Florida man sentenced for brutal murder that went unsolved for decades

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida man is finally headed to prison for a brutal murder in Orange County that went unsolved for more than 20 years.

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Officials with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of now 56-year-old Kenneth Robert Stough, Jr. back in November of 2021, more than 25 years after 31-year-old Terence Leslie Paquette was killed.

Paquette was found stabbed to death in the restroom of what was then the Lil’ Champ Food Store in Orlando on the morning of Feb. 3, 1996.

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Paquette, the store manager, was preparing to open for the day when he was killed. He was stabbed a total of 73 times.

With few leads and no witnesses to the crime, the killer was not identified, and the case was closed in 1997.

The case was reopened in 2003 when authorities were able to exclude some people as suspects, but the case remained unsolved.

In 2019, the case was taken up by the new cold-case unit at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement then hired a forensic lab to analyze additional blood samples collected from the crime scene that did not belong to Paquette.

Sheriff: Discarded beer cans lead to arrest in 1996 cold case murder (WFTV)

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That analysis led detectives to Stough, of Eustis, who investigators said lived in close proximity to Paquette when he was killed.

Investigators also learned that Stough, then 28, had previously worked at the store.

Detectives installed a GPS device on Stough’s car and were watching when he threw a bag of beer cans into a public dumpster in Eustis.

A DNA profile pulled from one of the discarded cans matched the unknown person who left blood in the store on the night of the murder, giving police the evidence they needed to arrest Stough.

When questioned, Stough admitted to having worked at the store but denied committing the murder.

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Jury selection for Stough’s trial began Monday, nearly 30 years after the crime was committed.

On Friday, an Orange County jury found Stough guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

VERDICT: An Orange County Jury has found Kenneth Stough Jr. guilty of murder and he has been sentenced to life in prison.

In February 1996, Terence Paquette was stabbed more than 70 times and found in the bathroom of the Lil' Champ convenience store in northwest Orange County.… pic.twitter.com/mielrUreGX
— Orange County Sheriff's Office (@OrangeCoSheriff) August 25, 2023