dismembered Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

Man dismembered wife while bankrolling strip club girlfriend

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 06 May 2025 00:06:14 +0000

Top inset: Laurie Diane Potter (San Diego County Sheriff’s Office). Bottom inset: Jack Dennis Potter; and background: dumpster where Laurie Potter’s legs were found (KFMB).

After discarding his wife’s legs in a dumpster, a California man had the nerve to open credit cards in her name, sell their home, and “pocket all profits” amid his obsession with a woman he met at a strip club. Justice came for Jack Dennis Potter, 72, on Friday in a courtroom in San Diego County after he had pleaded guilty back in February to second-degree murder for killing his spouse, Laurie Diane Potter, 54. He was sentenced on Friday to 15-years-to-life in prison. Now 72, he’ll be well into his 80s even if he serves the shortest possible version of this punishment.

The case long went unsolved. A maintenance worker at an apartment complex in the community of Rancho San Diego found a pair of legs in the dumpster way back on Oct. 5, 2003. Authorities determined these belonged to a woman, but they had no clue as to her identity. That changed after cold case investigators picked up the case again in June 2020 and used new technology to analyze her DNA to track down relatives. It turned out that Laurie Potter had never been reported missing. Jack Potter was the only person all these years who knew what happened to Laurie, head investigator Detective Troy DuGal said when authorities broke the case in 2021: “Nobody knew except for one guy.”

Defendant Potter harbored an obsession with a woman he met in a strip club, according to authorities. Incidentally, she was also named Laurie.

Jack Potter blew loads of cash in this time period, opening credit accounts, buying a pickup truck, a ski boat, and gifting his new girlfriend a Hummer SUV. He even got her an apartment and a credit card with a $30,000 limit. He financially took advantage of his wife’s death and even successfully filed for divorce.

“In the years that followed, Potter maintained the deception, opening credit cards in Laurie’s name and fraudulently filing Family Court documents claiming he had contacted Laurie about the proceedings — years after she had been murdered,” prosecutors wrote. “He utilized the Family Court to sell their family home in Temecula and pocket all profits. ”

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Former security guard who dismembered woman is found guilty

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 10:12:54 +0000

Background: The Pueblo County, Colo. courthouse where Solomon Martinez stood trial (KKTV). Inset: Solomon Martinez (Pueblo Police Department).

A Colorado man who was arrested with human remains in his jacket was convicted of murder after attempting to claim that his victim killed herself.

Solomon Martinez, 27, was found guilty by a jury on March 13 after going on trial for the January 2024 murder of Renee Portillos, 47. According to reporting from the courtroom by KKTV, a local CBS affiliate, prosecutors presented DNA evidence, the autopsy report, and evidence from Martinez’s phone that pointed to his guilt. The defense unsuccessfully argued that Portillos killed herself.

When Martinez was arrested by officers with the Pueblo Police Department on Jan. 10, 2024, he was working as a private security guard at the Sangre De Cristo Arts Center. In court documents obtained by ABC affiliate KRDO at the time, officers stated that they overheard Martinez talking before they made contact with him. He reportedly said, “I had a hand in my jacket for two days.”

According to court documents, officers found a severed, human hand in a plastic bag in the pocket of his jacket as well as blood in his vehicle. During questioning by police, officers noticed visible cuts on his hands. A witness reportedly showed police a video he recorded that showed the victim’s body, which had been decapitated.

The documents stated that Martinez told police that he picked up Portillos for a sexual encounter on the night of Jan. 8, 2024. Martinez claimed that she demanded to be paid for the encounter and he refused. After that, he said that he dropped her off in the early hours of the morning.

Martinez’s story to police also involved his roommate at the time. According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Pueblo Chieftain, the unnamed roommate spotted a blood-covered Martinez at a car wash at about 5 a.m. on Jan. 9. Martinez reportedly asked his roommate to borrow some tools and dig a 10-foot-deep hole, offering to forgive $1,000 of debt in exchange for his help.

The roommate declined, later telling KRDO, “I was terrified. I was beyond terrified. Like, I can’t even put into words how physically scared I was.” The outlet reported that a friend of the roommate called the police.

Portillos’ remains were found on Jan. 9 in Fountain Creek.

Martinez was found guilty of first-degree murder after deliberation, tampering with a dead body, and abuse of a corpse.

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Search for Florida man ends, dismembered girlfriend found

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:57:01 +0000

Inset: Jorge Quintero (Orange County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Quintero’s home in Orlando, Fla. (Google Maps).

A Florida man is under arrest after strangling his girlfriend to death, dismembering her body, and then hiding her remains in a haphazardly tossed-away suitcase, officials in the Sunshine State say.

Jorge Javier Quintero, 41, stands accused of one count each of murder in the first degree and fraudulent use of personal information, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

But it was concern for the alleged killer’s own well-being that led law enforcement to the grim circumstances of a weekslong missing persons case that came to a gruesome denouement this week.

On Oct. 29, a friend asked law enforcement to perform a wellness check on Quintero after allegedly receiving a string of unusual text messages that led him to believe the defendant was attempting to kill himself, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime.

“When [the friend] arrived at Jorge’s home, he went inside and found the bathtub was covered in blood, there was a knife on the edge of the tub, and Jorge was not present,” the affidavit reads.

After following up with the friend and family, authorities say they learned Quintero had sent several such messages “possibly indicative of suicidal thoughts” beginning at around 5:40 a.m. until 7:12 a.m. when he texted his ex-wife, according to the court document.

First, deputies tried Quintero’s house on Maribou Circle near central Orlando. There, investigators said they found documents that led them to a second residence — where Quintero and Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera, 29, were in the process of moving in together.

By the end of the initial search, however, the law enforcement presence swelled.

“I came out to go leave to go to work and there was about a dozen sheriff’s cars in the neighborhood,” a neighbor told Daytona Beach-based NBC affiliate WESH earlier this month. “They said that it was a missing person that had mentioned perhaps that there was a suicide note.”

Investigators took note of a large kitchen knife in the bathroom, a blood-filled bathtub, “bloody clothes,” what appeared to be handwritten suicide notes, and information for a newly-leased apartment unit in the nearby census-designated place of Alafaya.

At around 8 a.m. that same morning, sheriff’s deputies entered the second residence located roughly two miles away.

“Deputies went to the complex and discovered that Jorge was already leasing the apartment and attempted to contact him there,” the affidavit reads. “Upon arrival, Deputies discovered the back door was unlocked and there was a piece of cloth with what appeared to be yellow liquid on it. Based on the large amount of blood found in the home at Maribou Circle and the suicide notes, Deputies entered the apartment and cleared the inside to determine if Jorge was present and in need of emergency medical care.”

But once inside the new apartment, the investigation shifted.

There, deputies allegedly found what they termed “bloody towels” and “blood spots on the wall,” along with the presence of women’s clothing as well as Escalante’s wallet and keys.

Investigators then went to the first apartment for a second look.

“[A detective] observed the large amount of blood in the bathtub, the kitchen knife, a shirt soaked in blood, shorts soaked in blood, the notes, and Jorge’s cell phone on the bathtub,” the affidavit reads. “He observed that Jorge’s phone was still on, and he received several text messages and phone calls. He observed the phone to be a dark Apple iPhone, most likely an iPhone 14 pro max based on its features. He also observed two Ring cameras.”

Law enforcement consulted those surveillance cameras and others — ascertaining that a “male figure” left the first apartment around 7:30 a.m. on the October morning in question in a white truck.

Other incongruities slowly added up to something macabre.

While “[i]t appeared as if [Escalante] had moved into” the second apartment, the door was unlocked when law enforcement arrived. Staff at the complex would reveal that the last time the door was used was at 8 p.m. the night before.

Repeat efforts to contact Escalante went nowhere. Finally, a ping to the woman’s cellphone placed her in Seminole County, Georgia — over 300 miles away — on Oct. 29, at 1:30 p.m.

Investigators also learned Quintero had rented a white Dodge Ram pickup truck on Oct. 27, which was due back on Oct. 28, but had not been returned, citing a local Enterprise Rental Car outlet.

“Jorge Javier Quintero’s suspicious activities were concerning and gave me pause,” a detective wrote in one court document. “With every hour that passed, it seemed more likely that homicide was the reason for the disappearance of Carmen Elsa Escalante Carrera.”

Then, in the following hours, authorities pored over photographs taken by license plate reader (LPR) cameras along highways in Georgia and Alabama corresponding with the tag of the rental truck.

“In certain LPR captured photographs, a trash bag can be seen in the bed of the truck,” the affidavit reads. “The trash bag appears to be in the shape of a human body, which makes the suspicious circumstances appear consistent with the crime of murder.”

On Oct. 31, U.S. Marshals located the defendant in Saraland, Alabama — still in the rented pickup truck, authorities say.

A shootout ensued and Quintero was wounded. He is currently recuperating at a hospital in critical but stable condition.

Without saying exactly how, investigators allegedly learned the white pickup truck was seen with a suitcase in the bed — traveling a certain 7-mile stretch of highway in the Peach State.

That suitcase, however, was not in the truck when Quintero was arrested, authorities say. Then, about three hours after the arrest, Georgia authorities found a suitcase containing a black bag and female human remains near the Alabama state line.

Escalante had been visibly strangled with a power cord, authorities allege. Her right arm had been cut off and placed in a separate bag. Her left arm and left leg had wounds that looked “as if someone tried to cut them off but quit during the process,” according to the affidavit.

A detective sat in on the autopsy.

“The first observation I made was that the suitcase appeared identical to the one I had observed in the bed of Jorge Javier Quintero’s rental pickup truck,” the detective wrote. “It still had ratchet straps around it, just like it did in so many of the traffic camera pictures. I then observed a Spirit Airlines ‘Self-Tag’ affixed [to] the handle of the suitcase. It appeared to be from a flight out of Fort Lauderdale, FL in March of 2024. The name on the tag reads, Carmen Escalante.”

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Woman arrested after dismembered body allegedly found

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 02:45:22 +0000

A home in Kentucky where cooked body parts were allegedly found in a steel pot (YouTube/WDKY).

A Kentucky woman is behind bars after pieces of another woman’s dismembered body were found behind her mother’s home earlier this week, police in the Bluegrass State say.

Torilena Fields, 32, stands accused of one count each of obstructing governmental operations, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of corpse, according to Bourbon County jail records.

Law enforcement says multiple indices of occult practices came up during the so-far brief investigation into the macabre crime scene.

Early Wednesday afternoon, maintenance workers arrived at a residence on Brierly Ridge Road in Robertson County, Kentucky, to “work on a building for the property owner,” according to a citation obtained by Cincinnati-based NBC affiliate WLWT.

After receiving no response at the front door, the workers walked around toward the back of the residence, according to a police release cited by Cincinnati-based ABC affiliate WCPO. There, they allegedly found a pile of hair, a bloody mattress, and drag marks. Then, they followed upset grass until making an even more grim discovery.

At around 12:26 p.m., one maintenance worker called 911 after allegedly finding human remains behind the house — presumably those that belonged to the owner of the house. Kansas State Police arrived and found what the document terms a “dismembered body.”

Along with those human remains, state troopers allegedly found a “blood-stained mattress” as well as tell-tale “blood on the back porch” and on the “threshold of the back door,” according to the citation. Additionally, investigators said they found a blood-stained stick near the back porch — and another bloody mattress there.

State troopers also described “drag marks” in the grass — starting from the residence and ending where the body had been dumped.

The workers said Wednesday was at least the second time they had visited the property owned by Trudy Fields this week.

The maintenance men said he had been to the Fields property the day before where they encountered the defendant “casting spells on them and being confrontational,” according to the citation.

A special response team eventually arrived at the residence and attempted to extricate Torilena Fields. The younger woman allegedly refused — leading to a lengthy standoff that only dissipated at around 11 p.m. after the use of tear gas and a police robot, authorities said.

Troopers wrote in the citation that when the defendant finally left the house, she “appeared to have blood on her face, hands and clothing.”

“This is going to be a long night for our guys,” Kentucky State Police Trooper David Jones told Lexington-based Fox affiliate WDKY.

Inside, the crime scene was revealed to be even more gruesome.

The victim’s body had its arms, legs and head removed with the torso and spine “severed in half and the organs removed,” according to the citation. Investigators also said they found body parts that “appeared to have been cooked” in a steel pot inside the oven.

“The pot was still warm to the touch,” the citation reads.

A spokesperson for the Kentucky State Police told Law&Crime the agency would be confirming the identity of the victim on Friday morning following an autopsy.

The defendant is currently being detained at the Bourbon County Detention Center without bond.

State police said additional charges could be filed pending the results of the ongoing investigation.

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