Jennifer Kesse disappeared over a decade ago and her family is still searching for answers about what happened to the 24-year-old Florida woman. Jennifer's family knew something was wrong when she did not show up for her job on the morning of Tuesday, January 24, 2006.
Nancy Grace digs into the mystery with Jennifer's father Drew Kesse, and her mom Joyce Kesse. What happened to Jennifer Kesse?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, guys, Nancy Grace here welcome back to Killers. Amongst
us the production of iHeart Media and Crime Online. I
think about Jennifer Kessie so often, long blonde hair, big
blue eyes, the world in front of her, just starting
out in her professional life. And I also think about
(00:27):
her parents, because her parents, Drew and Joy, spent their
whole life working to make a living to support Jennifer
and her brother, the entire family pouring all their love,
their hopes, their dreams, their money, their attention. Oh, think
about it. You know the little games, the girl scows,
(00:49):
the cookies, the this, the that, the tooth fairy, the braces,
that goes on and on and on, and it's they're
not chores. They're not chores at all. They are the
things you do for love, and to this day they
are still doing it for love, searching for their beautiful girl.
(01:12):
What happened to Jennifer Kessie, it's Cassie. What more can
you tell me about? What time? If you know that
she would contact her boyfriend in the morning, Well, jen
typically left for work between seven thirty and eight in
the morning, and it was her habit to call Rob
(01:33):
when she got in her car. So as she got
in her car and was driving to work is when
she would make that good morning call. And as we know,
Rob never received that call. Drew tell me the condition
of her apartment. Her condition, It was obviously brand new,
she had just purchased. I mean that morning, what did
(01:56):
it look like? Had she made her hair or what? No? No,
it looked like she slept in her bed. She had
two or three outfits laid out on the bed as
if she was choosing an outfit to wear. She as
was stated, the bathroom looked like someone got ready to
go to work. The rest of the condo was just
(02:16):
perfect data honestly looked like a maid came through, right
down to a full setting, four pe setting table setting
on her dining room table. You are hearing me speaking
with Drew and Joyce Cassie on h L in the
search for Jennifer. There girl goes on with me. Ray Kaputo,
(02:37):
lead news anchor Orlando's Morning News ninety six point five
WDBO Doctor Daniel Bober renowned forensics psychiatrist at Doctor Daniel
Bober on Instagram, Professor Forensics Jacksonville State University and author
of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, Joseph Scott Morgan,
Bruce Johnson with me, owner IESP Investigations, Crime Scene Commander
(03:00):
Chicago Metro, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of red Flags
at Wendy Patrick PhD dot com had special guests joining me,
Drew and Joyce Kessie, Jennifer's mom and dad. Take a
listen to this our friends at CBS. By January two
thousand and six, twenty four year old Jennifer seemed to
(03:22):
have everything going for her. She had bought a brand
new condo in Orlando, She'd been promoted at work, and
there was a new man in her life. She was intelligent,
she was captivating. She had a sense of huma. One
of the first conversations we had ended up being like
five hours. Rob Allen, a thirty two year old Englishman,
(03:42):
lived two and a half hours away in Fort Lauderdale.
The couple had been dating for a year and saw
each other every other weekend. I mean we would communicate
full five, six, seven times a day, every day. She
became blonde best friend. In January two thousand and six, Rob,
then Jennifer took a vacation to Saint Croix. It was
(04:04):
just perfect, a lot of cocktails, a lot of sun,
a lot of beach in We had an awesome time.
We joked we should just stay there and just not
come back to the real world. But the real world
was about to intervene. I go back over and over
and over the facts to start at the beginning. What
(04:27):
happened to day Jennifer went missing? Listen. The first clue
something was wrong came the next morning. Jennifer failed to
show up for a meeting at work. Her co workers
at Westgate Resorts couldn't reach her on her cell phone
or at home, so they called her parents. I got
the phone call from her employer that she had not
(04:49):
shown up. Was there a family emergency? I immediately panicked
because Jenn's cell phone has never been turned off. Joyce
called the manager of Jen's apartment complex. He went to
her unit. Jennifer wasn't there, neither was her car. I
was just like, oh my god, Oh my god, this
(05:11):
can't be happening. My mother called me crying. I was hysterical.
She said, Jenesis, I'm like, what are you talking about?
Who goes? She hasn't shutting off for work? Drew, Cassie,
you get the news that Jennifer did not report to work.
You tell me that you immediately jump in the car
(05:32):
and drive our plus to get to her condo. Now,
when I was speaking to you earlier, I said, I
don't want to hear about the condo being new. Just
tell me about the scene itself. But I do want
to hear now about the condo on the outside, the layout,
the gate if there was one, tell me everything. Is
(05:53):
you approach that condo jumping out of the car, What
did you see? Take me inside them outside in her condo? Sure?
Will you approach the condo complex? Everything was normal to us.
We got up to the guard gate, and we got
let in quite quite quickly. They really don't take a
(06:14):
lot of implements. Okay, whoa right there, right there, right there?
Hold on, hold on guard gate? If you live there?
Did you have a key to get in? Would the
guard be there? Twenty four seven? If you didn't live there,
Did you have to identify yourself who you were, who
you were coming to see? Would they let anybody come
(06:35):
in that drove up? And could you walk in without
being stopped for I d that's a lot of questions,
But could you answer those dreams? Yes to all the above,
to be quite honest with you, when it ended up. Okay,
well there was a guard gate. Now I have to
review my own questions. Wait, okay, there, yes, the guard gate.
(06:55):
Wait write it down for me. Sure, okay, there is
a guard gate with a live guard there, as well
as a gate that anyone who had a pass key
who lived there could come through on the right side.
If you didn't live there, you had to stop at
the guard gate and give your name where you were
going to, and they take your license plate. As we
(07:17):
found out through receiving those records, the guards could not
spell a name, did not take down a plate properly.
They were actually useless in the end for our use
and for law enforcements. U Ja, are you telling me
that someone could walk in my foot and not? The
(07:37):
question is due identity? Correct. At the guard gate, there
was a sidewalk that led up to a gate and
you could walk through the gate. It was done. I mean,
anyone who wanted to get on the premises got on
the premises. As soon as Jennifer was gone, her friends
converged on the premises and there was just no question.
Anyone could get in. Any worker could get in, any
(08:00):
subcontractor could get in. They just had to stop. It
didn't matter if they gave the right name, correct name
or anything. You know, that is very easy with That's
a big problem to Joseph Scott Morgan forensics expert way in, Yeah,
because you've got a multitude of people that have access,
and you know, we have to think back. There's all
(08:20):
of this construction that's going on around this site. There's
also a busy mall area shopping area that's immediately adjacent
to this. So any John Q public that's just passing by,
even if it's just out of curiosity, Hey I want
to go take a look at these condos, or somebody
that's got more sinister motives can say, hey, I want
to go look in these condos and see what's going on.
(08:42):
They can use this as a point of entry Nancy,
and there's no control, there's no control over the access
to this area, and so it doubles the difficulty in
attempting to kind of whittle this down as to who
may have had contact with her. Jennifer was very habitual
(09:06):
and didn't you know, didn't do things out of the ordinary.
She left for work between seven thirty and eight in
the morning. It was like clock blind. Jen was kind
of like my human alarm clock, because she'd always call
me or text me in the morning and just say, hey, look,
I have a great day. She called them every day.
They talked. She talked to her mom, she talked to
her brother, she talked to her boyfriend. I never got
a text from her, phone call from her. We had
(09:28):
started the work day, but after about a half an
hour and then an hour, we started wondering, where's Jennifer
When they called her phone went directly to voice now.
We waited another half hour or so and placed a
phone call see Jennifer's dad. And when we had gotten
a phone call that she didn't show up for work,
he was rying. You know, she was extremely emotional, letting hey,
Jen's on answering. She gave me the whole rundown. She
(09:50):
didn't show up to works, not answering her phone. I
got confirmation from a family that indeed she'd never showed
up to work and she was missing. On a circle
back to the scene. When you walked up, was the
door locked? Unline? Once you get through the gate, there's
many I guess there was probably a dozen three story
buildings scattered about on a property. In front of Jennifer's
(10:12):
condo was a good sized fountain lake that faced the
main road, and straight across, almost straight across the street
was the Mall of Millennia. She lived on a second floor,
just absolutely a beautiful condo. In fact, Joyce and I said,
we'd like to see you here, right here, and she agreed,
(10:33):
And it was her first home that she purchased. The
outside of the building gray in color. It had exterior
porches for each unit, and it had stairwells that went
up the second floor and third floor. Within they were
covered stairwells. So where Jennifer her parking space was in
(10:57):
the back of her condo on the other side of
Soda say the fountain lake, and her parking spot was
identified with her condo number, which we have come to
learn is pretty bad. But she was straight away from
the staircase. She would literally come out of her cargo
probably I don't know, twenty yards to the bottom of
the staircase of her condo, go straight up one flight
(11:20):
of steps beyond her floor, have to walk across the
entire condo with to get to her condo. The door.
The door was totally locked. Okay, so it was locked.
Does it a lot from the inside or from the outside?
From from the outside, so it's not as if she
had been inside and turned a dead boat. It was
(11:43):
as if she had left and locked it as she left.
Is that correct? Well, the dead boat would have been
a key also, so so was it a lot from
the inside or the outside or but could it have
been either? We believe it's both the door as well
as the dead because to us, she got ready for work,
(12:03):
walked out her door, and proceeded to her car with me.
Jennifer's mom, Joyce, Kessie Joyce, did you drive with Drew
to the condo? Yes, we drove together. Okay, when you
got there, what were your observations of inside her home?
Inside the home was Jen's suitcase right in the foyer
(12:29):
and her mace on the little table she had in
the foyer, and the rest of the place was Christine saved.
The fact that Jennifer's a huge bathroom pick when she
gets dressed in the morning, so she had step scattered everywhere,
things on the floor, her bed, She had several outfits
(12:52):
as if she was trying to decide what to where today.
Was that her emo, which she normally do. That. Yes,
that was Jen's routine, so it's not as if someone
had rifle through her closet. You could tell that she
was there that morning. She had been on the trip
with her boyfriend, the tropical trip, came home, made it
(13:16):
back to her condo, and apparently was up that morning
because she was laying out close. Now would she have
laid those out the night before? They were on her
bed though, which means it had to be that morning.
She wouldn't have slept with him on her bed from
the night before. I'm trying to get a good timeline,
so you believe she laid the clothes out that morning
getting ready for work exactly because I was unmade. What
(13:39):
if anything did you notice in her bathroom? Well, the
first thing when you walked in the bathroom was oh
my god, what a mess. But it was typical Jen.
She's just a messy, messy Jen when she gets ready.
The next significant thing is when we pulled the shower
(14:00):
curtain back in the corners of the shower, where you know,
normally you would put your shower, your shampoo or conditioner.
It was there was some water in the corners that
told us that she showered them drew, then went into
her laundry room and draped over the washing machine was
(14:25):
a damp towel, and she put the towel. She thought
to put the damp towel there. That tells me that
Jen got ready in the morning. She clearly was not
in any threat underneath threat at the time. She took
a shower, and she walked as far as the laundry
area placed the damp towel there. Did you notice any
(14:46):
of her clothes missing? The most significant thing that I
noticed missing was Jen was very proud of her brown
alligator high heeled shoes that she had recently part they
were missing. Now it's interesting, Nancy. It's the articles of
clothing that were on her beds were beiges and blacks,
(15:10):
so she would have worn those brown shoes and they
were not in her closet. I'm trying to I'm trying
to take in in and just to what you're saying,
because you know, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, all the red flags,
every detail matters. The fact that those I didn't know
this as long as I've been working on Jennifer's case,
(15:32):
I didn't know or remember the fact that those particular
shoes were missing. It would be as if you came
to my place and nobody could find my old dam
post boots, cowboy boots that don't wear every single day.
That would be a big indicator. Wendy Patrick. A detail
like this is huge. It's powerful evidence, Nancy. But particularly
(15:55):
if somebody knows you well, they would know about your
cowboy boots. If somebody knows her well, they would also
know about those new alligator shoes. And that's how we
narrow down suspect pools. Even so many years after the fact.
We never want to let a case grow cold where
new evidence and new tips like this are consistently available,
and it will help us to go back, even many
(16:17):
years after the fact, to try to figure out why
would those be missing if they didn't fit what she
wore to work? How would somebody know where they were
if somebody wanted to take them. Did she take them
because she had plans to change and go somewhere after work?
These details just go to juries. But now in cases
like this that are still unsolved, helps us solve them.
You know that leaves me to this thought, Joyce, Cassie,
(16:40):
I had always in the back of my mind thought
someone got into her condo, attacked her and killed her.
I don't necessarily think that. I think she left her
condo based on what Drew was telling me about the
front door, that it appears as if she locked it
and left, and the fact mostly about those shoes. I
(17:05):
think she left the home that morning. Joyce, Oh, I
definitely believe so, because Jennifer was never ever someone who
took a shower at night, unless, of course she was
going out with friends. But her that was not her
habit to shower for the next day. She was a
(17:28):
morning shower, you know what. And that is what we
call behavioral evidence, evidence of routine, Doctor Daniel bober forensic psychiatrists.
If mom says she never takes a shower at night,
then you can count on that is a fact. I
know for a fact my twins always take a shower
(17:49):
at night because I do not want them to get
into the bed filthy and sweaty as they are after
a day at school and playing. I know that, I
know they do not take a shower in the morning.
So that's something that only mommy would really know, doctor Bobera.
And I'm telling you, Joyce Kessie's right on this absolutely, Nancy.
(18:13):
You know, I'm also a child psychiatrist in addition to
a forensic psychiatrist, and I always say moms know best
when I need the history on a child, the person
that I get the most information from the most reliable
in terms of behavioral patterns and little details like that,
only moms really know. Drew Enjoys Kessie know that they
(18:35):
may never see their daughter alive again, but that hasn't
stopped them from pushing to find her. Posters for Jennifer
Kessie are scattered all over Central Florida. We asked the public,
please stick with us, Please believe in us, believe in Jennifer.
We'll never stop looking for Jennifer. I was working tonight
she went missing. I remembered to talking to Drew on
(18:56):
the phone, and I remember hearing the voice of a
very concerned and upset father, and I'll never forget it.
The twenty four year old went missing back in January
of two thousand and six when she never showed up
for work. Dude Ray Kaputo joining US lead K News
anchor or Orlando's Morning News ninety six point five to
w DBO right at the time. Do you recall when
(19:18):
Jennifer's story first hit the knees, Oh, absolutely, Nancy. You know,
first off, Jennifer is an attractive young girl. Her picture
is plastered up. She has this desperate family, so very
quickly we started hearing about this on the news. Now
they were they started handing out pictures and flyers of Jennifer.
And you know, when you see a young woman like
(19:39):
her go missing, it is a desperate situation because your
first thoughts are, did somebody abductor you know, like her
parents are saying now because of sex, sex trafficking, pick
her up off the street, So you worry about that.
But it was a big news story, you know, it
kind of cut through a lot of the news that
I was seeing around the time, and mainly because she's,
you know, a smart UCF grad, you know, a pretty
(20:01):
young girl. And immediately you're worrying that this is probably
not going to end well if they don't find this
young woman very quickly. Bruce Johnson with me on her
IESP investigations. There is a big difference in someone being
attacked in their home and someone being kidnapped outside of
their home. Because outside of the home you're gonna have
(20:22):
a lot less fingerprints, a lot less evidence that you
can actually find in the home. You're gonna find fiber
or fingerprints, evidence of a struggle. If somebody disappears outside,
it's a lot harder to find evidence. Bruce, Absolutely, it is.
You know again back then in two thousand and six
(20:43):
that they have cameras in that parking lot. We haven't
seen anything of that nature. So I don't think that
there were but a couple of things I want to
go over, and I would like to ask Joyce if
she knew were you were talking about her routine. So
we have let's say inside suspects and outside suspects. Inside
(21:03):
suspects would be the guards would be the day workers
and all your construction workers. You're outside people would be
mall people and people that are coming in going on
a route on a you know, not a routine basis,
but sporadically. So for Joyce, I would want to know
her routine. Did she come home, you know, and go
(21:27):
to the pool every day? Did she come home and
change and go work out? Did she come home and
change and go jogging? Those things would come into play
for the day workers working every day, seeing her at
the pool every day. Knowing that she goes jogging every day.
She comes home at at at five o'clock every night,
(21:47):
she goes to dinner at six. That would help focus
if people on site we're watching her. So far, we've
managed to review what we know at this juncture and
determined that there was no sign of a struggle. There
was no sign of forced entry. It looked as if
(22:08):
Jennifer had gotten up. Her suitcases were still in the
entrance area of her home from the trip she'd just
come back from, gotten up, gotten ready for work, and
left wearing those special shoes that were her favorites. But
is there a secondary crime? Saying list immediate thing you
(22:31):
have to consider is maybe she was on her way
to work, or she was out away from her apartment
and something could have happened to her. Her car is missing.
Her family says she's missing. She's not been to work.
She drove a black Chevy Malibu. It had been all
over TV for two days now. In Florida, we have
a number of bodies of water. We have all kinds
(22:52):
of different places where cars can break down. Yeah, this
is millennium all right here. Tips came in. Yeah, we
think we see it over here, We think we see
it over there. Tuesday is when she disappears. When was
her car phone? Thursday morning, a neighbor who lived at
Huntington on the Green saw the news report the hinting
(23:13):
on the Green apartment complex. It's about a mile or
so east of Jennifer's apartment. The complex was yeah, it's
it's it's rougher. Come to find out a lot of
crime in the area. We went out to the apartment
complex and found Jennifer's car parked at the complex. Now
we're talking about a whole new avenue of investigation. Is
(23:36):
their hope of finding Jennifer Kesse. We need those continued
tips to be called in, and in fact, if you've
called the tip in in the last twelve years and
you don't think it's been worked quality again, please please
do that for us. Nancy Grace Killers amongst us, signing off,
(23:58):
goodbye friend,
Hi, guys, Nancy Grace here welcome back to Killers. Amongst
us the production of iHeart Media and Crime Online. I
think about Jennifer Kessie so often, long blonde hair, big
blue eyes, the world in front of her, just starting
out in her professional life. And I also think about
(00:27):
her parents, because her parents, Drew and Joy, spent their
whole life working to make a living to support Jennifer
and her brother, the entire family pouring all their love,
their hopes, their dreams, their money, their attention. Oh, think
about it. You know the little games, the girl scows,
(00:49):
the cookies, the this, the that, the tooth fairy, the braces,
that goes on and on and on, and it's they're
not chores. They're not chores at all. They are the
things you do for love, and to this day they
are still doing it for love, searching for their beautiful girl.
(01:12):
What happened to Jennifer Kessie, it's Cassie. What more can
you tell me about? What time? If you know that
she would contact her boyfriend in the morning, Well, jen
typically left for work between seven thirty and eight in
the morning, and it was her habit to call Rob
(01:33):
when she got in her car. So as she got
in her car and was driving to work is when
she would make that good morning call. And as we know,
Rob never received that call. Drew tell me the condition
of her apartment. Her condition, It was obviously brand new,
she had just purchased. I mean that morning, what did
(01:56):
it look like? Had she made her hair or what? No? No,
it looked like she slept in her bed. She had
two or three outfits laid out on the bed as
if she was choosing an outfit to wear. She as
was stated, the bathroom looked like someone got ready to
go to work. The rest of the condo was just
(02:16):
perfect data honestly looked like a maid came through, right
down to a full setting, four pe setting table setting
on her dining room table. You are hearing me speaking
with Drew and Joyce Cassie on h L in the
search for Jennifer. There girl goes on with me. Ray Kaputo,
(02:37):
lead news anchor Orlando's Morning News ninety six point five
WDBO Doctor Daniel Bober renowned forensics psychiatrist at Doctor Daniel
Bober on Instagram, Professor Forensics Jacksonville State University and author
of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, Joseph Scott Morgan,
Bruce Johnson with me, owner IESP Investigations, Crime Scene Commander
(03:00):
Chicago Metro, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of red Flags
at Wendy Patrick PhD dot com had special guests joining me,
Drew and Joyce Kessie, Jennifer's mom and dad. Take a
listen to this our friends at CBS. By January two
thousand and six, twenty four year old Jennifer seemed to
(03:22):
have everything going for her. She had bought a brand
new condo in Orlando, She'd been promoted at work, and
there was a new man in her life. She was intelligent,
she was captivating. She had a sense of huma. One
of the first conversations we had ended up being like
five hours. Rob Allen, a thirty two year old Englishman,
(03:42):
lived two and a half hours away in Fort Lauderdale.
The couple had been dating for a year and saw
each other every other weekend. I mean we would communicate
full five, six, seven times a day, every day. She
became blonde best friend. In January two thousand and six, Rob,
then Jennifer took a vacation to Saint Croix. It was
(04:04):
just perfect, a lot of cocktails, a lot of sun,
a lot of beach in We had an awesome time.
We joked we should just stay there and just not
come back to the real world. But the real world
was about to intervene. I go back over and over
and over the facts to start at the beginning. What
(04:27):
happened to day Jennifer went missing? Listen. The first clue
something was wrong came the next morning. Jennifer failed to
show up for a meeting at work. Her co workers
at Westgate Resorts couldn't reach her on her cell phone
or at home, so they called her parents. I got
the phone call from her employer that she had not
(04:49):
shown up. Was there a family emergency? I immediately panicked
because Jenn's cell phone has never been turned off. Joyce
called the manager of Jen's apartment complex. He went to
her unit. Jennifer wasn't there, neither was her car. I
was just like, oh my god, Oh my god, this
(05:11):
can't be happening. My mother called me crying. I was hysterical.
She said, Jenesis, I'm like, what are you talking about?
Who goes? She hasn't shutting off for work? Drew, Cassie,
you get the news that Jennifer did not report to work.
You tell me that you immediately jump in the car
(05:32):
and drive our plus to get to her condo. Now,
when I was speaking to you earlier, I said, I
don't want to hear about the condo being new. Just
tell me about the scene itself. But I do want
to hear now about the condo on the outside, the layout,
the gate if there was one, tell me everything. Is
(05:53):
you approach that condo jumping out of the car, What
did you see? Take me inside them outside in her condo? Sure?
Will you approach the condo complex? Everything was normal to us.
We got up to the guard gate, and we got
let in quite quite quickly. They really don't take a
(06:14):
lot of implements. Okay, whoa right there, right there, right there?
Hold on, hold on guard gate? If you live there?
Did you have a key to get in? Would the
guard be there? Twenty four seven? If you didn't live there,
Did you have to identify yourself who you were, who
you were coming to see? Would they let anybody come
(06:35):
in that drove up? And could you walk in without
being stopped for I d that's a lot of questions,
But could you answer those dreams? Yes to all the above,
to be quite honest with you, when it ended up. Okay,
well there was a guard gate. Now I have to
review my own questions. Wait, okay, there, yes, the guard gate.
(06:55):
Wait write it down for me. Sure, okay, there is
a guard gate with a live guard there, as well
as a gate that anyone who had a pass key
who lived there could come through on the right side.
If you didn't live there, you had to stop at
the guard gate and give your name where you were
going to, and they take your license plate. As we
(07:17):
found out through receiving those records, the guards could not
spell a name, did not take down a plate properly.
They were actually useless in the end for our use
and for law enforcements. U Ja, are you telling me
that someone could walk in my foot and not? The
(07:37):
question is due identity? Correct. At the guard gate, there
was a sidewalk that led up to a gate and
you could walk through the gate. It was done. I mean,
anyone who wanted to get on the premises got on
the premises. As soon as Jennifer was gone, her friends
converged on the premises and there was just no question.
Anyone could get in. Any worker could get in, any
(08:00):
subcontractor could get in. They just had to stop. It
didn't matter if they gave the right name, correct name
or anything. You know, that is very easy with That's
a big problem to Joseph Scott Morgan forensics expert way in, Yeah,
because you've got a multitude of people that have access,
and you know, we have to think back. There's all
(08:20):
of this construction that's going on around this site. There's
also a busy mall area shopping area that's immediately adjacent
to this. So any John Q public that's just passing by,
even if it's just out of curiosity, Hey I want
to go take a look at these condos, or somebody
that's got more sinister motives can say, hey, I want
to go look in these condos and see what's going on.
(08:42):
They can use this as a point of entry Nancy,
and there's no control, there's no control over the access
to this area, and so it doubles the difficulty in
attempting to kind of whittle this down as to who
may have had contact with her. Jennifer was very habitual
(09:06):
and didn't you know, didn't do things out of the ordinary.
She left for work between seven thirty and eight in
the morning. It was like clock blind. Jen was kind
of like my human alarm clock, because she'd always call
me or text me in the morning and just say, hey, look,
I have a great day. She called them every day.
They talked. She talked to her mom, she talked to
her brother, she talked to her boyfriend. I never got
a text from her, phone call from her. We had
(09:28):
started the work day, but after about a half an
hour and then an hour, we started wondering, where's Jennifer
When they called her phone went directly to voice now.
We waited another half hour or so and placed a
phone call see Jennifer's dad. And when we had gotten
a phone call that she didn't show up for work,
he was rying. You know, she was extremely emotional, letting hey,
Jen's on answering. She gave me the whole rundown. She
(09:50):
didn't show up to works, not answering her phone. I
got confirmation from a family that indeed she'd never showed
up to work and she was missing. On a circle
back to the scene. When you walked up, was the
door locked? Unline? Once you get through the gate, there's
many I guess there was probably a dozen three story
buildings scattered about on a property. In front of Jennifer's
(10:12):
condo was a good sized fountain lake that faced the
main road, and straight across, almost straight across the street
was the Mall of Millennia. She lived on a second floor,
just absolutely a beautiful condo. In fact, Joyce and I said,
we'd like to see you here, right here, and she agreed,
(10:33):
And it was her first home that she purchased. The
outside of the building gray in color. It had exterior
porches for each unit, and it had stairwells that went
up the second floor and third floor. Within they were
covered stairwells. So where Jennifer her parking space was in
(10:57):
the back of her condo on the other side of
Soda say the fountain lake, and her parking spot was
identified with her condo number, which we have come to
learn is pretty bad. But she was straight away from
the staircase. She would literally come out of her cargo
probably I don't know, twenty yards to the bottom of
the staircase of her condo, go straight up one flight
(11:20):
of steps beyond her floor, have to walk across the
entire condo with to get to her condo. The door.
The door was totally locked. Okay, so it was locked.
Does it a lot from the inside or from the outside?
From from the outside, so it's not as if she
had been inside and turned a dead boat. It was
(11:43):
as if she had left and locked it as she left.
Is that correct? Well, the dead boat would have been
a key also, so so was it a lot from
the inside or the outside or but could it have
been either? We believe it's both the door as well
as the dead because to us, she got ready for work,
(12:03):
walked out her door, and proceeded to her car with me.
Jennifer's mom, Joyce, Kessie Joyce, did you drive with Drew
to the condo? Yes, we drove together. Okay, when you
got there, what were your observations of inside her home?
Inside the home was Jen's suitcase right in the foyer
(12:29):
and her mace on the little table she had in
the foyer, and the rest of the place was Christine saved.
The fact that Jennifer's a huge bathroom pick when she
gets dressed in the morning, so she had step scattered everywhere,
things on the floor, her bed, She had several outfits
(12:52):
as if she was trying to decide what to where today.
Was that her emo, which she normally do. That. Yes,
that was Jen's routine, so it's not as if someone
had rifle through her closet. You could tell that she
was there that morning. She had been on the trip
with her boyfriend, the tropical trip, came home, made it
(13:16):
back to her condo, and apparently was up that morning
because she was laying out close. Now would she have
laid those out the night before? They were on her
bed though, which means it had to be that morning.
She wouldn't have slept with him on her bed from
the night before. I'm trying to get a good timeline,
so you believe she laid the clothes out that morning
getting ready for work exactly because I was unmade. What
(13:39):
if anything did you notice in her bathroom? Well, the
first thing when you walked in the bathroom was oh
my god, what a mess. But it was typical Jen.
She's just a messy, messy Jen when she gets ready.
The next significant thing is when we pulled the shower
(14:00):
curtain back in the corners of the shower, where you know,
normally you would put your shower, your shampoo or conditioner.
It was there was some water in the corners that
told us that she showered them drew, then went into
her laundry room and draped over the washing machine was
(14:25):
a damp towel, and she put the towel. She thought
to put the damp towel there. That tells me that
Jen got ready in the morning. She clearly was not
in any threat underneath threat at the time. She took
a shower, and she walked as far as the laundry
area placed the damp towel there. Did you notice any
(14:46):
of her clothes missing? The most significant thing that I
noticed missing was Jen was very proud of her brown
alligator high heeled shoes that she had recently part they
were missing. Now it's interesting, Nancy. It's the articles of
clothing that were on her beds were beiges and blacks,
(15:10):
so she would have worn those brown shoes and they
were not in her closet. I'm trying to I'm trying
to take in in and just to what you're saying,
because you know, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, all the red flags,
every detail matters. The fact that those I didn't know
this as long as I've been working on Jennifer's case,
(15:32):
I didn't know or remember the fact that those particular
shoes were missing. It would be as if you came
to my place and nobody could find my old dam
post boots, cowboy boots that don't wear every single day.
That would be a big indicator. Wendy Patrick. A detail
like this is huge. It's powerful evidence, Nancy. But particularly
(15:55):
if somebody knows you well, they would know about your
cowboy boots. If somebody knows her well, they would also
know about those new alligator shoes. And that's how we
narrow down suspect pools. Even so many years after the fact.
We never want to let a case grow cold where
new evidence and new tips like this are consistently available,
and it will help us to go back, even many
(16:17):
years after the fact, to try to figure out why
would those be missing if they didn't fit what she
wore to work? How would somebody know where they were
if somebody wanted to take them. Did she take them
because she had plans to change and go somewhere after work?
These details just go to juries. But now in cases
like this that are still unsolved, helps us solve them.
You know that leaves me to this thought, Joyce, Cassie,
(16:40):
I had always in the back of my mind thought
someone got into her condo, attacked her and killed her.
I don't necessarily think that. I think she left her
condo based on what Drew was telling me about the
front door, that it appears as if she locked it
and left, and the fact mostly about those shoes. I
(17:05):
think she left the home that morning. Joyce, Oh, I
definitely believe so, because Jennifer was never ever someone who
took a shower at night, unless, of course she was
going out with friends. But her that was not her
habit to shower for the next day. She was a
(17:28):
morning shower, you know what. And that is what we
call behavioral evidence, evidence of routine, Doctor Daniel bober forensic psychiatrists.
If mom says she never takes a shower at night,
then you can count on that is a fact. I
know for a fact my twins always take a shower
(17:49):
at night because I do not want them to get
into the bed filthy and sweaty as they are after
a day at school and playing. I know that, I
know they do not take a shower in the morning.
So that's something that only mommy would really know, doctor Bobera.
And I'm telling you, Joyce Kessie's right on this absolutely, Nancy.
(18:13):
You know, I'm also a child psychiatrist in addition to
a forensic psychiatrist, and I always say moms know best
when I need the history on a child, the person
that I get the most information from the most reliable
in terms of behavioral patterns and little details like that,
only moms really know. Drew Enjoys Kessie know that they
(18:35):
may never see their daughter alive again, but that hasn't
stopped them from pushing to find her. Posters for Jennifer
Kessie are scattered all over Central Florida. We asked the public,
please stick with us, Please believe in us, believe in Jennifer.
We'll never stop looking for Jennifer. I was working tonight
she went missing. I remembered to talking to Drew on
(18:56):
the phone, and I remember hearing the voice of a
very concerned and upset father, and I'll never forget it.
The twenty four year old went missing back in January
of two thousand and six when she never showed up
for work. Dude Ray Kaputo joining US lead K News
anchor or Orlando's Morning News ninety six point five to
w DBO right at the time. Do you recall when
(19:18):
Jennifer's story first hit the knees, Oh, absolutely, Nancy. You know,
first off, Jennifer is an attractive young girl. Her picture
is plastered up. She has this desperate family, so very
quickly we started hearing about this on the news. Now
they were they started handing out pictures and flyers of Jennifer.
And you know, when you see a young woman like
(19:39):
her go missing, it is a desperate situation because your
first thoughts are, did somebody abductor you know, like her
parents are saying now because of sex, sex trafficking, pick
her up off the street, So you worry about that.
But it was a big news story, you know, it
kind of cut through a lot of the news that
I was seeing around the time, and mainly because she's,
you know, a smart UCF grad, you know, a pretty
(20:01):
young girl. And immediately you're worrying that this is probably
not going to end well if they don't find this
young woman very quickly. Bruce Johnson with me on her
IESP investigations. There is a big difference in someone being
attacked in their home and someone being kidnapped outside of
their home. Because outside of the home you're gonna have
(20:22):
a lot less fingerprints, a lot less evidence that you
can actually find in the home. You're gonna find fiber
or fingerprints, evidence of a struggle. If somebody disappears outside,
it's a lot harder to find evidence. Bruce, Absolutely, it is.
You know again back then in two thousand and six
(20:43):
that they have cameras in that parking lot. We haven't
seen anything of that nature. So I don't think that
there were but a couple of things I want to
go over, and I would like to ask Joyce if
she knew were you were talking about her routine. So
we have let's say inside suspects and outside suspects. Inside
(21:03):
suspects would be the guards would be the day workers
and all your construction workers. You're outside people would be
mall people and people that are coming in going on
a route on a you know, not a routine basis,
but sporadically. So for Joyce, I would want to know
her routine. Did she come home, you know, and go
(21:27):
to the pool every day? Did she come home and
change and go work out? Did she come home and
change and go jogging? Those things would come into play
for the day workers working every day, seeing her at
the pool every day. Knowing that she goes jogging every day.
She comes home at at at five o'clock every night,
(21:47):
she goes to dinner at six. That would help focus
if people on site we're watching her. So far, we've
managed to review what we know at this juncture and
determined that there was no sign of a struggle. There
was no sign of forced entry. It looked as if
(22:08):
Jennifer had gotten up. Her suitcases were still in the
entrance area of her home from the trip she'd just
come back from, gotten up, gotten ready for work, and
left wearing those special shoes that were her favorites. But
is there a secondary crime? Saying list immediate thing you
(22:31):
have to consider is maybe she was on her way
to work, or she was out away from her apartment
and something could have happened to her. Her car is missing.
Her family says she's missing. She's not been to work.
She drove a black Chevy Malibu. It had been all
over TV for two days now. In Florida, we have
a number of bodies of water. We have all kinds
(22:52):
of different places where cars can break down. Yeah, this
is millennium all right here. Tips came in. Yeah, we
think we see it over here, We think we see
it over there. Tuesday is when she disappears. When was
her car phone? Thursday morning, a neighbor who lived at
Huntington on the Green saw the news report the hinting
(23:13):
on the Green apartment complex. It's about a mile or
so east of Jennifer's apartment. The complex was yeah, it's
it's it's rougher. Come to find out a lot of
crime in the area. We went out to the apartment
complex and found Jennifer's car parked at the complex. Now
we're talking about a whole new avenue of investigation. Is
(23:36):
their hope of finding Jennifer Kesse. We need those continued
tips to be called in, and in fact, if you've
called the tip in in the last twelve years and
you don't think it's been worked quality again, please please
do that for us. Nancy Grace Killers amongst us, signing off,
(23:58):
goodbye friend,
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