Murder: True Crime Stories - Introducing: The Final Hours with Sarah Turney and Kourtney Nichole from Crime House

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Hosted by Sarah Turney and Kourtney Nichole, The Final Hours examines the moments just before a person disappears. The routines. The timelines. And the small details that often get overlooked,  until it’s too late. Sarah is an advocate for missing and murdered victims whose sister disappeared in 2001. Kourtney is a true crime storyteller and investigator who witnessed firsthand how crime can change a family forever. Together, they bring lived experience into every case, looking not only at what happened, but what led up to it. Listen to and follow The Final Hours on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes are out every Monday. Listen here: https://play.megaphone.fm/dpvwewsiqralbvsx8wptag To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Carter. If you're enjoying murder, true crime stories, there's a new crime house show for you to check out. It's called The Final Hours hosted by Sarah Turney and Courtney Nicole. Sarah is an advocate for missing and murdered victims whose own sister disappeared in 2001. And Courtney is a true crime storyteller who has seen firsthand how crime can change a family forever. Together, they bring lived experience to every case, examining the moment. moments just before a person disappears, the routines, the timelines, the small details that often get overlooked, because every disappearance has a moment where everything still feels normal until it doesn't. Listen to and follow the final hours on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

Hey, Crime House Community, it's Carter Roy, and if you're If you're enjoying murder true crime stories, there's another podcast you should check out. It's the new Crime House original series, The Final Hours, hosted by Sarah Turney and Courtney Nicole. With Sarah having lived through the pain of her own sister going missing, and Courtney, having seen firsthand how crime can impact a family, the two come together to bring lived experience into every case, looking not only at what happened, but what led up to it. Each episode of The Final Hours examines the moments just before a person disappears,

the routines, the timelines, and the small details that often get overlooked. Because every disappearance has a moment where everything still feels normal. Texts that doesn't raise concern, a routine that goes unchanged, a door that closes just like it always has, until it doesn't. The final hours puts those moments under a microschool. scope because when it comes to justice, there is no such thing as over-analysis. We have an episode for you to listen to right now. And if you like what you hear, follow the final hours on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon

Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. You're squinting at a blurry black-and-white surveillance video. It's dated January 24, 2006. The time is 12.59 p.m. It's taken at the Huntington on the green condominium complex in Orlando, Florida, and shot from a distance. In between the camera and the parking lot are what appear to be two swimming pools. A few seconds later, a car pulls into the fenced-in lot beyond those pools.

It's a 2004 Chevy Malibu. It stops, and nothing happens for the next 32 seconds. Then, the driver steps out. On foot, they head back in the direction they came. Luckily, another camera gets a closer shot of the driver. A minute later, that person is recorded walking past a gate. They appear to be male with short hair not very tall, about 5-3 or 5-5. And they're dressed in a light-colored outfit, maybe a uniform of some kind.

But there's something frustrating about these videos. They glitch, only catching every two or three seconds of the scene. Because of that, the driver's face, the suspect's face, is always blurred or blocked by the fence. And because of this seemingly tiny issue, Jennifer Kessie's disappearance is a total mystery. Even today. Every year, over half a million people go missing, and that's just in the United States alone.

Most of those stories barely get a headline. Some don't even get a flyer or a tip line. And when cases do get media attention, we usually only get the broad strokes. But for those of us who have lived these true crime cases, we know the devil's in the details. It's the tiniest moments that play over and over. again in the minds of the victim's family, friends, and investigators alike.

Why did they leave their dirty clothes on the floor when they always put them away? Why did they add an exclamation point when they never punctuate a text? Who is that plus one they added to that dinner reservation they never showed up to? This is the final hours, a crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios. I'm Sarah Turney. If you don't know me, I've been an advocate for missing and murdered victims for a long time. After my sister Alyssa disappeared back in 2001, I dedicated my life to those in similar circumstances

by raising awareness and resources for other unsolved cases. And I'm Courtney Nicole, an investigative journalist who became fascinated with true crime after a member of my own family found themselves on the wrong side of the law. It taught me there's always more to a story than what you read in the news, and now I'm dedicated to shining a different perspective on cases

and amplifying stories that haven't gotten enough attention. So every Monday, Sarah and I will be looking at the tiniest details that might not have gotten attention either. Each episode, Sarah will offer insight on what those close to the victim might have been going through. And I'll give more context into the crime scene, the red flags, and the investigation itself. We'll be putting the final hours of these cases under a microscope. From the timeline to the clues to the last conversations, we'll be looking for anything that could be hiding in plain sight. Because when it comes to getting justice, there's no sense. such thing is over-analizing. For our first episode, we're discussing the disappearance of

Jennifer Kessie. In January 2006, 24-year-old Jennifer had just gotten home from a vacation with her boyfriend and was ready to get back to her routine. On the morning of the 24th, she took a shower, did her hair and makeup, and walked out the door of her new condo expecting another ordinary day. Unfortunately, it was anything but. It's 2006. A new chapter is just beginning for 24th. year old Jennifer Kessie. She recently bought her first condo in Orlando, Florida. And while she's had a boyfriend, Rob, for about a year now, they aren't quite ready to move in together yet. The relationship's long distance, Rob's three hours away in Fort Lauderdale. Jennifer doesn't love it, but she's embracing it. They see each other on the weekends and during the week. She seems to enjoy her independence.

She's got a job she loves, a financial analyst at a timeshare business, which she's crushing, by the way. She's gotten two promotions in her first year at the company. That's how she can afford that new luxury condo. And she's got a great group of friends and family that really adores and supports her. Her family's about two hours away in the Tampa Bay area. She and her younger brother Logan are super close. She's got a solid group of girlfriends from her sorority days back at the University of Central Florida. She's popular, a leader, responsible, and not afraid to be assertive or speak her mind. everything you'd expect from a young, hungry professional who's undoubtedly going places. Most of all, she's got a really great head on her shoulders.

Yeah, and the one thing that kept coming up about Jennifer was she was super mindful of her own personal safety. The kind of student who would carry pepper spray in her purse while walking across campus, someone with a you can never be too careful type of attitude. Maybe that's because she heard this story growing up. Many years back when they lived in New Jersey, her parents Drew and Joyce were held at gunpoint. I don't know too many details about that, but when something like this happens to the people you love,

you take your own personal safety a lot more seriously. And that's exactly what Jennifer did. She saw it as a cautionary tale. Now living alone, not super close to her boyfriend and family, Jennifer was extra aware of her surroundings. Her new condo, the mosaic at Millennia, wasn't in the nicest part of Orlando. Sure, it was a gated community with Onescent,

site security, but it was still in the process of being built when she moved in, which meant a lot of strangers, particularly construction workers, coming and going from the property at all hours of the day. And Jennifer mentioned the uneasiness she felt to her family and her boyfriend Rob on more than one occasion. You know, I think Jennifer did the right thing by expressing her concerns to family and friends. Smart. It's very smart. I still do that, you know, 27 years old. But when a woman lives alone, she becomes a target for predators. Well, I think that's one of the scariest aspects, is that she did all the right things. Yeah, she did everything right.

You know, living alone, you do become an easy target, especially, you know, in Jennifer's case where she's in a condo and it's being, it's newly built. So there's tons of people kind of coming and going, and you can kind of become an easy target. And I feel like that goes for any woman, you know. Yeah, unfortunately. Well, at least Jennifer got a little break from the stress of everyday life. January 2006. On the 19th, she and Rob took a vacation to the Caribbean island of St. Croix.

The trip was short. They were gone for less than four days, but it seemed to be exactly what she needed. Meanwhile, Jennifer's brother, Logan, did a little house sitting. That weekend, he and two of his friends, Travis and Matt, went to her condo to hang out. But Travis ended up forgetting his work phone there. He planned to get it from Jennifer once she returned. By the evening of January 22nd, Jennifer and Rob were back in Florida. She spent the night at his place in Fort Lauderdale and then drove straight to work from there on the Monday morning of the 23rd. That night after leaving her office, Jennifer called her parents to tell them all about St. Croix. Her mother, Joyce, said that Jennifer had an excellent time. Joyce said she, quote, was on a cloud. She also spoke to

Logan who asked her to keep an eye out for Travis's phone. Jennifer said she saw it and would take it with her the following morning to work so she could mail it back to him, since it was easier than making the hour and a half drive to pick it up. But things shifted when Jennifer called Rob around 10 p.m. That night. Apparently they had a bit of a disagreement, which Rob would later freely admit. Coming down from the high of the trip, he said they got into a heated discussion about being long distance. Rob claimed this was a big pointed contention in the relationship. The distance made Jennifer feel a little insecure, almost like Rob didn't love her enough to move. I feel like these last moments are so hard. You always imagine the last time you see somebody that you're going to have these amazing words of affirmation, that you're going to tell them how much you love them, and that's just not reality. You know, sometimes we fight, sometimes we have arguments, and you just never want to have that be the last thing you say to someone.

Yeah. Yeah. And I know from firsthand experience that you go back and you think about those last moments and you overanalyze. And, you know, for me, you criticize yourself. You're, you know, for me, you criticize yourself. You're. always wish that you did more, you said more, and especially love them more. And the hardest part is you just never know when that moment's going to happen. And so, you know, those last words are, it's tough. Yeah. And the what if? Yeah. Absolutely. Like you always think, what if? What if I did something different that could have changed the whole course of this? And when you overanalyze, you go back and you think, you know, were they hinting at something? You try to like draw any information or any clues you can out of those last statements. You know, unfortunately, that's the thing with these cases.

Sometimes there's zero indication anything is wrong because nothing is. But other times, there are tiny little clues that maybe we didn't notice before, which is why investigators always pay really close attention to even the tiniest deviation from someone's routine before their disappearance. Did they pack a bag, search for a new location, text a new friend? Maybe they spoke about a change in plans, a new encounter, an unexpected phone call. Something that might not seem like anything out of the ordinary, but can actually be the key to unlock in it all. I feel like specifically morning routines. Yeah. I think morning routines are obviously

very important for many reasons, but it's because it's what people typically stick to. You know, a small little deviation that could that could mean everything. Absolutely. You know, if you know somebody that deeply, right, something like they didn't have coffee that morning could make all the difference, you know, like what happened? Why were they thrown off? It's those little tiny details. Absolutely. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly how Jennifer's conversations went that night. We don't know if anything deviated from the norm, and we don't know how they ended either. But we do know that that was the last time any of them got to hear Jennifer's voice. It's January 24, 2006, sometime before 7.30 a.m.

Jennifer's tan lines are fading. Her bags haven't even been unpacked. Her suitcase sits on the floor of her living room, waiting for that. dreaded laundry day. Jennifer lays out a few different outfits on her bed and chooses one for work. Then she turns on the shower and hops in, going through that same autopilot routine we all do. Afterwards, she gets in front of the mirror and does her hair and makeup the same way she does every single morning. She checks the clock. It's getting close to 7.30 a.m. She needs to get out the door soon. Her bathroom's a mess, but it often is. She always leaves her makeup and curling iron on the counter to

cleanup later. She tosses her damp towel on the bed. She grabs her cell phone and Travis's cell phone to mail back to him. She takes her iPod, her keys to her Chevy Malibu, and her purse and heads out the door, locking it behind her. I think that these are the points in these stories that always stick with me, these really normal moments, putting on your makeup, leaving your curling iron out, having no idea that your whole life is about to change. And it's stories exactly like Jennifer's that really make us realize that. You're never guaranteed any moment in life. And at any point in time, it can be turned upside down. Absolutely. I mean, and this is a woman with plans. She had Travis's cell phone ready to mail back, which is like not a fun thing to do. She was ready to get things

done that day. This is just not somebody who disappeared willingly. So I think, you know, as someone who's covered a lot of true crime cases, unsolved, solved, I think the moments that really stick out to me when it comes to each and every case is the tiniest little details of right before they disappeared or before tragedy struck. It's very humanizing because we all go through the same motions as human beings. And it just makes you realize that it really could be any one of us at any given time. Yeah. There's something about the wet towel on the bed for me. I don't know what it is, but it's something about leaving a wet towel. Like, you're going to come back for that. You're not going to let it sit there and mildew. It might be the weirdest thing to say, but there's something about that

that just sticks in my mind. Yeah, sticks to me too. It's just also heartbreaking to envision in your head, you know. She had a whole life. She planned on coming back to continue her life, yet, you know, something happened that prevented that from happening. Yeah, I mean, that morning is critical. You know, one thing, though, that kind of sticks with me about this, though, is even though there are so many people outside getting ready to go to work and start their days, you know, it's a place where you think you would feel the safest, but sometimes, you know, people can get so in their heads. and so focused on getting from point A to point B that they don't take a second to look up

in kind of case their surroundings. And so even though you could be surrounded by a ton of people, everybody else is kind of in their own heads and maybe not picking up on something potentially bad happening right in front of them. Yeah. It's scary. Typically every morning, well, she's on her way into the office,

Jennifer calls Rob to say hello. But that morning, 8 a.m. comes and goes, and Rob hasn't heard a thing from her. He waits and calls her again after he gets out of his 9 o'clock meeting. Now his calls are going straight to voicemail, which is not usual. At the same time, Jennifer's coworkers are also getting worried. It's not like her to not call or show up for work. So around 11 a.m., the company's CFO dials Jennifer's parents to see if they've heard from her.

Immediately, panic sets in for Joyce and Drew. Within minutes that are hopping in the car to make the drive from the Tampa Bay area to Jennifer's condo in Orlando. Her brother Logan and his friend Travis also meet them there. When Joyce and Drew first arrived, the apartment's locked. Luckily, they do seem to have a spare key. But when they get inside, they don't find Jennifer, or anything out in the ordinary for that matter. In fact, Joyce says her condo looks how it always looks. A bit messy, hair and makeup products all over the counter, the towel is still wet, so she clearly took a shower that morning and got ready for work. Her other outfits are still laid out on the bed. Her purse. Her purse.

purse, keys, briefcase, iPod, and both her cell phone and the one left by Travis are all gone. And her car isn't in the parking lot. So now her parents are thinking, okay, maybe she got into an accident on her way to work. They start calling hospitals and police stations in the area. But none of them have gotten a report of a woman matching Jennifer's description. At this point, they do what I would encourage any family to do. They file a missing person's report with local police. Except the police failed to take Jennifer's case seriously at first,

especially after they speak with Rob, who says he and Jennifer had a little spat the night before. The police say it's likely she just stormed off somewhere to cool down, and she'll probably resurface soon. This is something I could talk about forever, how police departments sometimes don't take these cases seriously. And it's a hard thing, right? Because most people who go missing do come back.

But how do you balance that with the small percentage, that don't. Like, this is a family who truly did everything they could to make, you know, to try to find Jennifer right away. And they knew immediately that something was wrong. And, you know, that goes to show how close they were with Jennifer and how much they knew her. Yeah. And I just want to say, like, if there's any family out there that's listening, if somebody in your life goes missing and the police refuse to take a report, keep insisting. Keep being annoying for your loved one. Yes, 100%. There's, there's a huge misconception around reporting a loved one missing and that window of time that says you have to wait.

There's actually no legal requirement that says you have to wait 24 to 48 hours to file a missing person's report. You know, if you think something is wrong, it probably is and speak with police immediately. Don't wait. Yeah, because, I mean, you know, those first few hours are so critical. Yeah, you know, in disappearance cases, the first 48 hours are crucial. So when investigators aren't taking a case seriously right away, it is precious time wasted. Witnesses disappear, evidence degrades, and memories fade. In this situation, the family takes matters into their own hands, which we've seen time and time again.

They begin questioning other people at Jennifer's complex, including the construction workers and day laborers who are on site that day. Logan actually speaks to a few of them, and he says none of them aren't very cooperative. Actually, he sensed they knew something they weren't sharing. For the rest of the day, there's no word from Jennifer, and while friends and family members are already handing out missing person posters, the local police don't start investigating until later that evening, which is so sad. One of the first things they look for is security footage,

which the building doesn't have. Since the condo is still fairly new and under construction, cameras haven't been installed yet. It's a frustrating dead end. So they start questioning potential witnesses. There's not a ton of neighbors, though, and a lot of the units are still vacant. Luckily, there is one person in the building who says they saw something. Yeah, at around 7.40 in the morning of Jennifer's disappearance, someone saw her Chevy Malibu leaving the parking lot. All they really say is that it was driving erratically, and they found that to be unusual.

But they apparently didn't get a good look at who was inside the car. And when police examined her apartment and realized there was no sign of an alter-ca. a break-in or a robbery, that's when they realize, Jennifer must have been abducted in her parking lot in broad daylight. The question was, by who? And where did they take her? Yeah, it's especially hard in cases like this. You know, sometimes in these cases, all investigators can do is wait

if, you know, the evidence is as limited as it is. Especially if they've already followed up on things like cell phone records and previous communications and ruled that out as well. I don't know. I guess we, I guess Logan did talk about, like, having an instinct about the guys. Well, two days after Jennifer's disappearance, police get their first huge clue. On January 26th, someone finds Jennifer's black 2004 Chevy Malibu. It's sitting in a parking lot at a different condo complex, about a mile away, parked in a visitor space. But this complex isn't someplace Jennifer's been known to visit before.

In fact, the complex has a reputation for being a place. where people ditch stolen vehicles. Interestingly, one of the first things police do when they find Jennifer's car is they call Rob to the scene. At this point, they've heard Rob's airtight alibi. He was over 200 miles away when Jennifer disappeared. But they want to see his reaction when they open the trunk. Investigators lead him to the rear of the car, and with his heart racing and stomach churning, they pop it open.

But Jennifer's not inside, like the police were anticipating. There's actually nothing unusual about the car at all. There's no immediate sign of a struggle, plus at first glance it doesn't look like a robbery since a DVD player and a few other things of Jennifer's are still inside, like her phone charger and a couple pairs of shoes. So afterwards, the car is taken to the station, and there detectives find a few other key pieces of evidence, like a few strands of hair, other latent fingerprints and a partial palm print on the hood, which was actually pretty significant.

police didn't share this detail publicly at the time, but Jennifer's dad drew later said, quote, it looked like someone was thrown down on the top of the hood, arms spread out, and then dragged back almost like off the hood to the point where you can almost see fingers scribbling down the hood, end quote. So there appears to be signs of a struggle after all. What they don't find is Jennifer or Travis's cell, her keys, purse, iPod, or briefcase for work. and when they run those prints through local and national databases, they can't find a match. They also say the DNA is too degraded to get a read on it. However, the discovery of the car does lead to maybe the biggest piece of evidence this case has yet to see,

that security footage of the parking lot. Courts talking about the security footage we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, the one showing a male between 5 foot 3 and 5 foot 5, parking Jennifer's car, getting out, and walking back along a fence in the direction he came. Jennifer's nowhere to be found in that footage, but it was captured at 1259 p.m. the day she disappeared. If Jennifer was taken from her complex between 7.30 and 8 a.m., what happened in that five-hour block of time? The big issue here is the quality of the video. The footage of the man in the parking lot is super far away and blurry. The images of him walking along the fence are a little bit better, but as we

mentioned, his face is blocked by the fence in every frame. That's why the police turned to an unexpected resource, NASA, yes, the NASA, to see if they can use their advanced technologies to improve the quality of the video. But as it turns out, this is a problem even NASA can't solve. They've improved the resolution a bit, but it still wasn't clear enough to make out the potential suspect. I'm sure that this has stuck with Jennifer's family forever. It's things like this, again, where you think about the what-ifs. What if we just had that security footage? What if it was just a little bit more clear? It feels like the answers are right there, but they just can't physically see them in that video. And I can't even imagine how that makes them feel. It is kind of like a little sliver of hope that you do have the potential suspect caught on camera, you know, but it is just frustrating that they, you know, they can't narrow down the face. And, you know, I want to point out that it's not unusual to see a suspect abandoned. in a victim's car so close to the abduction point or crime scene, this actually makes for an easier getaway or if they want to switch into a new vehicle, maybe parked nearby. I think it makes it

even harder to understand if this was meticulously planned out or just kind of done last minute, if this was a crime of opportunity. You know, his face was always perfectly blocked by something. And again, I'm sure this is, you know, even today, a really haunting thing to look at because It's the only real suspect that this case has, yet you just can't figure out who it is. Well, regardless of what was going through the suspects head at the time, one thing was certain. Police were now pulling out all the stops to find Jennifer Kessie, and it was only a matter of time before they began narrowing down their suspect list, leading to a guy known only as Chino.

Some crimes are shocking. unthinkable and some stay with you long after the headlines fade. I'm Grace, host of Red Rum True Crime Podcast. Join me as I dive deep into some of the most shocking crimes. Fiona Beale seemed like any other primary school teacher, until the day she became the last person anyone expected to commit murder. What drove her to the edge and what really happened behind closed doors? Her diary entries would tell police all they needed to know.

or dive into the tragic case of Nada Alton Tolly. Nada was a devoted mother, but one night, in the house she called home, her life was destroyed. By one person she trusted the most, her own family member. From twisted family betrayals to the darkest corners of human obsession, Red Rum dives deep into real crimes, the victims, the suspects and the haunting aftermath. With two brand new episodes every single week, Red Rum, R-E-D, R-U-M. That's murder backwards. It's January 26, 2006, 8.10 a.m.

Jennifer Kessie's car is found in the parking lot of the Huntington on the Green Condominium Complex, less than a mile from her home. A bloodhound named Bo is dispatched that day. He pulls the smell from the driver's seat and follows a trail. It leads police back to Jennifer's complex. The trail actually bypassed the complex's main gated entrance and led to a stretch of fence that separated the private property from the public sidewalk. The dog followed that scent through the fence, onto the property,

and directly to the rear staircase leading to Jennifer's condo. So police think the assailant went back on foot after dropping off the vehicle to Jennifer's condo. What the dog can't tell them is who the scent belongs to, or why they'd go back to the scene of the crime. By February, police are canvassing the area with more dogs, horses, and helicopters to see if they can find Jennifer Kessie. They search nearby lakes, ponds, all wooded areas, but it leads nowhere.

After about three to four polygraphs, 12 interviews and his full cooperation, they rule out Jennifer's boyfriend Rob as a suspect. Instead, they focus on what that sentriel has been telling them, and what Jennifer was telling her loved ones in the weeks before her disappearance, that they might be looking for someone who works at the mosaic, particularly a construction worker, a day laborer, and it's possible more than one of them is involved. Many of these day laborers disappeared before the police could speak with them. Joyce Kessie told CBS that this may be because they weren't U.S. citizens

and were afraid of being sent home. Because after speaking with other residents at the building, many of whom are Jennifer's age, single, young women living alone, police hear a few more unsettling details. Like the fact that many of the workers slept in the unoccupied condos overnight after their shifts, and they would reportedly drink and party there after hours too. Some of the women said they were harassed that the workers would catcall and whistle at women, including Jennifer.

At least one resident claimed that 25% of the time, the security guard was missing from the gatehouse, and they left it unattended. Some residents complained to the leasing office manager about this, but they said there was nothing they could do about it. One woman even said she was pretty sure the workers let themselves into her apartment when she wasn't home. She said she noticed little things like her underwear drawer had been rummaged through or that her shower was wet when she hadn't used it.

There was even a night when she saw a man standing on her patio pleasuring himself. So this gets investigators thinking, with no signs of a body and potentially more than one suspect involved, could it be possible that Jennifer was a victim of human trafficking? It's such a hard situation. I mean, I think all families want to have hope, right? but it's also horrific to think about somebody going into human trafficking. It's just impossible.

You know, a lot of people think it is, and a lot of people think it happens in these faraway places that aren't, you know, in everybody's everyday life. But, you know, in reality, it can take place anywhere. Oh, yeah. I mean, it can happen right in front of you. I think that's, you know, I think we've all been to the airport and seen those signs, you know, about human trafficking. Like, it happens right in front of us, right under our noses. Years ago, I used to work at the first. front desk of a hotel in Seattle. And one of the big things that they honed in was that everybody working at the front desk or basically interacting with any guest at any given point, you would have to complete, you know, an online course for recognizing human trafficking. It was that big of a

deal. And so it's really important to know the signs. That's amazing that they did that, though. We need more hotels to do that. Good on them. Like, do they appear to be controlled by another person and can't be left alone? Did they have poor hygiene or show them? signs of neglect and do they have any tattoos that signify branding like names, barcodes, or money simples? And can they share with you where they are from and where they are going in a way that seems genuine? You know, if you know the signs, it can be easy to spot. And, you know, I urge everyone to pay close attention when you're out in public. And especially workers in the public, like, you know, front desk employees at a hotel. And if you do suspect

something, call the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline or 911. And actually, you know, human trafficking is a shockingly underreported crime in the U.S. And the real number of victims is a lot more than we actually think. The U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline recorded 10,359 trafficking situations involving over 16,000 different victims in 2021 alone. And they say this is only a fraction of the real data. Because disappearances in human trafficking cases can be so hard to investigate, Jennifer's case started to slow over the next few years. During that time, there were a few

suspicious details that kept the family guessing. Like in August 2007, Jennifer's photo was found on several dating sites. But authorities were convinced the user had nothing to do with her disappearance. That same month, the family also received threatening phone calls from a 28-year-old named Tyler Green. These calls went on for years, saying Logan was next. Along with harassing messages on the web page the family started for Jennifer. Later, Tyler would be charged with aggravated stalking, among other things, but he was apparently never considered a suspect in the case. However, around 2009, three years after Jennifer disappeared, a promising new lead did emerge. Detectives had gone back to the complex to re-interview potential witnesses, and this time

they found a housekeeper who looked at the security footage and said the guy in it looked a lot like someone named Chino. Chino was a maintenance worker on the property, who'd been staying in another building at the complex. In fact, he'd gone into Jennifer's apartment to fix something the week before she disappeared. So detectives run Chino through the system and learned that they actually received a tip about him during the first week of the investigation suggesting he was involved. And it wasn't hard to track him down, because by March 2009, he was doing time in a Florida prison for the statutory rape of a teenage girl, which was committed two years after Jennifer's disappearance.

Plus, there were a few suspicious details about Chino, like the fact that he'd supposedly had keys to every condo in the complex, and that he'd apparently approached other women in the parking lot late at night. And just nine months after Jennifer vanished, he did too. He moved out of the complex and was never seen by anyone there again. However, Chino was a bit taller than the suspect in the footage. He was around 5'9, and he was cooperative with the police. He denied having anything to do with Jennifer's disappearance,

and even agreed to do a polygraph, which he passed. Police were never able to find any direct connection between him and Jennifer's case. So eventually, they moved on. By 2011, there was only one detective left working Jennifer's case full-time. Meanwhile, the Kessies asked the police to make Jennifer's case cold, mainly because there's more resources available for cold cases, like additional funding, specialized programs, priority access to modern forensics methods, to name a few.

But for some reason, the Orlando Police Department refused. 2016 marked 10 years since Jennifer's disappearance. It was also the year she was officially declared dead by a Florida court. But the search was far from over. In 2018, the Kessie sued the Orlando Police Department, for a copy of the case file. In 2019, they were successful. In fact, they were the first Americans to ever successfully sue for an open case file.

The city charged the family more than $18,000 for those files, but at least they were able to go through them all on their own now. And they hired their own private team to help, which they probably needed, because there's more than 16,000 pages of documents and 67 hours of interviews and audio tapes. But those files also led to a distrable. disturbing realization. There had been no investigative work done on Jennifer's case since 2012. Seven years had passed of the family begging the case to run cold, while detectives just sat on it anyway. I think access to case files in true crime cases is such an important topic, especially

after so much time has passed. Like, I get it. If there's sensitive information that needs to be held back, hold it back. But why not let the family look at it? It's just an Another pair of eyes, I mean, usually multiple pairs of eyes from someone who knew this person best. Right. At that point, I mean, it can't really hurt, right? When a case has, you know, long since gone cold, it can't really hurt to have a pair of fresh eyes looking at it. And I, you know, I personally do agree that families should have more access to case files. And it's really, really sad to think that a lot of them, including Jennifer's family, had to pay to access them. Yeah, I was stunned. I was stunned when we found out that they were the first to sue for these documents and win. Like, so many families have tried to get these documents and have been denied. And it's just the worst. That's all I can really say about it, right?

It's you want this information because you want to help. And I think police departments might be a little scared of, you know, what's in there and the repercussions. And I just think all families should get, you know, whatever they can from these police departments. Especially in this case, when there has been no work done on the case since 2012. I mean, all that time, it feels like it's almost wasted when the family could be, combing through the case files and all the evidence themselves and seeing what they can do to help as well. You know, I feel like it can be, you know, a tough conversation, but personally I do feel like going through case, whether it's, you know, an unsolved case or a solved case in my personal

experience, it can be very helpful. It can almost be, even if nothing comes from it, maybe a sense of closure in a way. And I'm not sure with, I don't want to take too much away from this case, but, you know, in my own personal experience in the true crime case, you know, somebody in my family that I was very, very close with, committed a really brutal crime. And, you know, growing up, I wasn't told very much information about it. And online, there were literally like maybe two news articles about it. So there really wasn't much to come to grips with, so to speak. So years later into adulthood, I decided to track down the case files myself. And once I got them, it was like six to seven bins full of information. And it really opened my eyes and kind of helped me

process, you know, the situation. And I feel like, more families should have that ability. Yeah, well, and it helps the case, too. Like, when I got my sister's case file for the first time, you know, 20 years after she went missing, I remember going through and reading it, and it sparked new memories. And then I was able to go tell the detectives that. And, you know, it's hard to know if it moved the case forward, but we know how these things work, right? It's like the smallest piece of information leads to another piece, leads to another piece, and that can lead to a big clue sometimes. Every little tiny thing, it does help. whether you think it will or not.

Yeah. In 2019, the family forced the police to follow up on a lead from those original files. Apparently, 10 months after Jennifer's disappearance, police had received a tip. Someone in a pickup truck had dumped a six-to-eight-foot piece of rolled-up carpet into a lake not far from Jennifer's complex. What really struck them was,

the workers were laying carpet in a unit across from Jennifer's around the time she vanished. I mean, that's huge. It's also really scary to think about. So five years later, a sonar team was dispatched to the lake to search for any anomalies. Then they sent divers down to examine them. But the carpet in question was never discovered. Finally, in 2022, the case was officially turned over from the Orlando PD to the Florida

Department of Law Enforcement's cold case unit. In October 2025, Jennifer's father Drew posted on Facebook that they discovered DNA in her file that had never been tested. Which is hopeful news, especially. considering that the previous efforts to test DNA didn't lead to any results. Still, the family does believe that the most likely scenario is that Jennifer was abducted by one of the workers at her complex. I feel like we see this in true crime all the time. And again, going back to why it's so important to give these families, these case files, it's a fresh set of eyes and they found something.

Like, this is the exact proof of why these families need these case files. Again, they don't have to be, you know, completely unredacted. Redact what you need to, release what you can, and see what you can come up with. And it's really unfortunate in this case that so many years had passed that they could have followed up, that the police could have followed up on these leads, yet no one did. The evidence could have potentially been destroyed. Yeah, the carpet in the lake. I mean, I don't know exactly the science of what happens to a carpet in a lake, but I imagine that, you know, the more time that passes, the less opportunity you have to collect things like DNA, any forensic evidence. The one thing that time can bring to an investigation like this is new technology,

including new ways to test forensic evidence like DNA. Nowadays, we have things like genetic genealogy, which can link DNA profiles to potential relatives or suspects through public databases. There's more cross-collaboration between private labs for matching datasets. There are also ways to test smaller samples while gathering more information on a suspect. I think the part that keeps us all up at night wondering over, and over again about these cases is those last final moments. What changed? Where did things go wrong? Was there fear, pain? Did they fight back? We know that Jennifer Kessi woke up on Tuesday,

January 24th, 2006, feeling hopeful for the future. She got ready for work that day, did her hair and makeup, packed her brother's friend's phone in her bag to send back to him. She was responsible, caring, generous. She was also probably a little uncertain. She just had this beautiful vacation with her boyfriend. But would the relationship last forever? They were long distance. It was tough on them. But Jennifer didn't let that stand in the way of her own success.

She put on a brave face, grabbed her purse, her phone, and her iPod. She closed the door behind her that day, ready to get in her car. She probably even planned to call Rob like she always did on her way to work, just to hash it out. Or maybe she did just take some time for herself, listen to her favorite song on repeat that, day until she pulled into the office parking lot, ready for what she was sure would be just another day at work. Instead, Jennifer Kessie lost everything that morning. No one heard her scream. No one heard her cry out. And to this day, no one has any idea what happened after she locked her door behind her. But we do know that she was loved. And there are a lot of people who won't accept

I don't know for an answer. This past January marked 20 years since Jennifer's disappearance. She'd be 44 years old as of this recording. She has sandy blonde hair, is Caucasian, and about 5'8 or 9. She has a tattoo of a shamrock on the right side of her buttocks, a cleft chin, and a surgical scar on the left side of her arm near the elbow. If you have any information about Jennifer Kessie, you can visit the Find Jennifer Kessie Facebook page or contact your local FBI office. And if you wish to support the Kessie family, you can go to their GoFundMe, or visit the link on our socials and in our show notes. Thank you for listening to The Final Hours.

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