An Ocala man who was already in the Marion County Jail on a multitude of charges – including indecent exposure – is now facing multiple charges in connection with a recent homicide in Hidden Oaks.
Marion County sheriff’s deputies were called on March 26 to a residence in the 10600 block of S.W. 75th Terrace, where they discovered that a fire had been set in the home. Crews from Marion County Fire Rescue responded, extinguished the blaze and located the body of 77-year-old Alice Trench, a sheriff’s office report states.
Trench’s body had been decapitated and her left arm had been removed. It appeared the fire had been set in an attempt to dispose of the victim’s remains, the report says.
Meanwhile, 31-year-old Nicholas James Trench, who resides at the residence, had been arrested nearby while running around a daycare center nude. Trench was interviewed about his involvement in the murder but said he couldn’t remember anything prior to being arrested, the report says.
A sheriff’s detective obtained a search warrant for the residence and located several cutting tools near Alice Trench’s body, a laundry basket containing her severed body parts and a home surveillance system. In the surveillance footage, Nicholas Trench is seen in the garage retrieving a handsaw, disposing of a garbage bag full of bloody clothing and starting a fire with accelerants in a container before taking it into the residence, the report says.
A detective with the State Fire Marshal’s Office determined that the fire inside the residence had been intentionally set. The Medical Examiner’s Office determined the victim’s cause of death was strangulation and suffocation with contributory factors of blunt force trauma. It was further determined that Nicholas Trench was the only person at the residence with the victim at the time of the murder, the report says.
Nicholas Trench was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree arson and abuse of a dead body. He already was behind bars on charges of indecent exposure, criminal mischief, resisting arrest, providing false identification to a law enforcement officer and violation of probation. He was being held at the Marion County Jail without bond.
Trench also was arrested in December 2019 after allegedly punching and choking his girlfriend and stealing guns that belonged to her father. He was charged with domestic battery by strangulation, battery causing bodily harm, three counts of grand theft of a firearm, and grand theft of property valued between $300 and $5,000, a report says.