 times.

Paquette’s attacker left a bloody crime scene, leading investigators to believe the assailant was also injured in the fatal confrontation.

“This theory was based on the fact that blood other than Paquette was located throughout the Lil’ Champ convenience store. Specifically on the freezer door, the freezer flap, the lottery machine behind the counter, the key cylinder on the entry/exit door, and the push bar on the door,” police wrote in the affidavit. “The blood pattern showed movement in the scene by the suspect; from the bathroom to the beverage freezer, to behind the counter where money was taken, and finally on the entry/exit door where the suspect more than likely escaped the scene.”

The killer stole Paquette’s keys and locked the business after stealing about $1,000 from the safe under the cash register, deputies said.

Despite the evidence collected from the scene, investigators lacked the technology then to create a DNA profile and identify a suspect. A detective closed the case on Sept. 29, 1997, pending further leads. Another investigator reopened it on July 22, 2003, re-interviewing witnesses and taking buccal swabs to compare to the suspect’s blood. There were no matches.

There were also no matches when an analyst put the unknown DNA profile from the freezer door handle into the Combined DNA Index Database (CODIS) on March 17, 2003.

Finally, in March 2021, The Florida Department of Law Enforcement got an outside forensic laboratory to analyze a sample for testing, authorities said. That bloodstain from the beverage freezer handle showed a link to Stough’s parents, authorities said.

Authorities said Stough was 28 at the time of the Paquette murder and lived across the street from him.

Investigators said they obtained the beer cans after getting an order allowing GPS surveillance of Stough. Documents say the GPS device was placed on Stough’s vehicle on Aug. 27 outside of his building supply business.

Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.

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Jerry Lambe is a journalist at Law&Crime. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and New York Law School and previously worked in financial securities compliance and Civil Rights employment law.