After a three-year investigation, Fort Pierce Police have arrested 31-year-old Jorge Alberto Fuentes, Jr. for the 2022 shooting death of his father, 78-year-old Jorge Fuentes, Sr., a decorated U.S. Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient. The arrest was made Wednesday, June 18, 2025, in Palm Beach County by Fort Pierce detectives and the U.S. Marshals Service Task Force.
Fuentes, Sr., a native of El Salvador who emigrated to the United States in the mid 1960s, served in the Vietnam War and was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat. He walked with a cane and wore a knee brace as a result of those injuries. He was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds inside his home on Wyoming Avenue in Fort Pierce on May 6, 2022.
He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on April 5, 2023.
Following the murder, Fuentes, Sr.’s daughter issued a public plea on social media in 2022:
“Daddy was shot MULTIPLE times by cowards that still remain on the run. I am pleading all of my family, friends, and public community to assist us,” she wrote. “He served OUR COUNTRY and earned all of his medals by doing so, hence the PURPLE HEART!!! Help get this out PLEASE.”
At the time, family members said they were desperate for answers, unaware that the alleged shooter was a member of their father’s own household. Fuentes, Jr., the suspect, was living at the same address as his father at the time of the killing.
Brothers James and John Fuentes, who are in their 50s, had spoken publicly about their father in the months after the murder. James said he had reconnected with their father in 2021 after years of estrangement and described him as “a totally different person.” John said he hadn’t spoken to their father in several years and never got the chance to reconnect.
Fuentes, Sr. was reportedly estranged from his second wife and in the process of divorcing at the time of his death.
Fuentes, Jr. is being held without bond in Palm Beach County and will be extradited to St. Lucie County to face prosecution for first-degree premeditated homicide.
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