Police say a TikTok comment reading ‘love you always, beautiful’ led them to a man whose groomed eyebrows matched a $10,000 Motel 6 robber

A TikTok love note reportedly helped Connecticut police identify a suspect in an armed motel robbery that left a clerk injured and resulted in more than $10,000 being stolen. Investigators connected the social media post to Francisco Perez, 45, after reviewing surveillance footage and DNA evidence, according to CT Insider.

Perez was arrested in September after what Wethersfield police called an extensive investigation. He is accused of taking part in the armed robbery of the Motel 6 on Silas Deane Highway, which the warrant says netted $10,000 in cash and devices. A second suspect has not been identified and remains at large.

According to police, two masked men entered the lobby late on a Sunday night in July 2025, vaulted the front counter, and demanded cash. The clerk was reportedly forced at gunpoint into a back office and assaulted there. Police said the victim suffered minor injuries and declined medical treatment, and that the pair fled in a white Hyundai Elantra reported stolen out of Hartford.

A detective found the TikTok love note while searching social media

The warrant describes a Wethersfield detective turning up a woman’s TikTok profile through open-source research. A comment on that profile, written in Spanish, was translated as “Love you always, beautiful, my love.” Photos connected to that trail reportedly showed a man with groomed eyebrows in a dark Nike hooded sweatshirt, which matched the description of one of the robbers.

“The image of Perez wearing the Nike hooded sweatshirt closely resembles one of the armed suspects,” the warrant states, referring to the motel’s surveillance footage. Danbury police reportedly told investigators that the man in the photos appeared to be Perez. Other databases then supplied his driver’s license and cellphone number, according to the document.

Phone records became the next piece after the TikTok love note. Investigators say the suspect’s cellphone was active in the Hartford area before the Motel 6 robbery and went quiet during the holdup itself, but its activity resumed shortly afterward. However, the later activity reportedly lined up with the route of the stolen car, which a license plate camera captured in Manchester minutes after the robbery.

A search of an Enfield home tied to the 45-year-old reportedly turned up a loaded Smith & Wesson handgun. “This handgun matches the appearance of the weapon Suspect #1 used to strike (the motel clerk) in the head during the robbery,” the warrant says. The document adds that Perez also matched the physical description the victim gave to police.

Detectives also pointed to how the Motel 6 robbery unfolded. The warrant says the first suspect “had the insider code to the safe,” and it lists that alongside the clothing and the handgun as evidence that “strongly identifies Perez as Suspect #1.” DNA swabbed from the stolen car’s steering wheel was said to point to him as well, as he was not the vehicle’s owner.

A suspect’s own digital trail has figured in other recent robbery cases. In Atlanta, a college student who was robbed said she later found a threat recorded as her voicemail greeting, purportedly left by her attacker. The suspect in that case has not been convicted, and the audio has not been confirmed as his voice.

Perez is charged with first-degree kidnapping with a firearm, first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, second-degree assault with a firearm, and second-degree larceny. Bond was set at $500,000, and the case is being handled in New Britain Superior Court. However, the charges are accusations, and the Enfield man has not been convicted of any crime tied to the Motel 6 robbery.

Wethersfield detectives are still investigating, as the second suspect seen in the surveillance footage has not been named and could face similar charges if identified.