Daytona Beach police released images and footage of a person of interest in the case of the deaths of a husband and wife who were stabbed to death during a bike ride home.
As reported by WESH 2, server Valerie Court recalled serving the man that very same day and even kept the credit card receipt he used. Jean Robert Macean was arrested on Thursday in Orlando after police used that very receipt to track him to a home.
Police said Macean was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in relation to the deaths of Terry Aultman, 48, and Brenda Aultman, 55. The married couple were, according o police, riding bikes home when they were attacked.
Their bodies were later found on the ground with stab wounds and slashed throats.
Court reportedly saw the suspect on the news and remembered that he visited her workplace for lunch dressed in the exact same outfit shown in released images and carrying a backpack.
“I thought maybe he wanted to be left alone because he was short-worded with me so I just kept his tea filled up,” she told WESH 2.
Court also remembered his payment method—a credit card. “It didn’t have his name on it. It said my temporary pay card but he did initial sign it, and initial it JM,” she said.
Police used the receipt that Court kept to track down the suspect to the location at which he was then arrested.
Macean was taken into custody by a task force made up of members of the United States Marshals Service, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the Orlando Police Department.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,530 homicides in the state of Florida in 2020. These numbers have increased annually since 2017, data shows. In 2019, the state had 1,334 homicides, a small rise from the 1,315 seen in 2018, while 2017 saw 1,269 homicides in the state.
Tips and surveillance images allowed investigators to zone in on Macean. Court contacted the police before they offered a $50,000 reward and was one of over 100 police tips.
“I didn’t do it for the reward, I did it for the police department to help get a dangerous person off the street,” she told WESH2. “I wanted to help the police department and help the community and I knew I had valuable information.”
Officers are still working through all the tips they received and the pay-out of the cash reward will be decided once the process is complete.
According to several local news outlets, Macean went before a judge on Friday last week and was denied a bond, and is expected to be extradited to Volusia County.
