POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — Florida police say they have arrested a 28-year-old man in connection with the murder of an elderly Quebec couple found dead in March in their mobile home in Pompano Beach, north of Fort Lauderdale.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday in a news release they arrested Quinton Johnson for the murder of 80-year-old Marc and 78-year-old Rita Gagne.
Police found the couple’s bodies in their bedroom on March 22, 2019. A Florida medical examiner said they died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head and ruled their deaths as homicides.
Police said they arrested Johnson on April 1, 2019, in connection with the shooting and robbing of another man at a bank machine. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s said forensic evidence “placed Johnson at the scene” of the Gagne murders.
Johnson is currently in a Broward County Sheriff’s Office jail. “He has a long criminal history of occupied burglaries and grand theft and had been released from prison in February 2019, after serving a seven-year sentence,” the police force said in a statement.
News reports indicated the couple were from St-Come-Liniere, Que., about 120 kilometres southeast of Quebec City.
The Gagne’s Florida neighbours had said the couple split their time between the Pompano Beach area and Quebec.
The Canadian Press
