Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Florida's Missing Jennifer Kesse showered and dressed for work, then vanished

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

Jennifer Kesse disappeared 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, her mom Joyce Kesse, Shaun Gurd -- whose podcast "Unconcluded" focuses on the case, and forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan. The Kesse family tells Grace why they are frustrated with the police investigation and investigator's refusal to cooperate with a private investigator they've hired to help. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Subscribe today at PIMagazine.com. Use this show's promotional code for your special discount at PIMagazine.com. Subscribe today. Use promo code Nancy for your special discount. That's promo code Nancy. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Hardly three or four days pass that I do not think about a beautiful young girl, long blonde hair, big blue eyes, the world in front of her, just starting out in her professional life.

And I also think about 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 League games, the Girl Scouts, the cookies, the this, the that, the tooth fairy, the braces. It goes on and on and on. And it's, they're not chores. They're not chores at all. They're the things you do for love. And to this day, they are still doing it for love, searching for their beautiful girl, Jennifer Kessie. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

I've been thinking about that a lot, the things you Do for Love. I want to go out first. Our guest joining us, Joseph Scott Morgan, now renowned forensics expert, author of Blood Beneath My Feet, Journey of a Southern Death Investigator, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Sean Gerd joining us. The co-producer of a wildly popular podcast

Unconcluded and special guest joining me my longtime friends Drew and Joyce Kessie Jennifer's parents I want to go first to Miss Cassie. Joyce, thank you for spending your time with me, with all of us. Just so you know, we care. We all care. There's no way we could walk a mile in your shoes but I hope sometimes knowing that we all of us listening care about Jennifer helps you in some way I don't know if it can or

not but please tell us when this odyssey started, it was just a normal day. That's how it was when my fiancé was killed. It was bright and shiny and beautiful. When I stepped out of that building at Mercer University, I had no idea what was to come that day. Please take me back, Miss Cassie, to the day that you realized Jennifer was gone? Well, I actually was at a local print shop. I was getting ready to do a presentation at work, and my phone rang, and it was Jennifer's employer wondering if there was a family emergency. And it totally took me off guard.

And I said, excuse me? And he wanted to know if there was a family emergency. And I said, no, what's the matter? And he said, they can't reach Jennifer. She didn't show up for work. And instantly I knew that something was wrong because that's not Jennifer and that started the surreal nightmare that to this day

is our life our life is dedicated to finding Jennifer now Nancy it remains sometimes i have no words for this journey and this life that we're living but it is all about jennifer and what happened to her and she gives us strength to keep pushing to find out what happened to her. You know, I think about so many things that you said are just colliding in my head right now. First of all, I smiled because I thought of you,

and I feel like I know you so well now. Yeah, I know. I thought of you at a print shop because now being at a print shop, getting ready for a presentation is something nobody, my children wouldn't even know what, what, what I was talking about, because with the iPads and this, the printer in the basement, blah, you know, they don't even know what we're talking about. You have to go to a print shop to get a presentation ready. I was just thinking about you there at the Xerox machines and trying to bind things and blow ups. And then I thought about what you said that this is your life.

You know, I have thought the very same thing so many times about, you know, when I would be in the depths of despair, when I was just alone, I could feel the presence of Keith's death. It was like a presence in the room, taking up the room. And now I try, you know, not to let that be in my life to affect my children, but it is your life. It's who you are and how you live, how you wake up every morning, what you think about. That's who you become. You know, I'm thinking about that day when you were at the print shop.

What did you do when they said that? I mean, Jennifer never missed work. Very responsible. What did you do? You're standing there with all these papers and bindings and blowups and all that, and like a, what do they say, Jackie, Kinko's or a quick copy. What did you do? Believe it or not, I was actually at a Staples,

and I had this presentation I was doing for, believe it or not, I was actually at a Staples, and I had this presentation I was doing for, believe it or not, Medicare Part D, the drug plan, and it had just rolled out 12 and a half years ago. I immediately just was in shock. And the girl at the register knew that something was wrong. I started crying and she came over and I just said, I can't. I can't. And I walked away from all of the work. I just asked her to shred it. I went to the cancer hospital That I was working at And I went to the social work office

And I told them They canceled the presentation They sat with me Until Drew drove the hour up From Bradenton And then we made that two hour trip Over to Orlando Calling police

I called all of my colleagues to say, please, you call police. I mean, it just, it still is surreal. I still cannot believe that I haven't hugged Jennifer in 12 and a half years. And that's what I miss the most. I have to tell you something, Ms. Cassie. I've spoken to you several times, but when you were just talking, I actually thought I was going to be sick to my stomach because it brings back so vividly.

It's that moment, that moment. Nobody has to tell you. When they said she didn't come to work, you knew and you just shred it and walked out. I knew it. I knew. When they told me to call Keith's family, I knew, bam, right then that he was gone. And it's such a shock.

I can hardly even remember what happened after that. And I'm thinking about you and those feelings. It's very overwhelming. So you called your husband. And where was he at that time? He was at home working in his home office. And our son, Logan, was at the gym. And ironically, Logan's car had just been put on a car transport carrier because he was in the process of moving out to California.

So he didn't have a car. So when I called Drew, Logan had taken Drew's car to the gym. He had left his phone at home. Drew didn't know the name of the gym, so Drew is like pacing. He called the Mosaic at Millennia, the complex where she lived, and asked them to please check her unit, look for her car, which they did. And they had two managers come and go into her home. Nothing looked out of place. Her suitcase was still inside the foyer of her home. And that's when the reality hit that, oh, my God, something has happened to Jennifer.

And it's funny because my initial reaction was, oh, my God, we've got to find her. For some reason, I didn't go, my mind didn't go right away to a car accident. Well, that's, I remember, Joyce, I kept thinking, I've got to get to Keith. I've got to get to Keith because I can fix it. I've got to get there. And, of course, he was out of town. And there was all sorts of mix-ups trying to, you know, rally people so I could get to where I needed to be, and then, you know, I've told this story. I saw my pastor on the other side of a desk write Bernstein Funeral Home, and it was upside down, and I read it,

and that's when I knew that there had not been an accident. I didn't know what had happened, but I knew that Keith was dead then. And Dr. Oliver hung the phone up, and I said, what happened? And he said, Keith was murdered. And like you, I didn't immediately get, I knew knew something was horribly wrong but I didn't go to there I wouldn't let my mind go there just thinking of that mix-up with your son has the car and Drew Cassie is at the house kind of trapped pacing around and you're trying to get there and he's an hour away and she's in Orlando. Just the mix up, even that is breaking my heart because the whole time you're trying to get there and you can't get there.

So you're calling the management and I'm sure they did exactly what they said, but I wouldn't believe it until I went myself and did it myself. So you get hooked up with Jennifer's dad, your husband, Drew, and you're on your way to Orlando. You're frantically calling people on the telephone. What are you guys talking about during that drive? Well, we did a lot of crying and we still do a lot of crying, but we just, we were in overdrive. We didn't know what to think. We knew something was wrong. We knew we had to find Jennifer. My one colleague for the company I was

working with Orlando is her territory and I asked her what was the weather like you know was it raining in the morning thinking well maybe her car skid off the road into the woods but but Nancy it's really strange because as I'm asking my colleagues these questions, somehow I just knew in my heart that it was not an accident. It was something that we had to find Jennifer, like we had to find her. I can't explain it, I can't. But I can explain it because Jennifer had felt uneasy in that complex, if you recall, from the workers.

And they would make leering comments and what have you. So I think maybe on some subconscious level, that must have just been bubbling under the surface so that when Jen didn't show up for work and I found out that the roads were clear that day, I just, something happened to her. Now, I can't tell you what I thought happened to her, but it wasn't a car accident. With me, in addition to Sean Gard and Joseph Scott Morgan and Jennifer's mom, her beautiful mom, Joyce Kessie, is Jennifer's dad. Drew, I just wish I could be in the room with you right now and just hold your hand just see you i don't know what that emotion is when you just want to be

with somebody in the flesh through that day to your memory and i don't know if it's been distorted over time i don't know if there are moments you can't remember that's what's happened to me and what do you recall of that morning? Well you do start to forget some things and usually there's a little minor things that you wish you could remember you know the the toned voices the last things you've said the last things you hear and what have you but as said, I worked out of my home. And I was in on Tuesdays. It was a Tuesday morning. And on Tuesdays, it was telemarketing day in my position in sales. And I usually made about 100 telephone calls looking for appointments.

And I got a call from a friend of mine who Jennifer worked at a company of a friend of ours. And he said, hey, is anything wrong with Jen? She didn't show up for work today. And I'm like, well, that's weird. No, nothing's wrong with Jen. I spoke to her last night. Let me give her a call.

I'll call you right back. And she always picks the phone up, period. It was just a rule in our house that if your mother or father calls you, we don't care where you are, you pick the phone up period it was just a rule in our house that if your mother or father calls you we don't care where you are you pick the phone up and it was the first time ever since 16 years old when we gave her her phone and she had a car probably 15 years old drew that is so funny that is the only call i will absolutely always pick up it's from my mother or before my dad went to heaven. My dad, everybody else. I'm like, let it keep, let's go to voicemail. As everybody's looking at me right now and knows.

Oh, so well at the same rule here, you know, that's the only people rain or shine, hell or high water. I would pick the phone up. So I'm just imagining you dialing that number. So you dial it. And what happens? For the first time ever, it didn't ring. It went straight into her voicemail. And when that happened, I knew something was really wrong.

So, of course, I'm trying to collect Logan, which I couldn't collect until he got home from the gym. And I'm calling Joyce saying, you know, we've got to meet up. And we're calling, obviously, the police. I'm calling Joyce saying, you know, we've got to meet up. And we're calling, obviously, the police. We're calling hospitals. We're calling jails. We're calling anywhere we think that this young woman, daughter of ours, could possibly be at the time. And you know what, Drew? Unless you're in that spot, I remember, you know, you guys know, Mr. and Ms. Cassie know, it was well over 20 years after Keith's murder that I could try to move forward, and I married David, who I'm with today.

We have our twins. Well, I guess because of what happened with Keith, I'm always freaked out when the twins or David, frankly, my mom, out of my sight. And he flew out of town, actually to your neck of the woods. And he texted when he touched down, but then I never heard his voice again. And by about midnight, you know, I had gotten the children to bed, and I didn't hear from him. I'm like, did somebody hit him in the head in the parking lot? Did he ever even make it out of the parking deck at the airport?

Do you know I got my friend Dee on the phone? We stayed up that night, believe it or not, until 5 in the morning, and I didn't know any hotel numbers, any hospital numbers, anything. When you're trying to find somebody, it's hard. We were on multiple devices looking up numbers, trying to call. Finally found him in the big lug and had dinner and fallen asleep in his clothes. He was so tired because he'd been up since 4 in the morning. And I finally got a manager to go to his room and bam on the door

to make sure that he was okay and when you're trying to do that it's you don't have the number or you can't find this you can't you're running out of places to look I can just see you two in the car trying to call hospitals trying to call sheriffs trying to call, trying to call hospitals, trying to call sheriffs, trying to call police, trying to call friends. And it's just a big mishmash of confusion. Were you guys doing this in the car as you drove? Yeah, we were. I was driving about 90 miles up Route 4, just trying to get there. Yes, we needed to get there.

And all along the way, we were, you know, we were talking to people. And as Joyce said, we had the management company go in there and nothing seemed wrong whatsoever. And when we arrived, you know, we did get the sheriff and we were no sooner at the front door of the sheriff's office that they called us on the phone and said, hey, it's not us. It's Orlando police. Go to our condo. We'll have somebody meet you. And our first uniformed officer, Officer Kudre, I remember his name to this day, looked at us in the face after looking around her condo and said, she had a fight with her boyfriend. She'll be back.

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If your personal info appears for sale on the dark web, you'll be the first to know. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. Our first uniformed officer, Officer Kudre, I remember his name to this day, looked at us in the face after looking around her condo and said, she had a fight with her boyfriend. She'll be back. And he walked out. And that was our first experience with law enforcement trying to help us. And we tried to express to Officer Kudre that that's not what happened. That something very wrong has happened because we know our daughter. And it probably took us about another four to five hours that night

of calling people who knew people who knew people in Orlando before we finally got to the proper person who said, maybe we need to take a look at this. I cannot believe you lost five hours. We were on the corners at 4.30 in the afternoon with fires we made. Oh, my stars. That must have broken your heart. And the frustration of getting there.

Oh, beyond frustrating. I mean, beyond frustrating. And being told that, and the cop just walks off. Oh, yeah. And being told that, and the cop just walks off. Oh, okay. When you get there, when you drive up to her condo in Orlando, the Orlando area, that was a nice condo community. Very nice. Upscale.

They were having a lot of construction. You know how once a condo community or apartments do well, they suddenly have, quote, phase two. And the next thing you turn around, there's phase three and phase four. And pretty soon there's no trees and no lake and no sawgrass. There's nothing but condos. Anyway, her condo community was really nice, convenient. You drive in, you get to her place what did you see we saw an empty parking spot um so we said okay she must have made it out or well you know it was locked it was it was locked well the condo the condo was locked but i mean we had the management going before we came ah so you didn't really know okay so it was locked somebody locked but again again nothing was out of place her bathroom was just a sheer mess because that's what she does when she gets ready.

But everything else in her entire condo was just totally in place. So we knew something. See, that's funny you would say that. Joseph Scott Morgan with me. Sean Gerd with me. Joe Scott, my children that you know very well, Lucy's bathroom, they've got tiny, little, bitty bathrooms off their bedroom. And when Lucy gets out, and she is the organized one who's always taking notes

and very meticulous, her bathroom looks like a cyclone hit it. John David, who's the mayor of Funville, his bathroom is absolutely perfectly in place. So if I found them opposite, I would think they had switched bathrooms. So when he says her bathroom looked just like it did when she always gets ready for work, that's the way Lucy's is going to be. It's the way it is in the morning before school. That means something, Joe Scott. It means something.

Explain why little clues like that count. Yeah, I think you're right. And just as Mr. Kesey had said, you know, this is not something new relative to Jennifer. That's something that is unique to her that he is obviously recognized as her dad. You know, and, you know, I'm sure over the years they've had discussions about it, as I have with my children. But it is a clue because it's something that's familiar. It's something that is expected.

It's not out of the norm. And so, yeah, I think that that gives you the impression that, you know, the place was being lived in, that she had been there. Well, it gives me a timeline. It gives me a timeline, Joe Scott. You and I talk about that all the time. Sean Gerd, Unconcluded co-producer, podcast devoted to Jennifer Kessie. Sean, that tells me she got up that morning and confused and messy does not mean ransacked because the rest of the home, the condo was not ransacked.

That tells me that's my timeline. She got up as normal at whatever time that would be. She got in there. She got ready. And that's what that starts my timeline, Sean Gerd. Yeah, I think so. I think that when you look at it, that's the initial question. But, you know, I think that it's one of the things with Jennifer's disappearance

that a lot of people talk about is, is that initial timeline? And when was she taken? Or when did she disappear? Was it the morning? Or was it the night? And all those little clues that at home, you know, that the couch surfing sleuth tries to look at is those things, you know, the bathroom was messy. So that probably means that she, you know, got up and used it in the morning, but you know, people let their minds wander and they start thinking about, well, maybe someone staged it that way or someone was familiar. So they could put it that way.

And I think that you can go a million different ways, but if you kind of take things for the face value and look at them and think about, okay, this is what this is saying, I think I agree with you. Yeah, it would look like that she kind of did her normal routine that morning and after that point. Mr. Kessie, Drew Kessie, as I recall, the shower was still damp, and that would rule out her having left it messy the night before. One other thing, too, Nancy, is I've never known Jennifer to take a shower at night, ever. Ever. Period. Ah, really? Does she take a bath at night, or just she she takes bath in the morning and that's it?

She showers strictly, strictly showers and strictly in the morning. Okay. See, that's another thing that when you know somebody. See, my children are the reverse. They take a shower and a bath, sadly a very long one, every night. And it would be, you know, a stroke of, like, it'd have to be one of the seven plagues before they'd take one in the morning before school. Okay.

That's another thing that you know, which means, in my mind, just human nature. She had to have been in there that morning. So, Mr. Kessie, what else did you observe in the condo other than you think she got up on time and took her shower to go to work? Right. She had, and she was known for this too, even at home. She would take out outfits of her liking for the next day, and she would choose one of them to put on the following morning. And we did have a couple outfits sitting on her bed when we went into her bedroom. So she did take out outfits to pick one, obviously, she was wearing. She did have her pepper spray, which she always carried.

It was sitting right on a counter inside her front door. And we truly believe that was left there because she could not take it to St. Croix with her, that they would have confiscated that getting on the plane. That's right. She was just getting back from a trip, a vacation trip, and her bags were still sitting there. I want to ask you a question about the clothing. So her clothing was still lying on her

bed. You said she laid out her clothing at night. Would she have left it laying out on the bed? Yes. Yes, she would have. No. What, Joyce? No, babe. I'm sorry. Well, she would have it. She laid it out in the morning. Okay. So that makes more sense to me. She would lay out several different outfits. And it's interesting because the outfit, her color scheme of the day was tan and black because those were the outfits that were laying on the bed. ask that obscure question i thought well she laid it out at night what did she sleep under the covers with the clothes on top because that didn't make sense to me because she may have kicked him off onto the floor during the night and that made me think well does that affect the timeline did she lay him out the night before and that's when she got taken that that's why I asked now that makes sense to me so you find nothing else unusual within her condo and the management tells you her door was locked all right let me figure out Joyce Kessie do you

agree with Drew's rendition so far yes so then what happened, Joyce? Then my friends and family started arriving at Jen's condo. And my brother immediately went to, I think it was a Kinko's, and took a picture of Jennifer and put it on. He created a flyer so that at 430 on the day that she didn't show up for work we already had people standing on the street corners of the intersection that Jennifer would go through and come home from work so we already had people passing out her flyers. The other interesting thing, we blanketed her condo complex. Now it was the apartment to condo conversion. But we, every car, every door, every mailbox station, we taped flyers. What I think is extremely noteworthy is the next morning, probably two-thirds of the workers didn't show up. Now, we found out during the course of the investigation that the complex was knowingly letting workers, and many of whom were illegal,

stay in empty apartments that hadn't gone through the conversion yet. And I think that when we blanketed that complex with flyers, I think that they bolted, and that's why they didn't show up for work the next day, nor the subsequent days. There was only a small portion of the crew. I've got to tell you something, Joyce. When you just said that, I got this just horrible feeling in my chest and my stomach.

I just, I've looked at this case so many times. I just believe very strongly that one of those workers is involved in her disappearance. Oh, I do too. It's not the boyfriend. It's not the boss. It's not the neighbor next door. It's so many things over the years and from my initial investigation into Jennifer's disappearance I really believe that so let me just see if I can rule out who were potential potential persons of interest Joyce and my, when this initially happened, I initially went to thinking that it was one of the workers.

For a while, I thought, could she have been human trafficked? I go back and forth, but I still say that whatever happened occurred by one of the workers. Now, why is that, Drew? What evidence? With me, Drew and Joyce Kesey, Jennifer's mom and dad, Sean Gerd from the wildly popular Unconcluded podcast and renowned forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan and author, A Blood Beneath My Feet. Drew, what indicators do we have that it's not the boyfriend, it's not the boss, it's not the delivery, pizza delivery guy, it not the the unit manager were they ruled out if so why well they're not ruling out anyone right now and i don't think we can rule out anyone right now however over the

years when you start digging into every single we probably have four or five people that we've put in situations where, well, could be. And you take the time personally, as well as hopefully law enforcement, which I don't know what they do, but you hope that they take the time to truly go through each and every one of these people and not only once. But when you look at the opportunity, I think you can pin it down to two or three people and then you start breaking them apart and you look at more opportunity. Someone we believe think had to take her would be construction. Someone there. There's too many of them. There's too many illegals.

And there's too many, you know, Nancy, I think we know how trafficking works. Sometimes when you get into this country, you have a bill to pay. And you have to pay more when you get to this country. And maybe it was just someone working there that said, there's what you want. She's right there. She's alone. She comes in this time. She goes out that time.

There she is. And that's all you need from a construction worker. Because I truly do believe that Jennifer was trafficked or attempted trafficking because of absolutely she's vanished. And when you put million-dollar rewards out several times, half a million, quarter of a million, 100,000, whatever, and nothing comes out of that area, nothing, people didn't know the person who came in and did the job and did the work that was needed.

But I do believe that it was someone on that campus, on her home premises, that said, there's the one you want. Now, why is it? Joyce, do you agree with that theory? You know, on any given day I do, because how we know that aliens didn't abduct Jennifer. So I don't – I agree with Drew on some days that that's what happened. And on other days when my mind goes to the really dark, dark places,

I think that it was just some construction worker that, for whatever reason, decided that Jennifer should be taken. And it defies my logic because if she was murdered, wouldn't we have found her by now? Wouldn't we have found some clues? I mean, other than the car being found two days after she was abducted, nothing of hers has been found or used. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the car, the vehicle. To Sean Gerd joining me from Podcast Unconcluded.

Sean, tell me about the discovery of Jennifer's vehicle. Yeah, so, I mean, like Joyce said, it was a couple days after her disappearance, and just about a mile down the road, it was Huntington on the Green, her car was found. And it was on video. There was a grainy video, and I think the police probably were thinking they got lucky because of that video. But as I'm sure you're aware, the video ends up being really not very helpful because there's a bar in front of this person's face in every frame of the video ends up being really not as very helpful because there's a bar in front of this person's face in every frame of the video. And the video is kind of every half second or every second clip,

so it's kind of like still images combined together instead of a fluid video. But just, Joyce, you had told me this before, just, I mean, the most incredibly lucky criminal to walk through that video for 30 seconds and not one single shot of their face. And I'm incredibly lucky for them and just incredibly unfortunate for Jennifer. Just to recap on who Jennifer is, she graduated Vivian Gaither High School, Tampa, Florida. She attended University of Central Florida in Orlando. She graduated with great grades with a degree in finance.

She became a member of a very exclusive sorority, in fact, the first sorority ever founded on U.S. soil, Adi Pi, Alpha Delta Pi sorority ever founded on U.S. soil ADPi, Alpha Delta Pi sorority. In fact, her sorority has led many, many volunteer searches to try to find Jennifer. Now, she had recently bought the condo, and she was working at an investment timeshare company. She was a finance manager. She had been on vacation in St. Croix. She got back safely. After she got back, she drove straight to her home. And well, she went first to her boyfriend's home and then she came home to

her condo that very same day. Now, let's figure this out. She was last seen the evening of 6 p.m. leaving her place of employment. Okay? She made several calls to family and friends the last around 10 p.m. to her boyfriend. She would always call or text her boyfriend every morning on her way to work. She did not that morning. We know that. And that dovetails with everything Drew and Joyce Kessie are telling us. Drew says she always picked up the phone when family called. She did not pick up the phone that morning. Her parents get there. It's a two-hour drive through hell for the parents. They get there. They drop everything and go. They immediately notice her car is gone, but they get inside. They

see nothing's out of the ordinary. There was even a wet towel in the bathroom, from the bathroom, clothes laid out. The flyers go out everywhere. There was a massive search. I remember joining the investigation and publicizing Jennifer's disappearance over and over and over. There were horses. There were boats. There were ATVs. There were helicopters.

Volunteer search. Professional searches. You name it. Right now, we still do not know where is Jennifer. The car, Joe Scott Morgan, let's talk about her vehicle, where it turned up, why, what does that mean to us? Weigh in, Joe Scott. Yeah, the car is significant in the fact that it was someone had access to the keys.

I'd like to ask Drew and Joyce, was this car that she had, first off, what type of car was it? Chevy Malibu. Chevy Malibu. Okay. What happened to the car after it was discovered relative to your family and the police? The police actually came to the condo. We were all there, including Jennifer's boyfriend. And they said, Rob Allen, who's Jennifer's boyfriend, you're coming with us. We're going over to the car. Okay. That's easy to stay here. They wanted to see when they opened the trunk if Jennifer was going to be there and his

reaction, obviously. When they got there, they did ask him was anything unusual within the car from what he would see. And he did notice that the driver's seat was farther back than what Jennifer would have used and in a different position outside of that. He didn't see anything different. Well, we know that her car was seen on the news. People see the car on the news. It's a Chevy Malibu. And a person living at a nearby apartment complex called the police and said they think they see the car outside their apartment.

It's been there for several days. Cops get there. It's Jennifer's car. It's photographed. It's hauled to the crime lab. I personally believe that they processed it correctly. Police get all the video surveillance they can, and they see an unidentified person parking it walking away and this is important the person never looked back why is that important because we never saw the face but I believe it is

an adult male now let me go to Joyce Kessie what you, I'm sure you've seen the video over and over and over. And Sean was right. There's an obstruction to the video. You can't get a very brief glance. What do you make of that video? Joyce, what do you believe you see? You know,

I just kind of got a little deja vu of the first time that the police showed us the still photos. And my initial reaction was, it looks like a teenager because the arms and feet were long. They looked disproportionate to the rest of the body. And I remember that was my immediate reaction. And I guess it's, you know, I've been a nurse for 40 years. I don't know if that's where I zeroed in on that or what,

but in my heart of hearts, do I think that the person who parked her car is the one who harmed Jennifer? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's a part of me that feels that that person was just never having looked back over their shoulder. I can't help but think that that person may have been paid to park the car.

I'm looking at the person right now, and all you can see, believe me, guys, is saying that the guy's face, it's a guy, is obstructed. He parks the car, and he's walking along behind a black wrought iron fence, the type you would see around a condo community to make sure people didn't trespass and the few seconds he's happening he happens to walk by where there's the actual gate and so his face is kind of obscured by all the black metal what do you call those the The poles from the back. Yes, the poles, the poles, the spindles. You can't, all I can see are his legs, his arms, and a tiny bit of the side of his head. That's it. Even I, who desperately want to make out who it is, I can't tell. His face is obscured by the fencing. And it was taking a photo every three seconds.

So, Drew, Cassie, when you learned that the car has been found and that there is video surveillance, I know your heart leapt. Then what happened? We were shown, obviously, the pictures by the police, and they asked us, does this look familiar to any of you? It was like, no, not a clue. Then our detectives at that time first said that, well, we said, let's put this out.

I mean, somebody's got to know this person. Let's find them. And our first detective said, there's no way anybody's going to see this film. We're like, what do you mean? He's like, nope, nobody's seeing this film because when we catch the person, that's how we're going to catch them. And after, I think it was a week or what have you with no leads and we're 12 and a half

years later and we're like, no leads. They finally changed detectives and the new detective said, we're going to put this out, and they did. And it's still a mystery from that day. NASA has enhanced that film. The film that you see is the enhanced film from NASA. And also, I believe, Target or Walmart, their missing persons department, got to the film, too. And that's the best we can do. To this day, we've tried to improve that film, and it's just no such thing as improving that film.

What we have is the best we're doing. Have they tried to get an estimate, Drew, regarding the height and the weight of the person based on what's around them, like a tree or a fence post? Yeah, FBI came out and did a lot of tests on that as well as the police. And they came up with the person between 5'3 and 5'6. Since then, Orlando police have gone back out and did their own and what have you. And honestly, we have to throw that height out. It has been a discrepancy since it's been done. So we have to take that five foot three to five foot six.

We just got to take that out of our minds. And we just have to say, that's the person. We really don't know. And that's the person. We really don't know. And that's... We also know that valuables were found inside her black Chevy Malibu and that suggests the robbery was not a motive. We also know the vehicle was parked

that day around noon, the same day Jennifer goes missing. A search dog tracked the scent from the car back to Jennifer's apartment complex. Right or wrong, that leads police to think the suspect went back to Jennifer's apartment parking lot after leaving the car. Investigators also think the car had been wiped down. Who would think to do that? Items known missing, her iPod, her purse, her briefcase, her keys, her cell phone, and the outfit that she was wearing. In fact, investigators could not ping her cell phone as it remained off and her banking account was never used so what does that tell us joyce kessie tells me that jennifer was the object perhaps of someone's desire desire because things don't disappear. People don't

disappear and it's just so painful so raw to think that all of these years later we still don't know what happened. Let me ask you this Joyce. Do you believe that Jennifer years later, we still don't know what happened. Let me ask you this, Joyce. Do you believe that Jennifer is alive somewhere today? I have to believe that, Nancy.

I have a lot of hope. I have more hope than I have fear. But if I didn't have hope, I don't think that I would be functional. So I hope I'm not a stupid person. I understand that statistically, the chances of Jennifer being found alive are slim. But I'm going to say to you, one mother to another, miracles happen, Nancy. Who is to say that Jennifer is not going to be the next miracle who's found? J.C. Dugard, it was 19 years and she was found. You had those three girls in Ohio, 14 years.

So I oftentimes think to myself, what kind of mother would I be if I were to just go on with thinking that Jennifer has been murdered. And then how would I feel if it turns out that she's a lucky miracle and is found alive? So I prefer... Joyce, miracles do happen. They do. They happen every single day. And I want that miracle in Jennifer's case.

The tip line to help us find Jennifer is 407-246-3982. Repeat, 407-246-3982. Please speak with Detective Teresa Sprague. Miracles happen, and we are asking for a miracle today. If you have any information, please dial 407-246-3982. Our prayers go on. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. Did you know a recent law can leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've

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