PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. – The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday announced an indictment in the 2015 murder of a pregnant woman from Daytona Beach.
Putnam County Sheriff Gator DeLoach said a grand jury on Monday indicted Lorenzo Hudson, 42, on first-degree murder charges in the death of Shaquierra Pinckney, 22, who was found dead and badly burned in a remote cemetery in east Palatka in 2015.
On Sept. 3, 2015, Pinckney’s body was discovered by a crew of mortuary workers at a church cemetery. DeLoach said her body was badly burned beyond recognition and during an autopsy, the medical examiner discovered she was about four months pregnant. She also left behind two children.
Detectives were able to photograph very distinguishable tattoos that linked her to a missing person’s case out of Volusia County. Her missing Honda Accord was found days later in St. Johns County abandoned in Flagler Estates.
“There’s so much more I’d like to tell you about this case and about our suspect. But at the end of the day, we want to conviction so I cannot divulge any information such as motive or any other facts surrounding the case,” DeLoach said.
The sheriff did say that Pinckney was known to access and place photos online of a then-popular adult website and Hudson also used the website to solicit sex and that is how the pair met.
Hudson is currently serving a five-year prison term at the Okaloosa Work Camp, a minimum security facility, for a slew of burglary, burglary and grand theft charges dating back to 2018, the sheriff said. Hudson was due for release in December.
Now he’s facing a total of four new charges including capital felony murder, capital felony murder of an unborn child, second-degree felony use of a dead body and third-degree felony tampering with physical evidence.
“We never gave up. One of our most important functions is to serve as a voice for Shaquierra and those like her who was silenced when her life was brutally taken. She will never be forgotten by me or my detectives who work tirelessly to bring Hudson one step closer to justice,” DeLoach said.