Going West: True Crime - Jennifer Kesse // 293

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

In January of 2006, a 24-year-old woman was last seen leaving work on a Monday evening. She was home all night, and it even appeared as if she had woken up the next morning and gotten ready for work. But when she never made it in to work that day, and wasn’t answering her phone, her family and boyfriend grew concerned. When investigators located her car parked down the street, they saw an unknown person on surveillance footage emerging from the car and walking away. This is the story of Jennifer Kesse. JENNIFER'S GOFUNDME BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Jennifer's website: http://jenniferkesse.com/ 2. GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/kasmv-help-us-find-jennifer-kesse 3. Stories of the Unsolved: https://storiesoftheunsolved.com/2022/01/20/the-disappearance-of-jennifer-kesse/#:~:text=EARLY%20LIFE%3A&text=She%20was%20the%20oldest%20of,with%20a%20thirst%20for%20knowledge. 4. Click Orlando: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2023/01/24/we-have-the-best-opportunity-to-find-jennifer-kesse-family-says-in-new-message/ 5. The Cinemaholic: https://thecinemaholic.com/where-is-jennifer-kesses-boyfriend-now/ 6. Disappeared: https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Interrupted/dp/B091XXHL94/ref=atv_pr_sw_sc?sprefix=jennifer+kesse%2Caps%2C147&keywords=jennifer+kesse&crid=68F5XNSRC7XX&qid=1678488917&sr=8-1 7. Click Orlando: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2006/09/27/playing-cards-in-jails-to-feature-missing-fla-woman/ 8. ABC 7: https://www.mysuncoast.com/2019/11/11/nothing-found-lake-despite-new-tip-about-jennifer-kesses-disappearance/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, our friend Heather from Big Mad True Crime. You guys might listen to her show, she is amazing. She reached out to me a few weeks ago and said that Jennifer's family was interested in us covering her case. And we've known about it for a long time.

And it's actually also been recommended to us by Amanda, Alison, Felicia and Laura. So thank you all so much. And of course, our hearts really go out to Jennifer's family who have been fighting for answers for years. So for them, please make sure you share Jennifer's story today. And also I just wanted to mention that I am just getting over being sick, so I may sound a little bit nasally today. But he's going to do his best.

I'm going to do my best, apologies in advance. You just being here today is awesome. But as Daphne said thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and please make sure that you share. Alright guys this is episode 293 of Going West so let's get into it. She is our flesh and blood. We created her, joy, say, I out of love. We raised her. We made her nurture her, educated her. She thought she's our love child.

How do you walk away from that? How do you walk away from anything like that? We can't. I can't. I never will. I think she knows that. It's been almost 17 years since Jennifer Kessie went missing. 24-year-old Jennifer Kessie disappeared from her Orlando condo nearly 15 years ago.

There have been no arrests or named suspects. It's one of Florida's most well-known unsolved mysteries. Jennifer was living in her Orlando condo when she vanished. Her parents believed it happened as she was leaving for work. If they don't take women, decide them in a corner and look at them. They take women to rape them, to use them, abuse them. This phantom figure remains the most important clue in the disappearance of Jennifer Kessie,

who vanished on January 24th, 2006. Two days after Jennifer went missing, her car was found in an apartment complex parking lot about a mile away from where she lived. The person was so casual. Something really bad obviously happened and they were just so casually dropping this car off like they were getting home from work. Every single second of every single day to us is frantic because we need to find her. Jennifer Joyce Kessie, also known as Jen, was born on May 20, 1981 in New Jersey to parents Joyce and Drew Cassie. A short while later, she was joined by a brother named Logan,

who came to be known as her best friend. Jennifer and Logan grew up in Tampa, Florida, and their mother Joyce remembers Jennifer as her very own doll, and a happy, go-lucky little girl with long blonde hair that she refused to get cut. Jennifer was sharp and smart from a young age and spoke full sentences by the time she was a toddler. She was also a voracious reader with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and had actually been

written about multiple times in the Tampa Tribune for being such an outstanding student in elementary and middle school. And from a young age, her parents instilled in her a sense of precaution and a need to be aware of her surroundings, which is so amazing, and I'm sure a lot of you listeners are doing the same thing or you plan to. And Jennifer's parents reasoning for this is a scary one because Jennifer's dad, again, whose name is Drew, explained that he and Joyce had been held at gunpoint before their kids were born, and that it made them hyper

aware of safety measures that they and their children should be taking. And thanks to all they taught them, Drew called his daughter Jennifer the safest person I know. So remember that. After graduating from Vivian Gathur High School in 1999, Jennifer moved from Tampa, which is located on the west coast of Florida, inland to the city of Orlando, which is in the center of the state. And there, she began attending the University of Central Florida, pursuing a degree in finance, and she pledged to the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. Four years later, Jennifer graduated with honors in 2003 and entered the workforce immediately. Fielding multiple offers, she settled on a position as a financial analyst with the Central Florida Investments Timeshare Company.

And according to her very proud parents, she was promoted multiple times within her first year there. About a year and a half later, in January of 2005, Jennifer Meta-Man named Rob Allen while out at a bar with some friends. Now Rob, who was in town for a work conference, lived in Fort Lauderdale, which is three hours away. But the two couldn't deny their connection, and they began dating, despite not living in the same city. Rob called her striking and beautiful, and they just really seemed to hit it off. At just

23, Jennifer's personal and professional lives were excelling, and she had even just purchased a condo for herself. That's amazing at 23. Yeah, no kidding. So Jennifer bought and moved into a condo for herself. That's amazing at 23. Yeah, no kidding. So Jennifer bought and moved into a condo in the Mosaic at Millennia apartment complex, which is just steps down the street from the Millennium all. And that's something that her father drew, remembers as being a selling point because Jennifer just loved to shop. In January of 2006, Jennifer and her boyfriend Rob were celebrating a year of being together

and despite the distance their relationship continued to strengthen. The pair spoke daily on the phone and spent most weekends together, either at Rob's place in Fort Lauderdale or Jennifer's in Orlando or meeting somewhere else for a weekend getaway. The third week in January, the couple escaped to the beautiful St. Croix, which is one of the US Virgin Islands situated in the Caribbean, some place that I would love to go. Let's do it. Yeah.

So after a lovely long weekend on the beach, the two returned to Fort Lauderdale, where 24-year-old Jennifer stayed the evening of Sunday, January 22nd, 2006. But she drove back to Orlando the very next morning and went straight to work. That evening, so the evening of January 23rd, 2006, exhausted after a busy few days of travel, she headed home to eat dinner and settled back into her schedule for the week.

She spoke to both her childhood best friend Lauren and her family on the phone before putting in her nightly call to Rob. And on this call, they told each other that they loved and missed each other and that they would see each other very soon. The following morning, which was the morning of Tuesday, January 24, 2006, Jennifer failed to show up for work. Now, she generally left her home between 7.30 and 7.45 AM and worked in Okoe, which is only about 20 minutes away

from her home, so she had a short commute. When she missed a scheduled 11.30 AM meeting, so hours after she was supposed to be at work, her boss, just knowing Jennifer's very punctual and responsible nature, grew concerned by her lack of attendance, and she called her parents to alert them. Joyce and Drew were shocked, because Jennifer rarely, if ever, missed work, and she would never have declined to let her boss know if she was running late or just calling out for the day. However, alarmingly, their calls were going directly to voicemail.

So, Jennifer's parents got in touch with Rob, wondering if he had spoken to her or if perhaps she had gone back to his house, but Rob hadn't heard from her either. In fact, the couple usually spoke on the phone or at least texted each other when they were on their way to work each morning, but that particular morning, Rob hadn't heard from Jennifer and his calls and texts had gone unanswered, with the last time they spoke being the call before bed the night before. So assuming she was just busy catching up from work that she had missed while they were on vacation, he didn't think anything of it until her parents called him.

But both he and her parents knew that there was cause for a alarm when the normally responsible Jennifer was missing their calls and not only that, but they were going directly to voicemail. And it was extra difficult that her parents lived just under two hours away by car, and her boyfriend lived about three hours away by car. So none of them could just like pop over and check on her, which just must have made the whole situation that much more stressful. Yeah, completely agree. So before her parents made the trip to Orlando from their home in Tampa,

Drew called the manager of Jennifer's apartment complex to check and see if her black 2004 Chevy Malibu was parked in her designated spot, but the spot was empty. Right, so during their drive Maybe her parents are thinking, oh, did she try to go to work and something happened? Did she get into an accident? Did something happen her along the way. Right, but either way, her car is missing from that parking spot. So inside her condo, everything looked pretty normal, and nothing seemed to indicate a struggle. Her suitcase was there in her home, still not fully unpacked from her trip, which is obviously normal because she had to jump right back into work, and she had only just gotten back. But her parents called her kitchen sparkling clean, and it didn't even appear that she had cooked dinner in it the night before, and her bed was unmade, and it seemed as if she had slept in it

the night prior. So obviously it did seem like she had been there, but the rest of the apartment looked fairly clean. Some clothing was also laid out as if she had been deciding on what to wear to work that morning, and her towel was still wet from the shower. The only things missing from inside the apartment were her keys, purse, and her phone. Which is alarming because those are such essential items, so again, you're thinking, did she leave the apartment? Did something happen before she left? Like, it's really hard to tell. But I mean, the fact that the clothing

that she was planning on wearing to work was laid out, that's the most alarming part to me, because you would think that those wouldn't be laid out if she was wearing them. Unless there was another outfit that she decided to wear instead of those. Yeah, I suppose. But I totally agree with what you're saying.

But you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, of course. Totally. It's hard to discern what exactly is going on and when she left her apartment that morning. Exactly. So the one item that her family notes that seemed kind of odd or out of place in her apartment was a can of pepper spray that had been found discarded in the foyer. And this is something that she

normally kept with her. However, Drew said that she had simply removed it from her bag because she wasn't able to fly with it, which obviously makes sense, so with no sign or word from her, they called the police to file a missing person's report. But seeing the state of Jennifer's apartment, you know, the lack of disarray or appearance of a struggle, and knowing that she had taken her keys or somebody else had taken her keys, honestly, as well as her purse, her cell phone, and her car, the police suggested that she had just taken off temporarily and intentionally and that she would be back. And in the words of Jennifer's dad, the officer said, quote, she had a fight with her boyfriend, it she'll be back.

Which is just, ah, it's just, it feels like a slap in the face when you say that right off the bat. Before you even know or have any details like, you just, you just don't know, don't say that. It's so hard because I look at it both ways, like I understand that so many reports like this come into police and by all accounts

is like it does seem like if you don't know her that that could have happened, but it does feel really horrible when police don't even want to really look into it to make sure that's the case, especially because sometimes and in this case, it's not the case. Yeah, it just feels like it might be downplaying the situation a little. Well, and her parents obviously knew better, so they were forced to take matters into their own hands. And knowing that time was of the essence, which is why it's more frustrating that police

aren't getting involved right away, because right now it's just hours after they suspected that Jennifer had disappeared, her parents composed and printed a missing flyer. And thus, her friends and family gathered at the intersection that she would pass through on her way to and from work holding up posters and handing out flyers. Like, they did that just within hours. So they knew that something was not right. Amazing that they jumped on that so quickly. Fully agree.

But as the hours passed, both her family and law enforcement were becoming suspicious that she might have been met with foul play. Because the more they came to know about Jennifer's condo complex, the more it seemed like a breeding ground for an abduction. Mosaic at millennia, again, where Jennifer lived, was transitioning into a complex of owned

condos from a complex of rented apartments. So more than half the units in her building were unoccupied as they transitioned and construction crews remodeled the apartments to prep them for sale. So police didn't search every unit because some were still occupied by renters, though they were able to eventually search empty ones. Drew remembers Jennifer telling him that once, shortly before she disappeared, someone had come to our front door between 8 and 9 pm, but that she hadn't answered the door. Jennifer had also relayed to her dad Drew that one of her neighbors had stopped by to introduce himself, but in Drew's words, quote, she was a little skeptical of everyone at this point

because it was all new and Gen approached everything and everyone with caution. In addition to the slew of construction workers on site every day, the gates to the building which were normally locked were left open to allow crew to come and go. There were also no security cameras surrounding the building and actually frustratingly, they were installed two weeks after Jennifer disappeared. It's just horrible timing. So two days passed with no sign of her, but on Thursday, January 26th, 2006, someone reported a tip that they saw her car

at a nearby apartment complex. And again, she drove a black 2004 Chevy Malibu. And it's honestly surprising to me that this tip came in so quickly, considering she drove like a very unassuming car that just didn't stand out at all. Yeah, it seemed like probably at that time in Florida there was probably many black Chevy Malibu's driving her out. Yeah, so within two days the fact that somebody spotted her car is like just a shock to me, but they did.

So, just 1.1 miles or 1.7 kilometers east of Jennifer's condo are about a four-minute drive. Her Chevy Malibu was recovered from the Huntington on Green apartment complex. According to police, the building was known for drug activity. And because of this, investigators posed the theory that Jennifer may have gone there to buy drugs, or had been drunk or on drugs as she tried to make her way home and found herself in trouble because of that. But again, her family and friends dismissed this theory as ridiculous and completely out of character for Jennifer.

In fact, she was so responsible that her friends called her their mother hen. So detectives who were now convinced that there was, in fact, foul play involved, combed the vehicle for any sign of her. They also called in Jennifer's boyfriend Rob to be at the scene when they opened the trunk, attempting to kind of gauge his reaction to see if he expected them to find her body or not. I mean, I guess that's kind of a smart move on their part. They're trying to gauge his reactions to different things and scenarios regarding her disappearance.

But I mean, he lives three hours away and the morning that she was abducted, he was nowhere near. I mean, he was in Fort Lauderdale. Right, and I actually am curious if he had come down to Orlando from Fort Lauderdale to be with her family and to help look for her and he was already in the area. But to me, it is just weird that they did this because especially if they're at the car

and they're waiting to open the trunk until he gets there, it's like, we don't have time for this. You know? Yeah, very true. But after all of this, Rob did agree to meet them and was present as the car was being processed, as well as when they opened the trunk. But alas, the trunk was empty. Rob did admit that the last time they spoke on the phone, which had been Monday evening,

there had been a bit of a slight fight. In Rob's words, he said quote, we had a bit of a disagreement. She wanted assurance that I loved her, and to make sure that I was in it for the long haul. You know, just normal relationship things, but everything was fine. So please question him, but did not believe that there was a link between him and Jennifer's disappearance. And unfortunately, her car revealed very little about what had happened to her. Curiously, there were valuables left in the car, including a DVD player that was found on the backseat, so it appeared that, you know, robbery wasn't a motive in that scenario. Also not much gas had been used since the last time she had filled up the tank.

So she hadn't gone far before she was likely transferred to another vehicle if she had even made it to her car at all. But luckily, there were security cameras at those apartments, which is a huge piece of this case. And with the viewing of them, finally, detectives had their first concrete lead. On the cameras, it appears that someone who is not Jennifer pulls the car into a parking spot and exits the vehicle. But the footage was so grainy that they were unable to decipher who the driver of the vehicle

actually was. Another security camera on the property captured the driver walking away from the parking lot and apartment building. But because it only captured a still every 3 seconds, the person was mostly shielded by the slats and the black metal fence as they left. Before that quick break, Heath explained to us that security cameras from the apartment that Jennifer's car was found outside of, captured very grainy footage that proved Jennifer did not leave her car there herself. And I will say that is some of the grainiest footage I have ever seen.

Yeah, I mean, we've seen a lot of grainy footage over all the cases that we've covered, but honestly, you can't see anything in that footage. You can't, like, you can see the street in front of it, and nothing else, so maybe if this isn't to make sense unless you're looking at it, but unless the car had driven up that street, you'd be able to see a little bit. But it's like in the background, like more in the distance. Yeah. It's like impossible to see.

But another incredibly frustrating detail is that there, like Heath said, there was another camera that could have potentially captured the person's face, but because it only took a photo every three seconds, it wasn't like a rolling video. This person is miraculously shielded by the metal fence, every single image, which is insane. And we will also post this on our socials for you guys to see by the time you're listening to this. And by the way, the video was actually taken at about noon, which means that somebody parked her car at noon, which is around the time that her parents were alerted of her absence from work as well. And when the person is walking behind the metal gate, it appears that they are walking in the direction of her apartment complex. So did this person drop off her car

and then walk the one mile back to her apartment building? Now to explain the footage better for those who can't look right now, they're black and white and not in great quality, but the camera is pretty close to the person who's just beyond a black slatted metal fence. And while the person appeared to be a man, authorities could not definitively determine whether, in fact, it was a man or a woman.

They appeared to be of average height and were wearing a white or light t-shirt, possibly khakis and black shoes, sporting short, darker hair, and it looks like they may have been wearing a hat of sorts. When police brought in bloodhounds to the area, the dogs sniff the car, and then promptly march back to her condo, which again is a four minute drive away. The dogs indicated to some bushes framing her building, but ultimately, they lost their scent.

And Jennifer's father drew also noted that these were scent dogs, not cadaver dogs, which are trained in identifying decay. At this point, there was still no sign of Jennifer, her clothing, or any of her belongings on the grounds, like not her missing items, by the way, there was no phone or purse in her or her keys in her car like all that stuff was gone. So, search parties were organized to comb the wooded areas and fields behind her apartment complex, and any other nearby bodies of water and open spaces dotting the lush Florida landscape. Over 1400 people came out the first weekend following her disappearance to help search.

Various items and articles of clothing were recovered, but nothing found appeared to belong to Jennifer. Her bank accounts remained untouched and attempts to ping her cell phone didn't reveal its location, but by the way, Jennifer's cell phone provider could not pinpoint when her phone was turned off. All we know is that it was going to voicemail by around noon on the day she went missing. She also didn't have any social media accounts at the time of her disappearance,

so those couldn't be checked or used as a potential source, but it was only 2006. Right, remember, I think one of the only or main like social medias at that point was my space Yeah, because even Facebook was not even yeah, I think yeah, I actually read that it was in 2006 that Facebook started opening up more to Users over the age of 13, but yeah, it wasn't popular until I think I think I got it in 2008. You probably did too right So so anyway Jennifer didn't have any social media, so we couldn't glean any information from that or investigators couldn't.

But also, both police and Jennifer's family have declined to comment on the specific activity in her bank accounts and on her phone in the days and hours leading up to her disappearance. So we're unsure what that could say. But with no suspects to speak of and no real identifying factors to yield from the surveillance footage, police took a closer look at the people in Jennifer's life. I want to add though, like the investigation was already in a pretty tough spot because Drew feels that the investigators dropped the ball by not processing her building or her

apartment and said that they also declined to x-ray any of the units to, you know, look that the investigators dropped the ball by not processing her building or her apartment and said that they also declined to x-ray any of the units to, you know, look at items or even body parts that may have been discarded within their walls. And if the proper protocols were taken from the jump, they could have a lot more information. Yeah, I mean, just the fact that this apartment complex had so many units that were unoccupied, and then there were some that were being rented and some that were being turned into condos for sale, there was so much going on that the fact that they didn't just case the entirety of that building is really, you know, a sad part of this case.

It was a huge mistake. Yeah, but also I kind of want to go back to the surveillance footage of the guy behind the slatted fence. Because the shitty thing about that is that you can actually see their stride. It looks like you can see their body, but the only thing that's missing is their face. I know. It's so unreal.

Like, the fact that you can see these other parts, again, not to really discern much, but I'm sure they could figure out their exact height based on where they're standing and the size of the fence. But yeah, it's just the face is blocked out in every single image. And imagine if that had not been one of those cameras that takes, you know, snaps photos, but instead is just a rolling video. Right. Would have changed a lot, probably.

I think so too. So according to Jennifer's friends and family, an ex-boyfriend of hers had trouble letting go of Jennifer, and they found it plausible that he could be involved in her disappearance. After they had broken up, he had apparently tried to get back together with her for a significant amount of time, and she had to solidify to him that their relationship was definitely over. So when police discovered that he had been nearby at a bar called the Blue Martini, the evening before Jennifer's belief to have disappeared? This suspicion deepened. He was reportedly brought in for a polygraph test, but his results were never made public. Many have criticized this suspicion, however, because at the time, Jennifer's ex-boyfriend

was in a serious relationship with another woman, whom he married later that year. He denied involvement, of course, and there was no evidence tying him to her disappearance, but he also couldn't necessarily be ruled out. Now regarding her work life, Jennifer's co-workers did not report that she had been acting strangely in the days and weeks leading up to her disappearance, but they do remember that she may have been engulfed in a little bit of workplace drama with a married co-worker who had his eye on Jennifer? Her co-workers remembered that a married colleague had fixated on Jennifer against her will, and that she had to turn him down multiple times.

She even told her dad about this guy, and that of course she was not interested. His obsession was apparently not a secret in their workplace, and he continued to ask her out, even in front of other staff members. God fire this man. I know, seriously, at that point, it just feels like sexual harassment. Like, stop. Totally. So, alarmingly, when asked where he thought that she was, he said that Jennifer had probably

been, quote, eaten by gators now. So that's either like a really suspicious thing to say or a really insensitive and bitter thing to say. In my mind, it seems probably more bitter and just bitter about the fact that she was not interested in your creepy ass for you to say something so terrible like that. But yet this, the man also happened to have been late to work on the morning that Jennifer disappeared. But reportedly, he was late after being arrested for speeding because he had gotten an attitude with the officer who pulled him over and had ripped up the ticket

leading to him being arrested. It kind of just sounds like a dick all around. Huge dick. But Jennifer's family and boyfriend had another theory. Apparently, while Jennifer's apartment building, again, Mosaic at millennia, underwent renovations, dozens of workers were coming and going, and Jennifer mentioned that she often felt

as if she was being watched. She reported being stared at or even leered at by some of the people working on the building. And sadly, no shocker there as this happens, a sickening amount to women. But Jennifer also said that she felt creeped out. And sometimes, the maintenance staff would need access inside her condo and, Drew, remember that Jennifer was always incredibly cautious when they did, of course, never allowing them to be inside her home by themselves. Like, she would wait in the doorway while they worked and would always stay on the phone with someone until they had left and the door was locked behind her. Like, she did everything right, and I think that's what's the scariest about this case to me

is that she was so cautious and still something terrible and unknown happened to her. That's just horrible. Well, according to some of the employees of the building, the last time they were working on her unit, Jennifer had left while they were still inside. But Drew disputes this claim, saying that he was the one on the phone with her while they were still inside. But Drew disputes this claim saying that he was the one on the phone with her while they were there and that as always, she waited to leave

until they had vacated the unit. But something else weird about her apartment is that Jennifer's family leader discovered that her locks were never changed from when she moved in and the previous tenant moved out. This just seems like something you always do. This apartment building is stupid as hell, so when the previous tenant who rented the property moved out, the unit was remodeled and then purchased by Jennifer but the keys remain the same, and actually other tenants complained about the same issue. Drew explains on the family's GoFundMe page, quote, And actually, other tenants complained about the same issue. Drew explains on the family's GoFundMe page, quote,

We found a few weeks after Jennifer was taken that a complete set of keys for the complex was stolen. We have also been made aware of at least five women in the complex who have had someone enter their property unauthorized and unannounced while in the condo themselves. I also personally viewed a key making machine in the maintenance office with a full box of uncut keys next to it. I questioned why it would not be secured and the staff looked at me like I was crazy. So many people had access to making a key on location.

Again, we found this out after Jennifer was taken. I mean, just the fact that this apartment complex doesn't appear to have their shit together, like they're allowing people to go into people's condos and apartments unauthorized. It doesn't appear that there's workers are just creepy and weird. I mean, yeah, and as we're gonna get into,

we're gonna talk about the fact that there were a lot of workers who were like staying in some of these unoccupied condos yeah it's that this whole situation is so messed up but also like dread said that five at least five other women had had workers coming unannounced and unauthorized like you would said, but just walking into their apartment and these are five women by the way, which is like why are these workers just walking

into these women's apartments? Like, something is very wrong here. Well, when you think about apartment complexes in general, you think about the fact that there are many different people from all walks of life living and one specific building. And the property management is responsible for keeping these people safe, thus, you know, putting rules together, changing locks when somebody moves out and another person moves in. So true. Securing the office, making sure security cameras are set up around the property, but it doesn't

appear that they did any of these things. Well, this conversation is very reminiscent of a case that we covered. It was not like a year and a half ago, Mia Marcono. Yes. We talked about this earlier. Remember, we couldn't figure out whose case that was. It just came to me, Mia Marcono, because in her case, a maintenance worker had entered her apartment unauthorized and you know she was murdered.

So it's really terrifying and this is not okay at all that this is happening multiple times in this building. And this should be held responsible. Exactly. And that's the other part of it is that whether it's a maintenance person or a person who's just working on the building, there needs to be security measures put in place for that. Absolutely. And notably, the landscapers at the building

wore outfits similar to what the person spotted on the security camera appeared to be wearing, which is, again, those cacky pants, white shirt, and the black shoes. But many people over the years have noted that the outfit appeared to be khaki overalls, such that a painter might wear, and that the person caught on camera may have been one of the painters that were working on remodeling the units.

So the focus fell on the men working on the building at the time. But when police began to question them one by one, some of the men began to quit, stop showing up for work, and even disappeared. While this appeared suspicious to law enforcement, it turned out that many of these workers were undocumented migrant workers, and that for their own protection, they wanted to avoid confrontation with police officers and facing potential legal ramifications. Now while that does make sense, it made it very difficult for law enforcement to track down who was coming and going

and who had potentially been involved. Additionally, there were a number of people on staff who spoke Spanish exclusively and the Orlando Police Department only interviewed those who could speak English, declining to send a Spanish-speaking detective to interview them, and potentially missing out on valuable information or sightings, so that was obviously another ball that was dropped.

But the narrative that one of the employees of the building had been involved became even more relevant when two years later, a construction worker employed at the building at the time of Jennifer's disappearance was arrested for rape. Her parents still feel strongly that this man is involved, or that he at least knew something about Jennifer's whereabouts. He did, however, pass a polygraph test, and while that's hardly an assurance that he was not involved, there was nothing concrete tying him to Jennifer's disappearance. The case of Jennifer's disappearance among others was summarized in a deck of playing

cards to be distributed to area prisons, as law enforcement just hoped that maybe an inmate who knew a detail of the case would come forward with information. And Drew explained, quote, we're just trying to do everything that we possibly can to generate leads or opportunities for Jennifer to be found. Eventually, the Kessies were kind of in luck when police received this tip. That a convicted killer currently waiting on death row claimed that he had information about Jennifer's disappearance, but that he would only speak to her father and that he would only offer the information to him in person.

So correctional officers were very skeptical of this because this inmate had pulled the same move before. Yeah, it doesn't seem all that reliable. Well, prior to meeting this inmate, Drew talked to the officers who knew him best, who all cited one person in particular whom the image would claim had abducted or killed Jennifer. And that was the very name that this guy did give to Drew when they met.

But this tip proved to be false. And likely the result of attention seeking on behalf of the death row prisoner. So as you can imagine Drew was crushed at yet another false lead. Especially because you have to remember he went to this prison like got ready had to have that mental talk with himself driving down there thinking am I going to get this answer like what what an emotional spot that put him in just for it to be false? Yeah, and the other shitty thing about this is the fact that these correctional officers

at the prison already kind of knew who this guy was going to quote rad on. They knew that he was going to bring up this same person that he had probably mentioned before in other crimes. So it sadly felt like it probably wasn't going to go anywhere from the get go. And it didn't. And thus painstaking years passed with no information and no developments in Jennifer's case. As Jennifer's family struggled to preserve its relevance, they questioned what to do with Jennifer's apartment and her car. So her car was at least, and it was eventually given back to the family, and after being

told that it was of no more value to the investigation, they got rid of it. But Drew has said that he believes the Orlando police should have maintained custody of the car. Her apartment was eventually sold, as it also didn't bring them any closer to her whereabouts. In Drew's words, quote, Jennifer lost her best opportunity of being found that very first day. In a case with so few clues, there are many persistent theories as to what tragic fate befell her. Drew believes it's possible that she was trafficked and apparently at the time of her disappearance,

a large trafficking operation was being run out of Orlando. Another of the more convincing theories is that of the mysterious white pickup truck. So 13 years after Jennifer was last seen, this was in 2019, a tip came in from a woman who had spotted a man in a white pickup truck, dumping what looked like a rolled up carpet into a small lake near Jennifer's apartment, and she claimed that this had happened 13 years earlier around the time that Jennifer had gone missing. Drew told a local news station, quote, the woman had witnessed across the lake one morning when there were no houses. A pickup truck had backed up to the lake and she saw a man get out and take a six to eight foot piece rolled up what seemed to be carpet. Jennifer's brother Logan

also remembered seeing a white pickup truck in the parking lot of Jennifer's brother Logan also remembered seeing a white pickup truck in the parking lot of Jennifer's building on the day She disappeared and it was actually parked near her designated parking spot Now this is you know a white pickup truck isn't like a rare thing especially when there's all this work being done on the building But it is interesting that her brother happened to notice this and that it was near her spot. And also that this woman noticed someone throwing a rolled up carpet into a lake. And then didn't come forward about it for 13 years. But this lake was searched meticulously and there was no side of her or the carpet. But again, this is like so much time has passed.

The private investigator hired by the family believed that she was abducted by one of the construction workers at her building. Some of the men working there at the time said that as many as 10 of them would stay in one of the unoccupied units, just kind of crashing there in between their long work days. With no cameras in the hallway

and few other residents in the building at the time, it would have been fairly easy for one of them to attack her in the hallway or even enter her home unannounced as we mentioned earlier and pull her into one of the empty apartments. Yeah, I mean to me this seems like the most plausible theory because it just feels like the opportunity is there. It feels like the measures that were taken by the apartment complex were pretty much non-existent. The fact that these workers had access

to multiple different apartments feels very sketchy to me. And there's a lot of them. So there's a lot of people who are unaccounted for whose stories we don't have that were in this building at the time. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people who are unaccounted for whose stories we don't have that were in this building at the time and unfortunately there's a lot of unknown men that were working for this apartment complex and obviously she's a young woman by herself in her apartment yet to me the most possible uh... theories are that it was a worker in the building or potentially a weird neighbor because like we said we

know that people have been introducing themselves one who did it between eight and nine p.m. which is a little late but not not terribly late I guess. Yeah I guess you can't you can't rule out a neighbor in this scenario either. Absolutely. The only reason that I would lean more towards worker is because of the fact that we know that these workers potentially had access to a key to her specific unit. And what if while she was getting ready for work, somebody just walked inside. Because I also wonder if something had happened in the hallway if somebody else would have heard that happen.

We know there really wasn't a struggle inside the apartment, but there has to have been a place where that would have occurred. So was it inside her apartment? Was it in the hallway? Where did this happen? Was she walking by a doorway and somebody pulled her inside? Like something happened, what was it? And then I also think back to the fact

that this person dropped her car off at around noon, which is hours after she was getting ready for work. And the fact that they were seemingly walking back to her apartment complex, or at least in the direction of it, but if this was a one person job, and they didn't have somebody to pick them up after dropping her car at the other apartment complex, did this all happen at her apartment and they're just returning to the scene? Again, this just goes back to opportunity because it appears that whatever happened

to Jennifer happened while she was getting ready for work. And you would assume that the only people who could have taken advantage of the situation was somebody that was in or around the building and who was there, neighbors, and construction workers. So at this point, the Kessie family sued the Orlando Police Department in hopes of closing Jennifer's case and obtaining the files, which were going to be transferred to their

private investigator. On the GoFundMe for her family, which we have in the episode description for those who'd like to donate, drew rights, quote, in 2018, we filed a lawsuit against Orlando Police asking them to close Jennifer's case, allowing the case files to be released to us and our private investigator. In March of 2019, we settled with the Orlando Police Department and now have the rights to Jennifer's case. After years in the hands of our private investigator who did incredible work, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will now take over the investigation

and will essentially start from the beginning. We have never felt so hopeful and optimistic. This is Jennifer's best chance at being found. Over the 17 years since Jennifer disappeared, we spent every penny to our name trying to find her. From paying a private investigator to bringing awareness around the state, selling our house, the list goes on, and simply put, we are broke. We are humbly asking for your financial help so we can continue attacking Jennifer's

case, both on the legal and investigative sides. Your donation will pay the monstrous legal fees and private investigator bills that have accrued. The GoFundMe is still active and provides a wealth of firsthand information about the case written by Drew himself, including updates and entries dating back to 2018. Donations to bring ongoing attention to the case have reached over $100,000 and continues to grow, as it should. Since her disappearance, Jennifer's beloved little brother Logan has married and had children,

and Joyce and Drew were overjoyed to welcome grandchildren, but they are still desperate for answers as to what happened to their only daughter. It's unknown what Jennifer was wearing at the time of her disappearance, but she was believed to have had a three stone diamond necklace on. Her hair was sandy-blonde-colored and cut to her shoulders, and she had green eyes. She stood between 5'8 and 5'9 and weighed around green eyes. She stood between 5'8' and 5'9' and weighed around 125 pounds. Jennifer has a small Shamrock tattoo on the left side of her butt, a birthmark on her ribs,

and the middle finger on her left hand, and scars from surgery on her inner left elbow. If you have any information about the disappearance of Jennifer Kessie, please call the Kessie Families Tip Line at 941-201-409. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. This is truly just such a crazy case. I still can never get over the fact that there is surveillance footage, but that we just

cannot tell almost anything from it. At least it exists, but the fact that there are still no answers in this case and the fact that she seemingly just vanished, like there's barely any evidence of anything happening. Yeah, the other really frustrating part is that, you know, it doesn't appear that they had any touch DNA evidence.

Well, they didn't process her apartment, which is what's so annoying. Yeah, or her car, which you would assume that if somebody was driving her car that was caught on the surveillance footage, getting out of her car that there would be touch DNA on the steering wheel. Oh, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So it just appears that so much was botched in this investigation, and I just really feel for Jennifer's family. So please share and make sure that we get her story out there because you never know who has information and who could break this case open. Especially now that it's been over 15 years,

we don't want this case to fade out of the light. So please, like Keith said, share, do it for her family, talk about it with a friend. And thank you guys so much for tuning in. We'll see you again in a few days. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5%

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