Police Say Suspect Indicted In Daytona Beach Bike Week Double Murder Chose Victims At Random

A man suspected in a grisly double murder during a festival in Daytona Beach has been indicted in the deaths.

A grand jury in Volusia County on Tuesday indicted Jean Macean, 32, on two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon in the March 6 deaths of Brenda Aultman, 55, and Terry Aultman, 48, according to court documents reviewed by Oxygen.com.

He is still being held without bail, and is expected to be formally arraigned on April 5. His court-appointed attorney, Jessica Roberts, filed a not guilty plea on his behalf on March 18, which means that he is not due back in court until May 4.

State Attorney R.J. Larizza announced the indictment at a press conference on Tuesday, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

"It appears that for whatever reason the defendant just picked these two folks out, committed the homicides," he said, according to the paper

“He did make statements," Larizza added, referring to Macean's alleged confession, according to Jacksonville independent news station WJXT. "I will not discuss those in detail with you specifically. But I can tell you that his statements are consistent with that conclusion — as far as no motive in the random nature of these brutal and vicious killings."

"These two victims were picked at random," Larizza added, according to the News-Journal. "And of course during one of the peak tourist events in Daytona Beach, which made it even more troubling."

Larizza's office has 30 days from Macean's arraignment on April 5 to decide whether to pursue the death penalty against him. They'll consult with the Aultmans' family and law enforcement before making that a decision.

Jean Robert Macean Photo: Orange County Corrections Department

Macean, Larizza said, was apparently in town to participate in the same Bike Week — a long-standing motorcycle festival — festivities that had convinced the Aultmans to head downtown on the night of their deaths. Macean, however, reportedly took a bus to and from his home in Orlando, according to Law&Crime.

Surveillance and other photos released of the man later identified as Macean showed him wandering around a commercial strip filled with bars and restaurants two blocks from where the Aultmans' bodies were found about an hour before the murder. Larizza said on Tuesday that at least some of the photos police received were from a church group with whom Macean had spoken before the murders, according to the News-Journal. 

The Aultmans were apparent walking their bicycles home on a residential block of North Wild Olive Road around 1:00 a.m. on March 6 when Macean apparently noticed them, according to charging documents reviewed by Oxygen.com. Surveillance footage from a home security system on the block where the murders took place, reviewed by the police, allegedly shows a man believed to be Macean meandering southbound on the block just two minutes before the Aultmans are seen walking north; Macean is then allegedly seen, 20 seconds later, walking northbound on the block in the directions the Aultmans were traveling.

Just 15 minutes later, the same camera allegedly captures Macean walking southbound again; a different security camera on the back of a business a block and a half away allegedly captured Macean three minutes after that, and revealed that the left leg of the white pants he was seen wearing all day was saturated in "dark-colored substance (presumably blood)."

Two passersby reported finding the Aultmans' brutalized bodies in the front yard of a home at 1:57 a.m. 

"Both victims were covered in blood and each of them appeared to be suffering from deep lacerations to their throats," the charging documents state.

Their bicycles were laying on the sidewalk a short distance away, and it appeared the couple had been dragged into the yard from the sidewalk.

"There was a large amount of blood located in the grass under and around the bicycles," the report continues. "There were large pools of blood on the sidewalk and around the victims' bodies."

According to the charging documents, Brenda Aultman's "shirt and bra were pulled up to her neck, exposing her torso and breasts" and her right pant leg was found pulled down over her foot. Her purse was nearby, with its contents strewn about — though nothing was reported missing and her phone was later discovered at the scene — and a pair of glasses, a man's hat and a "large clump of hair" tentatively identified as Terry Aultman's lay under their nearby bicycles.

After police released photos of a person of interest in the case, a server at the Daytona Beach Johnny Rockets came forward and provided them with the credit card Macean had used to pay for his lunch on the afternoon before the murders.

Despite the volume of people she likely served during the city's Bike Week festivities, she still remembered serving Macean; he tipped her 58 cents on his $15.42 check, the receipt shows. (While Macean wrote in a dollar tip, he wrote "$16.00" in the "Total" line, meaning the server would only have received 58 cents.)

The credit card receipt, police said, along with surveillance footage from inside the Johnny Rockets, were what allowed them to positively identify the person of interest as Jean Macean.