(NewsNation) — A Florida man who was arrested 25 years ago in connection to the cold case murder of a convenience store manager was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison Friday.
Kenneth Stough, Jr., now 56, was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder with a weapon in the death of Terrance Paquette after a five-day trial, the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit said in a statement.
The Orange County Prosecutor’s Office said Paquette was stabbed 73 times while working alone at the Lil’ Champ mini-mart on Feb. 3, 1996, in Orlando.
The case went unsolved until March 2021. During that time, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) authorities arrested Kenneth Stough Jr. after DNA from beer cans retrieved outside of his home in Eustis, Florida, linked him to blood at the scene.
Blood was found in the convenience store, including on the freezer door, lottery machine, and the door leading outside, the prosecutor’s office said. At the time, they didn’t know who it belonged to.
Stough had once worked at the convenience store and lived across the street from there, officials said when he was named as a suspect in 2021.
Investigators used a genetic genealogy company to test the blood found in the store in 2021, and it was found to belong to someone related to Stough’s parents, the state attorney’s office said.
The empty bag of beer cans left outside Strough’s home was then used to link him to the crime, prosecutors said.
At the time of the 2021 arrest, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said that their vendor uploaded a data file to public genealogy websites Family Tree and GEDmatch.com during the investigation.