Disappearance of Jennifer Kesse

Jennifer Kesse
Jennifer in January 2006 before her disappearance
Born	Jennifer Joyce Kesse (1981-05-23)May 23, 1981 New Jersey, U.S.
Disappeared	January 24, 2006 (aged 24) Orlando, Florida, U.S
Status	Missing for 18 years, 11 months and 9 days
Nationality	American
Education	University of Central Florida
Known for	Missing person
Height	5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Father	Drew Kesse

Jennifer Joyce Kesse (born May 20, 1981) is an Orlando woman who has been missing since January 24, 2006, and who is considered to have been abducted. Investigators, baffled by her disappearance, have undertaken more than one aggressive search for Jennifer in the area surrounding her condominium residence. Shortly after she vanished, her car, that had likewise disappeared when she did, was uncovered at a nearby apartment complex, not much more than a mile from her home. Regarding her fate, no hard evidence has been made known, neither fingerprints lifted, DNA taken, cellphone location pinged, or otherwise. However, footage from a local security camera did capture an unidentified person in the act of parking Jennifer's car and of walking away. The case received widespread state and national press attention at the time of her disappearance.

Events prior

A graduate of Vivian Gaither High School in Tampa, Florida, Jennifer attended the University of Central Florida in Orlando, graduating in 2003 with a degree in finance. She was a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority (her former sorority sisters have led many searches to find Jennifer). Before she she went missing, she had recently bought a condominium home for herself and was working at Central Florida Investments Timeshare Company as a finance manager. The weekend before she vanished, she had visited Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, with her boyfriend on vacation. After returning from the island getaway, on the morning of January 23, 2006, Jennifer drove straight from the house of her boyfriend in South Florida to her place of work in Ocoee, Florida, and then returned home to her condominium in Orlando later that evening.

Disappearance

On January 23, 2006, at approximately 6 p.m., Jennifer was seen for the last time leaving her work, Westgate Resorts in Ocoee. That evening, she placed several calls to family and friends, the last of which to her boyfriend at around 10 PM. Routinely, Jennifer would call or text her boyfriend on her morning drive to work to chat and wish him a good day. On the morning of January 24, however, she never called or texted. Any call to Jennifer's phone went straight to voicemail. When Jennifer failed to arrive at work that morning, her employer contacted her parents, who immediately made the two-hour drive from their home to hers. Her parents noticed that her car was missing; but upon entering her condo, they saw nothing that looked out of the ordinary. Evidence at her residence, including a wet towel and clothes laid out, indicated that Jennifer was at home the morning of January 24 and had showered and prepared to dress for work. Friends and family began passing out fliers of her that evening, and the Orlando Police Department began organizing search parties to scout the surrounding area on foot, horseback, boat, helicopter, and ATV.

Timeline

Timestamps are approximate and based on witness statements.

Monday, January 23, 2006

• 6:00 p.m. – Jennifer gets off work and arrives at her home, for the first time since she left it for a vacation in the Virgin Islands. She also calls her parents in what is the last time any of her family ever hears from her.
• 10:00 p.m. – Jennifer and her boyfriend talk awhile on the phone and then say their goodnights. He is the last known person to speak with Jennifer before her sudden disappearance.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

• 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. – Investigators initially believed that Jennifer was abducted in the process of walking from her condo to her car to leave for work. They now believe that she was abducted at some point after she left and was on her way.
• 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. – Jennifer's boyfriend, who normally would have heard from her by this time, phones her on his way to work, but his call goes directly to voicemail. Her boyfriend assumes Jennifer must be in a meeting, seeing as she had spoken to him about one of her upcoming ones previously. His next attempt to get ahold of her, after a 9 a.m. meeting of his ends, meets with the exact same result as before. He carries on occupied with work until later that morning when Jennifer's parents call him with news that can only have come as a bombshell, that Jennifer had failed to show up for her job.
• 11:00 a.m. – That she should be a no call, no show for her shift, let alone for the important meeting she had that morning, raises alarm bells among her coworkers. Management contacts her parents and both concur that something is awry. Calls to Jennifer go directly to her voicemail, without fail, suggesting her phone is powered down. Her parents immediately make race from their Tampa home to get to the Orlando residence of their daughter. On the way, they get Jennifer's condominium manager on the phone and avail on him to breach her front door using a spare key. Then he informs them that everything looks normal inside her home, but that Jennifer's car has vanished just as surely as she has.
• 12:00 p.m. – Surveillance footage at an apartment complex, only 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from Jennifer's home, captures an unidentified person parking her car as well as striding away. The car and the surveillance tape are not actually discovered, though, until two days from the timestamp of the footage on Thursday, January 26, 2006.
• 3:00 p.m – 3.15 p.m. – Jennifer's parents arrive, followed shortly afterward by her brother. They find that it appears as if Jennifer had been there that morning and had been preparing to go to work. They noticed her bed with work clothes on it, a wet towel, her pajamas on the bathroom floor, along with her hair dryer and make-up products around the bathroom sink. When Jennifer's parents notify the police, they initially feel that she may have left of her own will, such as to get some breathing space after a fight with her boyfriend, but that she would return soon enough, as is common in cases where the missing is a legal adult. Jennifer's friends and family will go on to use her condominium unit as a base of operations for the next eight months.
• 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. – Family and friends distribute fliers showing Jennifer's picture to the locals and saturate the area with them. The police start to take her disappearance seriously and send a detective to her home. Police begin their interrogations as well as searches for Jennifer and her car.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

• 8:10 a.m. – On seeing Jennifer's car on the news, a tenant at a nearby apartment complex informs the police that a car of that description has sat abandoned in front of their apartment for several days now. Police arrive and confirm that it is, in fact, Jennifer's 2004 Chevy Malibu. The vehicle is then photographed and hauled to the crime-lab for forensic examination. Police confiscate local surveillance footage and from it discover an unidentified person seen parking Jennifer's car, walking away, never looking back. This turned out to be the strongest lead in the case; further, it confirmed the possibility of foul play.

Investigation

The person of interest who parked Jennifer's car was captured by a surveillance camera which snapped a photo once every three seconds. To the dismay of investigators, all three captures of the subject in frame had the suspect's face obscured by the fencing.

With no sign of forced entry nor of any struggle, investigators theorized that on the morning of January 24 Jennifer left her condo for work, locked the front door, and was abducted at some point as she was walking to her car, if not as she was getting into it. Two days later, on January 26, 2006, around 8:10 a.m.,Jennifer's black 2004 Chevy Malibu was found parked at another condo complex a mile from her own. Investigators were initially excited to learn that several hidden cameras of the complex surveilled the spot where her car was parked as well as the exit. The surveillance video shows an unidentified "person of interest" dropping off the vehicle at approximately noon the day that Jennifer went missing. Family and friends of Jennifer did not recognize the individual, whose physical features were not made clear on the video. Investigators were disheartened when it dawned on them that the best video capture of the subject, in three separate snapshots, was obscured by the complex fencing, concealing the face. One journalist called the suspect, "The luckiest person of interest ever". The FBI was called in to help determine the person's size and gender, but could only say that the person stood anywhere from 5'3" to 5'5". NASA also assisted in the investigation by enhancing the video to help in identifying the suspect. Investigators interpreted the valuables left inside the vehicle to imply that robbery was not a motive in Jennifer's disappearance. A search dog tracked a scent from the car back to her apartment complex, leading investigators to believe that the suspect returned to her apartment's parking lot after leaving the car. No other evidence was found along the route. After the forensic examination of her car, only two pieces of evidence were found: a latent print and a small DNA fiber. Investigators conjectured that the car had been wiped down. The items which are known to be missing are her cell phone, her iPod, her keys, her purse, her briefcase, and the outfit she was wearing. Investigators were unable to ping her cellphone, its power remaining off; and her banking account card has not been used since her disappearance.

Investigators first questioned her family and close friends to see if anyone could have a possible motive for abducting her. Her ex-boyfriend, recently upset and wanting to get back together with her, was also interrogated. Investigators ultimately concluded that he had nothing to do with her abduction. Her current boyfriend at the time was also questioned, but his alibi checked out and eliminated him as a suspect too. At the time of her abduction, Jennifer's condominium complex was undergoing major expansion and construction, and many of the laborers employed were undocumented immigrants who dwelt in the complex. Jennifer had told her family on several occasions that the workers would continually harass and catcall her. Investigators tried to interrogate many of them but it proved to be very difficult and no other leads were discovered. Investigators then turned to her place of employment and began questioning her coworkers. Her computer was also taken for forensic examination. It was learned that one of her coworkers, in management, wanted to pursue a relationship with her, to which she declined as she was against workplace relationships. Investigators interviewed him multiple times only to conclude that he is not a suspect in the case. Investigators and Jennifer's friends and family remain open to the theory that she fell victim to human trafficking, but consider the scenario rather less than likely than others.

In May 2007, her company led by David A. Siegel offered a $1-million reward with a July 4 deadline for information leading to Jennifer's whereabouts, with the stipulation that she had to be alive. It was never claimed. A $5,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of her remains was available through Central Florida Crimeline. The case received state and national press attention at the time of her disappearance, and Kesse is still considered missing and endangered by Orlando Police Department, FBI, Orange County Police, FDLE, NCIC, NCMA, and Interpol. On May 2, 2008, the Florida House of Representatives unanimously passed Senate Bill 502, "The Jennifer Kesse and Tiffany Sessions Missing Persons Act", changing the way missing-persons cases are handled in Florida. As of June 10, 2010, the FBI has taken over the case of Jennifer from the Orlando Police Department at the urging of police chief Val Demings. She remains on the FBI's Most Wanted/Missing List. The latest search for her took place in February 2014 and investigators continue to receive leads to this day.

See also

• Cold case (an unsolved criminal case)
• List of people who disappeared

External links

• Website put together by Friends and Family
• Jennifer Kesse Missing Persons Profile on "FBI.gov"
• Jennifer Kesse Missing Persons Profile on Interpol
• CBS News article – Stolen Beauty
• CBS News 48 Hours Mystery video – Stolen Beauty