Crime Weekly - S3 Ep353: Jennifer Kesse Case No Longer Cold Due to A.I. and DNA!

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Nearly two decades after Jennifer Kesse vanished from her Orlando condo in January 2006, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has announced significant progress. Previously untested DNA evidence has been discovered and the pool of persons of interest has been narrowed down to just a few individuals, leading the family to say the case is “no longer cold”. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levaser. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And before we get into the update with Jennifer Kessie, I just wanted to mention quickly, Criminal Coffee, Halloween hoodies. We do have a very small stock available right now. I know there's a lot of people who put the notify button out there, but every time we fulfill those orders, more people get, you know, the notification set up for them. So we do apologize.

It was a limited run. This will be our last run for the season. But it was a huge success. So we'll be coming out with similar designs and also this probably same design next year. So thank you all for the love and support. It exceeded any expectations we had, hence why I put in one more small run. But that's all we could get done before Halloween's here. and, you know, we didn't want to get them to you in Christmas. So thank you, everyone. If you're seeing this, they're already available on the website. And there's a good chance that they might already even be sold out at this point.

Because I'm recording this with Stephanie on a Monday. They're live right now. So people who already have their notifications on are probably checking out. And you got to follow us on Instagram, drink criminal coffee on Instagram. So you should be following that. If you're really into it, that way you're one of the first people to get that notification. That's all I had. Okay, so let's talk about why we're really here.

January 2006, 24-year-old Jennifer Kessie vanished from her Orlando condominium without a trace. Nearly 20 years later, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has announced that the case is no longer cold. And that's thanks to new DNA evidence, an AI review of the investigation, and a dramatically shortened list of persons of interest. So tonight, we're going to dive into those changes, why this case may be. finally turn a corner and what it means for Jennifer's family. Because for anybody who doesn't know, we've already covered this case. We did a crime weekly series on it. We talked about potential persons of interest slash suspects. And I believe at the end of that series, we said it's going to take updates and science and technology. We didn't know what DNA had already been tested and what

technology was used to test it. So now with these advancements, just like a lot of the cases we cover, same DNA. Nothing's changed as far as the evidence. but with these advancements, now you can take smaller amounts of DNA and extract more information. So this is not only great for Jennifer's family, but also any other family that has the hope that one day their case will be solved using a similar technology. Yeah, so this is obviously, you know, not only due to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who took over the case from Orlando police. Yes, which was big. Yeah, thank God. But also to Jennifer's family, specifically her father, Drew Kessie, who as we know, we talked about this in our series,

Drew has never stopped, will never stop. Nope. Trying to figure out what's going on and what happened with Jennifer. And he has really kept this case alive. He goes on all the podcasts. He, you know, talks about her case all the time, so he's really kept her name alive. And it was Drew Kessie, who has announced that investigators told the family, Jennifer's case is no longer considered cold.

All DNA evidence in the case has been sent back for reexamination using newer technology. And Drew Kessie said that DNA testing has. has expanded from 19 markers to 26 markers since the original investigation. So that's big. That's huge. Huge. That's a lot. And it could definitely move the marker.

And like Derek said, when he first introduced this case in this video, the suspect list is now narrowed down to just a few individuals and most likely that's because of these increase in DNA markers which helped rule out some of those people. So investigators are now working with an artificial intelligence company to analyze the case files. Drew Kessi said he had been asking investigators for two years to try AI technology. And he said, quote, we were advised in July that they are now with a very reputable AI company that is handling the entire case. End quote. He said that the technology is being used to analyze all available information about Jennifer's disappearance.

This includes the grainy surveillance footage that captured an unidentified person. parking Jennifer's car. I think we just mentioned this last week when we were filming our episode where I said, someone gets lucky by they go past the fence post. And then that that was the case and you said Jennifer Cassie. That's crazy. That's right. Now, Drew Cassie also said that three production companies have approached the Cassie family about creating a documentary. They have selected one group and are currently in production. Yeah. And then Drew Cassie said, quote, to be up front and honest, I want Netflix. I think it's just the biggest audience, end quote. So I don't know if that means they're working with Netflix because he said, I want Netflix. But yeah, how do you think

they're doing this with the AI? Are you think they're just taking the entire case file, putting it into AI, and then basically putting in the right prompts to have what is happening. Yeah. Well, well, first off, shout out to Jennifer's entire family. I believe it was Bill Gilmore, her uncle, who actually reached out to me, sent me his book. He wrote a book about Jennifer's case. So this whole family, including her father, Drew, they just, just, they're not going to give up. They're not going to give up until they know what happened and who's responsible and that person's held accountable.

So kudos to them. They dedicated their lives to it. It's amazing. To answer your question with the AI, I'd be lying if I said I knew exactly what they were doing, but I think we've all used chat GBT at this point. And we understand, at least on a surface level, how powerful the tool really is. And there's probably ways that they're using it through different algorithms that have been developed by smarter people than you and I, where they're able to up,

load the entire case because it's been digitized. And that AI tool is able to analyze any patterns or conflicts in the entire, however, you know, 1,600 page report in a matter of seconds. So instead of having a human person or a bunch of human people all go through and read it themselves and maybe they're tired on one day or they miss a page or they miss something in there that was important, the computer will not miss it. So if there's an anomaly or something that indicates a certain person who gave a witness statement that we don't even know about, where it contradicts, there's obviously someone, it's not chat EBT they're using. No, no, yeah.

They're using something, I think, specifically for law enforcement purposes, yeah. And something that we might not even be completely familiar with yet because they don't want it out there, but yes, I can't imagine the capabilities. I would love to get my hands on that. I'll tell you that much. Everyone's got a pro. Need tires? I've got a pro.

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Like registering your business starting at $49 with owner and opening your first RBC business account starting at just $6 a month. Visit rbc.com forward slash your business to learn more. This is what we talk about all the time though. Like between AI and the advancements in the DNA analyzing of any type of evidence, they have, it's going to be really, really hard. We're not Minority Report level yet, but we're getting, we're on the path. Like, it's going to be damn near impossible for someone because if they had all this

technology when this happened in 2006, I believe this guy's already caught. So they got a video of them. So listen, I just watched Megan 2.0 yesterday last night. And it's kind of like stuck in my head now because when you just said that, like, AI is really going to have a hand in the future in helping solve cases. And I just thought, like, well, chat GPT is going to be testifying in court, but they wouldn't have chat GPT testifying in court. They would like make a robot that looks like a human to have that thing testify on behalf of chat GPT. But yeah, I did look it up. You all the software developers,

that's for sure. Yeah. And I looked it up and it said, hey, you know, basically running the entire case file through chat GPT is like having one detective who knows everything about the case. And it's not spread out over, you know, different case files and different detectives' heads. And what it can do is it can process massive digital data sets. So everything, right? And then the algorithms can identify hidden patterns and links between seemingly unrelated cases or pieces of evidence, which might suggest new avenues for investigations. So maybe something a police officer or a police task force might come up with eventually chat GPT or whatever AI they're using can bring it really quickly. And they have AI-powered facial recognition that can scan large databases of photos and videos to identify potential suspects, even when their appearance has changed significantly over time.

They also have advances in AI-driven genetic genealogy that are helping to analyze DNA evidence and link into suspects in cases where traditional methods have failed. They have a lot of stuff that they're specifically tailoring towards a law enforcement sort of methodology, which is. is interesting. Now, obviously. AI can also enhance that video that we have. They can enhance that video to make it current with the technology we have today as far as the resolution. They may be able to enhance it and see something in there that hasn't been seen before. I don't know how well that'll stand up in court though. You know, if you're like the defense person, the defense attorney for this person, you're probably going to say, hey, like this was, this is technology that's still so new. Yeah. Still sort of untested. And additionally, we don't know what. It would have to be

overwhelming. Yeah, it would have to have supporting evidence, not just that, yeah. But back to what you were just talking about, because in addition to being able to process, you know, one detective, like it basically acts as one detective processing everything in a matter of seconds and also comparing it to every other case that's been uploaded to the software as well, where they can immediately recognize certain patterns. MOs, yeah. Here's the difference. I hate to say this, but it's the truth. We as human beings, detectives, we have things going on in our personal lives. We may be in a bad mood that day. We may have certain biases that we're not even aware of. We may not remember something that was told to us seven years ago in another case

in another jurisdiction. AI doesn't have any of those problems. It only sees the data points. It doesn't get tired. It has an objective and it will complete that objective. It doesn't, it doesn't care what's going on at home or if its kids are failing math. That's right. It sounded too personally. But it's ability to do what we may take months to do with 20 guys is incredible. And it's so new. It's so new. And it can go through and weed out all the bad stuff, focus on the actual data points, and probably spit out some answers that may already be in line with certain persons of interest that they've already identified. And now this is just corroborating that evidence that they've already had. So I can't wait to see where this goes. I,

thought this case was going to be solved years ago. This is my final takeaway on this. I'm happy to see it's going to be with a production company, Netflix, whatever it might be. I've always believed it's not going to be word of mouth that solves this case. It's going to be the advancements in science and technology. I think there's enough there. They just haven't identified that person yet. And we know it's a small pool of people.

When I say small, I mean, relatively speaking, it's got to be someone who was working there, living there, was in that area because it happened right outside her apartment, right? So we know that there's a smaller pool than just it could be anybody, right? And if someone hasn't come forward yet to say, this is my cousin or whatever, I don't think it's going to happen. And I don't think that a documentary is going to do it. It doesn't hurt. I think the more eyes and ears, the better, just like Amy Bradley, right? But I think at the end of the day, this is going to be what solves it, not some documentary,

regardless of how well it does or how many people see it. Yeah, absolutely. And according to Drew Cressy, he believes that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found a couple pieces of DNA that that hadn't been tested. So, and I think that they did say that back in the press conference they gave in July. And he said, so all that DNA is also going back through. So they're going to have a good shot here of really narrowing things down, if not solving this all together. And that's very exciting because I know that this has always been a mysterious one for you. It's always been one you wanted to see solved a course.

Yeah. did it on breaking homicide. We talked about this. I almost did it on breaking homicide. There were some battles with it where, I know this is a shocker, but Orlando PD, they were going to work with us on. I know. I'm so surprised. So we didn't want to work against them. It's easier to work with law enforcement. We had so many other cases where law enforcement was welcoming us. I mean, we went all the way to freaking Kauai. Yeah. And they were like, come on in. You know, they were all about it. So I'm happy to see for the family that they may get some answers here and most you know i want the guy who did this off the streets obviously yeah we got to see

who he is and make sure he never does it again i'm also interested to see if it's aligned with one of our theories as far as who could be the person i have a very sneaking suspicion that it is we're going to find out any other words from you this is a quicker crime weekly news it's more of an update we have a big crime weekly series that we're going to record right after this so any other things that we got to cover before we go over to that no i think we're good i'm excited to start on our series this month. I think everybody's really going to be interested. Yeah. Why don't we, why don't we tell them what it is? Why do you always want to do that? Because I can't keep a secret. I'm a horrible gift giver. You are. That's true. I am too,

kind of actually. Okay, I won't say it. I won't say it. It's BTK. Oh, no. It's BTK. Asshole. It's BTC. We're covering it. We're going to go do a deep dive. It's going to be a multi-part series. Who knows how many parts. Yeah, here's how it actually came to pass. Now that Darry, sorry talking about it. Okay. So I was, I have, obviously, everybody knows about BTK. We met his daughter at CrimeCon a few years. Yeah.

And she's, you know, very. I think we did a CWN on it as well. Yep. She's very personable, very willing to talk about it and, and her experience. Kerry, she's amazing. I was going through TikTok and then I was listening to a TikTok, which I think was like part of a documentary about BTK and I was listening and I was horrified. I was horrified.

And I was like, I know all. of this stuff, but I guess I just, I never dug deep enough to like know other things because serial killers are disturbing to me. And then I started thinking about the golden age of serial killers and how there's really not going to be anything like this again. There just can't be. Now with these advancements in AI. Yeah, you wouldn't even know at this point if somebody you're arresting for a murder or two murders would eventually go on to become a serial killer because thankfully they're getting caught before they have the chance to do that. And so I was like, I think this is a really good topic right now to talk about because this is a bygone era,

which is great. But also this case is just so horrific and there's so much to learn from it from like a law enforcement perspective. Oh, yeah. There's so much to talk about. And that's what I found out when I listened to this short TikTok, which I think was a snippet from a documentary. I was driving and just like listening to videos on my phone. But I was like, I'm hooked. So I got to look into this more.

And if I'm going to look into it more, I might as well talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I covered it on crime feed. So I do have some background in it because we went into the newer information that's come out as of late, some new drawings, things like that. So I'm looking forward to going back to day one and talking about how this all came to be and how eventually he was caught. We haven't dove into those details here or anywhere else. I haven't done it anywhere.

Yeah, because he was one of those serial killers that taunted law enforcement. That's right. And that's what ultimately did them in. And that's, I can't wait to get into it. I like when we cover a case that you feel like you know everything and we take pride in surprising you with stuff that you don't know. So looking forward to it, we appreciate you guys being with us. We'll be back later this week with BTK Part 1. But until then, everyone stay safe out there.

We'll see you soon. Bye. Starting a business comes with all kinds of firsts. First time you see your name and lights. First review that stings. First time you stop chasing the dream and start living it. You take the first leap and RBC can help with the firsts that follow. Like registering your business starting at $49 with owner

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