A Eustis man’s arrest in the 1996 killing of a convenience store manager was the first time Orange County cold case detectives used “genetic genealogy” to solve a case, Sheriff John Mina said at a press conference Thursday.

Kenneth Robert Stough Jr., 54, was arrested in Lake County Tuesday on a charge of first-degree murder after detectives used the relatively new forensic method, which involves running DNA evidence through genealogical databases, to link him to the decades-old case, Mina said.

“This case illustrates perfectly why we created a cold case homicide unit in 2019,” Mina said. “We never, ever forget about these cases. We continue to work these cases, and we have some of the most talented and dedicated homicide detectives.”

Stough is accused of killing Terence Paquette, whose body was found stabbed 73 times at the Lil’ Champ store on Clarcona Ocoee Road Feb. 3, 1996.

Mina said blood from Paquette and another person was found at the crime scene in 1996, but blood testing in 1996 was limited, leaving the case cold. In 2003, a detective reopened the case, running DNA from the blood samples through a database, but no matches were found.

But when Detective Brian Savelli, a member of the agency’s cold case unit, looked again at the case in 2019, he teamed up with forensic specialists at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who helped him employ the genetic genealogy method.

Debbie Abney, FDLE’s Crime Analyst Supervisor, said they input the DNA from the crime scene’s unmatched blood to two genealogy databases authorized for law enforcement investigations, which found matches to both sides of Stough’s family — leading detectives to examine him and his two brothers.