Sword and Scale - Episode 206

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford was an especially shy and polite young girl that lived with her grandparents and her single dad in Homosassa, Florida. On a morning in late February of 2005, Jessica’s father opened his daughter’s bedroom door and found that Jessica was missing. A small cut was later found on the screen door leading into Jessica’s home, suggesting that an intruder may have broken into the house and kidnapped her, but was that really what happened? Was Jessica abducted or did someone in her family have something to do with her disappearance?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I hope you hear her cries as you try to sleep at night. I hope you see the tears run down her face. I hope you spend the rest of your life in fear of death. You will never hurt another child again. Hello! This is season 9, Episode 206 of Sword and Scale. I show that reveals have a service called PLUS. It's available at suarnskill.com slash plus and starting at just five bucks a month.

By the way, that price is going up soon. You get access to all episodes, including the earlier seasons, as well as all the plus episodes which are only available on plus. You won't ever hear them on the regular feed. Everything is commercial free and you get a beautiful 320 kilobyte high bandwidth feed to go along with it. Plus you support your favorite show. And there's tons of additional content you get stored discounts.

That's why I call Plus because you get so much more. So drop what you're doing and head on over to swordandscale.com slash plus. By the way, you can get a version of Plus on your Apple Podcast player. It's called Plus Light. It doesn't include certain things like stored discounts, physical perks, and a couple other things, but it is available on Apple podcasts, which some people just prefer to use. We have our own app. You can download it at the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. And we recommend that, of course, or just check out our website, swordandscale.com.

But now let's get into it, shall we? It's time for horrible stories of horrible people. The world can be an ugly place, and oftentimes things happen that are so incomprehensibly horrible that most of us don't want to even think about them. Let alone talk about them. Yet all of you are still here for some reason. And you know that horrible things happen all the time. And just because we don't talk about them doesn't mean they're any less real.

Right now, there are over 750,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and roughly one in ten American children will experience some form of sexual assault before they turn 13. Child sex abuse statistics vary from state to state, but all the data tells us that this is a widespread problem. Every state in America has significantly high numbers when it comes to this issue. Many people already know that child sex abuse is a big problem, and if you don't, all you need to do is Google the words sex offender registry,

along with the names of your city and state. Before you know it, you'll be looking at a map that marks where all the sex offenders live in or near your area. That weird dude that lives down the street? Bingo. Remember that next time you send your kids around the neighborhood to sell candy bars. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, child sex abuse is very real. It happens every single day in America.

One issue, it seems, is that any major effort to solve or curtail this problem is never proposed or implemented until after a truly awful crime has been committed, or strange animals us humans, with very short-term memory. And even then, after the guilty person has locked away and maybe some new law is passed with some kid's name, like Marcy's law or Sherry's law or whatever. Everyone just kind of moves on.

Meanwhile, the problem not only persists at festers. In late February of 2005, which is over 16 years ago, by the way, making you feel old, there was a 48-year-old woman living in a single-wide trailer in the small town of Homasasa, Florida. Her name was Dorothy Marie Dixon. Dorothy shared her trailer with her boyfriend and several members of her family, including her 28-year-old daughter, her son-in-law, her grandson, her teenage daughter, and her half-brother Johnny. Dorothy had a full house, but you wouldn't exactly compare Dorothy's home life to the TV show Full House, starting John Stamos, by the way. I mean, I guess you could, if the adult characters on the show, including Uncle Jesse, lived in a trailer, mostly ignored each other, and several of them had issues with alcohol

abuse. Putting it mildly, Dorothy's family, like most families, was dysfunctional. But even so, the neighborhood that Dorothy lived in was pretty nice. The crime rate was low, children often played on the street corner, and the general environment was peaceful. For the most part, everyone in Dorothy's neighborhood kept to themselves, living a quiet Florida life in their own single or double-wide mobile home. But on the morning of February 24th, 2005, Dorothy and her family awoke to the

unfamiliar sounds of police searching outside their trailer. Tell me exactly what happened that morning. You woke up. Well, when I woke up I sat on the side of bed and I I looked out my window, because of the space in the out towards the road. I looked out my window and I seen a bunch of cops out there. And I told him, I looked at the mat and I told him I said something's happened around here and he said, why is there a bunch of cops out there? And then we went out from there and I went to the kitchen and got me a couple of up. And the lady in jeans was out there and we were all living out the window.

I also got the kitchen, and they were looking out the living room window. Okay. Johnny came back in, Johnny came in there a few minutes after we did, and he was looking out the window of the lady in them. Dorothy's family gathered in their shared living room and connected kitchen. As they looked out their trailer windows, they saw a large police presence, which included search dogs and a helicopter flying overhead. Clearly, something serious was happening. Eventually Dorothy's oldest daughter stepped outside to see if she could find out what was going on.

Do you want me to put me in a bunch of cops and helicopters flying around? I got up. I went outside and the cops come to me and asked me if he could search the garden. They are and I said, I'm going to go ahead. And he had asked me if I was seeing a little girl and I think she's a bit of a sandwich and I told him no. I hadn't seen him. Dorothy's daughter learned that the police were looking for a missing girl. But more specifically, the police were responding to a 911 call that was made by one of their neighbors earlier that morning. More or less the address of your emergency. Yes, we got a child missing.

And what's the address? 72.662 Nata. She's in her nightmare. How old the child? 9. She's 9 years old? 9. Okay.

Is she a white female? Yes, ma'am. How the hair does she have? Brown. Light brown. What is her name? Jessica Lundford. 9-year-old Jessica Lundsford, or Jessie, lived across the street from Dorothy Dixon's trailer. Growing up, Jessie took an interest in making crafts and expressed that she wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up, or an Olympic swimmer because, well, you know, kids

need a backup career. In case the first one doesn't work out. For most of her life, Jessie had lived in Gastonia, North Carolina. But by age 9, she had moved to a home assassin, Florida, and was living with her grandparents, Ruth, and Archie Lunsford, along with her father, Mark. Hi, Mark. We got people out there looking, okay? They're coming down your way, all right?

Actually, they just told the dog we're going to. Yes, sir. That's what they told me. And she ever gone out to walk the dog before? Never. She never done anything like this. 42-year-old Mark Lundzford divorced Jesse's mother when Jesse was only a year old.

Jesse's relationship with her mother was almost nonexistent and Mark was a single dad. But by all accounts, he was an excellent father that adored and cared for his daughter. And in many ways, Mark's mother Ruth Lundsford acted as a mother to Jesse. On the morning that Mark and Ruth realized that Jesse was missing, they were also unable to find the family dog Korki. Although it was out of character for Jesse to leave the house without telling anyone, the initial assumption was that Jesse had taken Korky out for a walk, but that assumption quickly turned out not to be the case.

Her sickloves are still lying here, her shoes are lying under a chair. Who is purple? I hear she didn't have the dog after all. I'm struggling to another way and I'm about to have a class. For the lunch bird family, the night before Jesse went missing was a night like any other. That evening, Jesse returned home after attending her usual church youth group meeting. Then she had a snack and took a bath just like she did most nights. And she also said goodbye to her father who was leaving to spend the night at his girlfriend's house. When I told her daddy, she said, in case that you're not here, or I get down with my back, I just want to give you a hug.

I'm okay, I love you. So she done all those things. I got her the bed clothes on, because I have to put her to bed every night. This is a ritual of her life. Grandma has to put her to bed. And she was fine. I guess she was happy.

Nothing wrong. Jesse's father Mark left for the night, and Jesse's grandma Ruth put Jesse to bed. Then about an hour later, Ruth and her husband Archie also went to bed. The next morning, Mark returned home and started getting ready for work. As he did this, he heard Jesse's alarm clock going off. He waited for Jesse to silence

it, but she never did. So Mark walked to Jesse's bedroom and found Jesse was not in her bed. So what can you tell us when you went into that bedroom? What was your first thought when you saw that empty bed? My first thought was that she maybe she just got up and got in bed with grandma and grandpa and when I went to their bedroom door I woke them up and I said hey it's Jesse in here with you and they're like no maybe she's laying on the floor next to her bed and so then that's when I began to you know I searched her bedroom under the

bed the closet's my room I didn't want to the living room and and check the living room door I pulled on the door it was open This cream door was unlocked and these are doors that we keep locked Mr. Lonsford is there anything else you want to say tonight? I just want to keep asking that everybody please help. I can't get her back if you don't help. And I mean, there's somebody out there that knows something.

And if you don't tell anybody, then you're just making my changes smaller. I have to have your help. Jesse Lunsford had seemingly vanished. And after a full day went by with no sign of her, several theories of what may have happened began to surface. The first being that Jesse may have simply run away from home. But according to her family, there was no chance that Jesse would do that.

And you're saying that this is not like her. She wouldn't have not went outside on her own. No. It's just isn't her. This is not her. She would not just run away. She's not her runaway. I just don't think I can make it if anything permanent. It's just her. I just don't think I can make it. She's been my life. I've been her life. We're going to, and for them, if Jessie didn't run away, the only other explanation was that someone must have come into the lunchboard home and taken her. And there was some evidence to suggest that that may have happened. The sliding door that goes out to the screen room,

the screen at the door to the screen room has been cut. You can miss that, really, because it's right there where the frame is. A small L-shaped cut on the screen door leading to the lunchford home suggested that an intruder could have made this cut and reached through it to unlock the door. But it was also possible that the cut happened some other way long before Jesse went missing and nobody noticed it. It might have had nothing to do with Jesse's disappearance at all. Plus, there was a big problem with the theory that an intruder had kidnapped Jesse. The Lunsford had

a dog, a very barky dog named Korky. Well, going back to last night, apparently, as we talked earlier, Quarkey mustard left after eating, and then went and got in Mark's bed. Because that's where he was when you found him this morning. Yeah. And when we missed Jesse, we missed the dog. The dog used to bark. If you've been hearing me talking to my dog barks,

he's got a very barking habit. The Lunsford family was heavily involved in their local church community. And they had made many close friends over the years, most of whom were familiar with quirky and is obnoxious barking habit. When the police questioned these friends, everyone said the same thing.

There was no way that someone could break into the lunchford home without the dog barking like crazy and waking up the entire family. They have a little ankle-biter dog. You go up in that yard, that dog goes off. You ain't even got to go in the house. You go to the yard, that dog is barking, ready to take a foot off. The only thing that comes through my mind is that I'm sure everyone has thought that 10,000 times over was that how somebody had

a no-brain devil's gonna be there and someone had no exactly where her room was. And someone had no that dog was not at the bar. If someone broke into the lunchford home, their dog almost certainly would have woken up Jesse's grandparents. Even if the intruder was familiar with the home, the family, and the dog, there was really no way to avoid Corke's barking. So if Jesse didn't run away, and if an intruder didn't break into their home and kidnap her, that meant that whoever was responsible for Jesse's disappearance must have

already been inside the house. Jesse's father, Mark, had spent the night at his girlfriend's house and the police confirmed this. He was there all night long. As far as suspects were concerned, Mark was out. But what about Jesse's grandparents? For police, Jesse's grandmother Ruth seemed far too emotional and broken up about Jesse's disappearance to even be considered a suspect. So that left only one person. Jesse's grandfather, Archie, Lunsford. Do you remember hearing anything last night, any hooting a holler or anything? No, that's what's hard to soak in my mind. I just can't believe in back in the house and be not know it. Your relationship with Jesse has always been good.

Oh, yeah. Does anybody in your family or anybody that you know with a family got any history of any kind of a bowler, or a sexual bad or anything like that? Do you have a thing or does your father, does Mark have anything, or there history anything like that? When detectives questioned 72-year-old Archie He denied having any kind of criminal past related to kidnapping or sex crimes

But what he didn't know what most suspects never know when they're sitting in that interrogation chair Is that police had already looked up his record and knew all about it. And what they found was considerably disturbing. I asked you, if you ever had anything in your history, any kind of sexual battery or battery, or anything of that nature in your past, and you tell me no,

you might have ever been Indianapolis. Yeah. You might have ever. You might remember being an Indianapolis. You know, you don't remember having an altercation in an Indianapolis. Sashri? Well, a kidnapping charge. Yeah. There were no. There were charged with kidnapping in anapolis. Oh, that was married before. It turns out that Ruth Lunsford wasn't Archie's first wife, and during his previous marriage, Archie and his then wife had a son. As that marriage started to fall apart, Archie left his wife and took his son with him. Eventually Archie was arrested and charged with kidnapping his son, but that kidnapping charge wasn't the only thing that stood out on Archie's criminal record.

So you've had an incident with an attempted kidnapping or a kidnapping, right? Yeah, past. You ever have an incident with a attempted rape? Yeah. What was that? Dutch owned a charge I know of. It was a tampered rape.

I know what? I got over the allegation that you allegedly done. I was supposed to have been on the beach with her and a tempered driver, that's. OK, I know about that. Did you give them one, getting in? I mean, I had to give them two. If you ever had anything, you tell me no.

And then I'm asking you questions that I know the interest to. I can. I'm just trying to see how long she will be with me. Well, I've never dreamed that that was even over my record. Yeah, and see everything you've done. No, no, no, no. Long before Jesse Lundsford went missing, her grandfather Archie was charged and arrested for attempting to rape a young woman. When that case went to court, the woman that accused Archie didn't appear, and Archie

walked away with a slap on the wrist. After Archie had been called out for lying about his criminal past, which included charges and convictions for kidnapping and attempted rape, the interrogating detectives began to turn up the heat on Archie. The hope was that they could push Archie into a confession and that he'd be able to tell them what he'd done with his granddaughter. But things didn't go as planned. And when the police finally learned what had happened to 9-year-old Jesse Lunsford, the story turned out to be much more horrifying

than anyone could have ever suspected. On the morning of February 24th, 2005, single dad Mark Lunsford discovered that his nine-year-old daughter, Jesse, was missing. Given that it was unlikely that Jesse would just run away from home and equally unlikely that an intruder kidnapped Jesse from her bed without alerting the family dog, detectives focused their attention on Jesse's grandfather, 72-year-old Archie Lunsford. Jesse lived with both her grandparents, Ruth and Archie. And Archie had a criminal record that included kidnapping and attempted rape charges. As far as the police could tell, Archie was the only viable suspect in Jesse's disappearance. They tried to harm Jesse. There's no way Jesse walked off of some stranger.

There's no way that some stranger came to your house, some snacks tried in that house without the dog even barking. We got to be able to show that the puzzle fits together. And we got so out of the house. I honestly feel my heart just what you guys meant to be going through, trying to bid her on how child got out of the house was his grandparents laying right there. And that little doll you can't believe how that doll would have backed into somebody else's house.

I agree. I know I do anything. If it will help to bring Jesse back to him. I don't know what she's at. All I know is that she wasn't at the house this morning. It's all I know. Archie acknowledged that any scenario that involved Jesse leaving on her own, or with someone else, seemed impossible. But he also vehemently denied having any knowledge of what happened to her. In response, one of the detectives outright accused Archie of sexually assaulting his granddaughter, and this didn't go over well. This didn't go over well at all. about good touches and bad touches. I think things start to escalate. Maybe she

said something, she's gonna say something to somebody. I can't believe you did this. Do you not feel bad? Feel bad. Yeah. I don't know how you're supposed to feel when somebody's a lady knew to believe that you brought harm to your granddaughter. You can keep me here as long as you want to. But I ain't gonna say you're very low because this is bunch of bullshit. I mean, I'm not guilty of anything. It's a love and a grandchild.

I'm like this, saying anything about your grandmother. If you had to get on education, it that's better your menu was wasted. Yeah, why is that? You think I ain't gonna get bad? I'm about to get to the point where I can't tell you no more. Well, I'm not trying to get you into your evidence. I'm not trying to get you into me out of here because I don't belong in here. And I'm not gonna stay in here.

I'm not trying to get you mad. I don't even want to talk to you anymore. Don't talk about it no more. No, sir. Archie quickly shut down the interview and refused to answer any more questions. Soon after, the detectives left the interrogation room and sent in Mark Lunsford, Jesse's father, into the room in hopes that he could convince Archie to keep talking. What followed was a heartbreaking conversation between a son and his accused father. that come to me and said, and I told him that they ain't no way. And they keep saying and saying.

And I keep telling him, my dad wouldn't do anything. And if he knew anything, then he would tell you, that's all I keep telling him. I just want to find Jesse. And they keep telling me that they didn't get over to see that. And I told I told him that I said I can't question my dad like that. I just can't There's no way If I knew you forgive me dad, and I just But they keep saying things to me. They just don't know way. I Just wouldn't just see that's all I want.

There's all no doors, no doors. Archie maintained that he didn't know what happened to Jesse, and the attempts made by police to get him to admit otherwise ultimately went nowhere. After this police interview, several days went by, with no signs of Jesse Lunsford or any clues as to what had happened to her. While still looking at Archie as a suspect, detectives also revisited the possibility that someone somehow broke into the Lunsford home and kidnapped Jesse. In doing so, they began looking at the criminal backgrounds of people that lived near the

lunchford home, and they found something interesting. Remember Jesse's neighbor Dorothy Dixon, and her small trailer that was filled with her dysfunctional family? Well, one of those family members was Dorothy's half-brother, 47-year-old John Evander Kuhi. And John had an especially unnerving criminal past. Back in 1991, over a decade before Jesse Lundsford went missing, John was arrested after an incident involving a five-year-old girl that lived across the street from them. Mr. Kui, can you tell me about what happened this evening about 7 o'clock when you were outside

and you saw the little girl that lives right across the river? She's right on her back and can you tell me what happened? Yes, she was right on the cross. I went over there and she got off the go in the backyard and tell them to have to travel. And I said, okay, so we went about there and I asked her if she wanted to play how I can go to seek.

And she said, yes. And I asked her, that's a good point that for a while. I asked her, come over and say now. Okay, wait, when she said down, where did she sit down? She said, oh my gosh, she said, said, I'm okay, I belong to her. And I think we'll be yourself. Okay, I know you already stated. She only touched the penis just once. Right. And then her parent

mother come out and yell for her and I took off. That wasn't the first time John had been in trouble for victimizing a child. A few years before this incident, John had been arrested after he exposed himself to a different five year old girl. I say chop their dicks off and decapitate them for good measure, but hey, that's just me. You know, I've done 10 years in prison, and I've done, well, I've done, got out three years,

I got 10 years since, I got out three years, I got to come here soon, I got out three years, and it does really help. I feel that I need help from myself, and that's why I'm professioned to my crime that I committed in life, because I won't help from myself, so I will never have to do this again." John Kooey was clearly a sick man. He had been sent to prison twice for exposing himself to children. And not surprisingly, there were other unreported incidents of John victimizing children. When they were only six and seven years old, John had molested his sister Dorothy's two

daughters. His girls were his own nieces. But you said he's also touched you. I was like I was like seven or eight when he did it. And then Bernice says, well, from what my mom says that Bernice is a Johnny right there. I don't know for fact. Now when he touched you, where does he touch you? He touched you know, I probably didn't punch you up in the end. They need to be noticed is private. Yeah. Why in the world did your mom let him stay around after she did that to you guys? Well my dad keep me out.

They were sitting in the table, I told my dad. And my dad, she said, you need to do something I'm going to kill him. Mom walked up, frightened, and couldn't get leave. But he still keeps coming back. Yeah. John Kui was a previously convicted sex offender and a serial child molester who preferred his victims to be pre-pubescent girls. And he also lived not in a jail cell, not in a dungeon somewhere.

He lived as a free man in Dorothy Dixon's trailer, which was right across the street from missing nine-year-old Jesse Lunsford. After the police learned about John's background, they went to Dorothy's trailer to speak with him, but John wasn't home, and he wasn't expected back anytime soon. You bought a bus ticket for your uncle, okay? What time was the bus to think? Wasn't it, you wasn't, was it that day or?

It was anytime bus ticket. Right. And you know that. it that day or it was in any time bus ticket right and you know that he says he left the money he could have left any of them for that I don't know the he says he left on Monday so you're going to the ticket all right right when police visited Dorothy Dixon's trailer to question john they learned that his niece the same niece he molested when she was a child bought him a bus ticket to Savannah, Georgia, and John had left Florida shortly after Jesse was reported missing. But this wasn't the first time that police had visited Dorothy's home. In fact, detectives went there on the same day that Jesse was reported missing. Only at that time, they didn't know that John Kui was a resident of that trailer.

And nobody said nothing. On the day that Jesse Lunsford was reported missing, two detectives went to Dorothy Dixon's trailer and questioned everyone that lived there. Or so they thought. And as they were leaving, one of the detectives caught a glimpse of John Cooey standing in the backyard. Thinking that one of the residents was trying to avoid being questioned, the detective went back inside the trailer and attempted to find out who was hiding in the trailer, Dorothy's boyfriend emerged from a back room.

The detective assumed that he was the man who was standing in the backyard, but the detective was wrong. John Cooey was still back there. He was hiding, and he successfully avoided being questioned by police on that day. This was a particularly important and tragic moment in the story of Jesse Lunsford, because as the detectives finally left Dorothy's trailer that day, there was something else they didn't know. Jesse Lunsford was inside the trailer. She was in John Cooey's bedroom closet, and at that time, she was still alive. By mid-March of 2005, 9-year-old Jesse Lunsford had been missing for over two weeks, and detectives in Florida were looking for previously convicted sex offender 47-year-old John Kui.

John lived across the street from Jesse and had a criminal history that included molesting young girls. But by the time police realized all of this, John had already fled the state of Florida. The only leads police had on John came from John's family, who told them that John left with a bus ticket to Savannah, Georgia. And when he arrived there, he called his family to check in. He called, I think it was either that tutor that wouldn't stay. And he said that he was in a hotel, and then he was drinking a couple beers. And he was okay. And he gave us a phone number or a cell phone and we tried to call it back.

And it's some different ladies' home. I wouldn't even hence. Lucky for police, John Kui already had a prior warrant out for his arrest for an unrelated charge. So if he were to be found, John could and would be arrested. Also helpful for the police, the word was out that John was a person of interest in the case of missing 9-year-old girl, Jesse Lunsford. And John's face appeared on nearly every news network in Florida, Georgia,

and South Carolina, after which it didn't take long for police to find John and bring him in. He was actually standing on the side of the road. We both got out of the car and approached him, Leslie asking what his name was and he said, Johnny and drop his head. And she said, what's your last name? And he said, Kooie, that time she placed him in handcuffs and told him he was under arrest. When you said that you asked this name, Johnny, and then he dropped his head. He dropped his head, as if.

You got me, I mean, that was close. Basically, yeah. Basically, yeah. And then he was. So me, he was basically, I had no much guilty man. I mean, when he dropped his head and never asked any questions, if it was me, I would have asked. John was found and arrested in Augusta, Georgia, about 400 miles north of where he lived in Florida. John was booked into a Georgia County jail where detectives from Florida met with John

and questioned him. What year was it to choose the rest for your sexual offense? Why? 91? I think it was about 91 years, way back now. What did you do? I masturbated from kids. I mean, I mean, I was a child.

And she was fine, I was fine, I was fine, she's younger. I think she was, I think, for you. I masturbated from her. I think she does. I think, yeah. That's a better problem. I think she's on fire, though. Did you turn you on? Did you look like you looked on you? No, I guess I would.

I don't know. I was right without you, kids. So remember that. So if I could define, was fair for me to say that I see your child who was not the greatest child that's right. The detectives started the interview by discussing John's background, and they did this for a reason. You see, before getting into any questions about Jesse Lunsford or her whereabouts, the detectives

wanted to establish that John had a serious problem when it came to being around young children. Don acknowledged that he had a long history of sexually victimizing young children, specifically young girls. And after this pattern of behavior was established, the detectives quickly shifted the topic of conversation to the missing nine-year-old girl that lived across the street from John. Did you know Jessica? I was there on that camera. Never saw your entire life?

No, because I didn't go out to house that one. I used to stay at house. I might have seen a ranch or something there. You can't go out of the house for three-dollar. Never matter. Never personally matter, no sir. You live literally a stone throw from that girl's farm. I was there.

You live with a left, how much have happened? I see your point there. That's where he's more asking right now. Yes sir. You know what that little girl is? You need to tell her. I don't have any. Today, Johnny.

Well, honestly, let me finish talking to Coach. Okay, I'm serious. Okay, I'll show it up. For the sake of humanity, for the sake of her parents, for years, his mind and the whole goddamn world. If you know what that little girl is, I want you to tell me. I want you to tell me. I'm not telling.

Detectives press John for several hours in the hopes that he would be you to tell me, I want you to tell me. About Ella. Detectives pressed John for several hours in the hopes that he would be able to tell them what happened to Jesse Lundsford. But John repeatedly denied having any knowledge of whereabouts and claimed that the only information he knew about the girl came from what he had seen on television. Our whole goal today is to find that in a group. That I understand that. You know, I don't know how long we're all this grosses are far more strong. on television. I think you did. Oh my God, always war I think.

Something else you keep in your mind too. Yes sir. All this fucking mixed up is all you did is yourself by fucking run. Y'all understand that. Okay. I ain't blanking, I ain't saying I understand that. You know, you blame yourself when you're damn pictures blasted all over the TV. Because all you had to do was come to me instead of walking out the fucking back door,

swinging around like some of that damn yard rat, so even if you're getting everything you thought you deserved. Through at this interview, John maintained his innocence. And although nobody believed the word he was saying, the detectives eventually threw in the towel and decided that they weren't going to get a confession. But by the next morning, John had changed his mind. Somehow in the middle of the night, his conscience had kicked in.

And he asked to speak with detectives again. Now, obviously, originally he told us that he didn't know anything about it. Yes, sir. But we got called in this room because you wanted to tell us something. Yes. And so he was on the walk in this room. You told him that you had done something to Jessica, and she was on the lift of that. And he agreed to do it.

OK. At the start of his second interview, John began to cry uncontrollably. It took some time for John to compose himself, but when he finally did, John started to confess. And this confession began with how John knew Jesse Lunsford. John had seen Jesse several times in the front yard of her home, often playing with the lunch-fired family dog, Korki. But John was unaware that Jesse lived with her father and grandfather. The only other person John ever saw living in the house was Jesse's grandmother Ruth. For him, this made Jesse seem like an easy target. And at about 3am on February 24th, 2005, after drinking a few beers, Budweiser or Miller Light I would imagine,

maybe Cours. Yeah, probably Cours. John walked across the street to the Lunsford home. His first attempt to break inside involved cutting the screen door on the side of their trailer. That's when I went around to the other door. And it was open. The back door was open. No, to the kitchen area or whatever. Yeah, I wanted to see if anybody was open. That's where I went in that.

You went in under the dog bark? No, no, I know. No, no, no, no, no. Other day I had a dog ready to see the dog where bark our fry was just took off. To this day, nobody really knows for sure why Korki didn't bark when John entered the lunchford home.

But there is a likely theory. On rare occasions this useless little dog with a big bark would bury himself under blankets or bed sheets when he was tired. And when he did this, Korky was dead to the world. That's a hell of a guard dog, if you ask me. There's some sheets on Mark's bed that I washed and did not fold and he was supposed to fold him and where was the dog. He's wrapped up in all and them two sheets. He can't hear nothing because he's wrapped up in the box.

So she had got up in the middle of the night and went out, which obviously she did with by herself or with somebody. Then the dog was wrapped up in no sheets and didn't hear it. That's fine. The family dog likely never heard John breaking into their home. And once John was inside, he saw Jesse's grandparents asleep in their bed. John then walked further into the home and he eventually found an opened Jesse's bedroom door. You ever wish you could sleep this well? Like be able to sleep right through a home invasion?

I wake up sometimes when the air conditioner goes off. I walked in first time and she kind of turned over and looked and I closed it. And the story goes all back out and I changed my mind. I went back in and got her. I told her to wash the house and I don out, and I changed my mind. I know I went back in and got her. I told her to wash the house, and I don't go, and I'll go out there for a day. Put your hand on her mouth. I said, shh, I'm crying. And she went like that.

And all the way out, she says, can I grab a toy? To the few people that had met and knew her, Nine-Year-Old Jesse was a sweet and especially shy and polite young girl. She was not the type of child that would challenge an adult when they told her to do something. And when John Kooie instructed Jesse to stay quiet and follow him out of the home, she heartbreakingly did as she was told. The only thing she politely asked was whether she could bring along one of her toys. The next morning, Jesse's father Mark was quick to realize that the toy was missing.

And you're sure her doll was missing? Oh yeah, we went to the state fair and I went on a hat and I've stuffed the hat is still here but the dolphin is gone. John granted Jesse permission to bring along the stuffed animal and the two of them left the lunchford home. John then directed Jesse towards his trailer and brought her into his bedroom. Then John shut the door and closed his blinds. Fair warning. We're about to start getting into the remainder of John Kui's confession, which is not

an easy listen. If you're unable to hear about sex crimes committed against children, or if you just don't want to be scarred for life, now's your chance to turn back. Turn this off. Go listen to crime chunky. Still there? Okay, here we go. You start well here again. Yeah, that's not a play. Yeah, I'm underneath the road. I'm under the federal top of the clubs. Okay. I made a poor, uh, things all not happening for just pants. But I have a good problem all.

She'll have to go anywhere. Yeah, that's what I'm jacking like. That was talking to where she mastered you. That's making a little bit of a little bit of a... Which thing did she use? Did you don't want to see it's like... You know, that thing. That's what I meant. What's the thing that you don't want to see is my hair in the dark. We're going to do mass reading, your clean work, your comments come on yourself.

I'm proud to shirt with my hair in the dark, but it's part of our part of being a kind of poor and a way of time. And being a bit of a boss. Being a minor being that. It's just that with the stars, you know what, he molested her, but he didn't have intercourse with her. Then the two of them fell asleep on his disgusting bed. The next morning, John woke to the sounds of his family moving about the trailer.

If you remember, John Cooie shared his home with several members of his family. And that morning, the entire family gathered around the windows of their trailer and watched as the police searched outside. When John realized that the police were outside he put Jesse in his bedroom closet and told her to stay quiet. Any joined his family in the living room as everyone speculated about what the police were up to. It was later that afternoon that the two detectives came to the house and questioned John's family.

When they showed up, John ducked out the back door to hide in the backyard while Jesse remained inside the bedroom closet. The first time they came around, they were coming in, they were gay men, they were calling her to my calls. They said they searched the house. They didn't search the house the first time.

She's inside in their closet? She tied up? No, I just overstate the closet. She's taken it. That's her stay? Yeah. Well, we are issuing a life. It's like 30 days.

Well, how do you keep her quiet for so long? She got called out to her. She just stayed quiet. Oh, yeah, like she says, she's very glad No one knows for sure how long John kept Jesse in his bedroom closet, but the forensic evidence that was later gathered suggested that she could have been in there for two or three days. And during that time, nobody in John's family had any clue that Jesse was there, which gives the term clueless a whole new meaning. he's room. So he stayed, he had in his room for three or four days. Yeah, well not exactly he did. I mean he'd go in there and stay you know for hours. He's sick, you know, come out to the door and come out in the hallway or whatever you know.

But you know, like I said, I didn't notice anything any different because he's always done that. You know, he's always stayed in this room. And we never heard nothing. We never heard a sound. I mean, you know, I thought we could have heard a scream or something, but we didn't hear nothing. sound. I mean, I thought we could order screen or something, but we didn't hear nothing. The Johnny ever come out and just say, I got to get out of here. Did he ever say anything? Did he ever act any different? Never. Never. You come out, get a very good lot. And everybody in that house stayed in their rooms all the time. That's how he always was. Pretty much you, pretty much, did by sorry, I always stayed in my room too.

Right. Did you hear anything coming from that room? No. I swear to God, I'm in the Bible. I had no idea. No idea. I would have done something. I would have.

According to John, as Jesse survived in his closet for several days, John would patiently wait for his family to go to bed each night before he would repeatedly molest his nine-year-old hostage. Pull that out and she's exactly. Would you be ready to do that now? Yes. OK. Did she make you come? If you want to, if there's a baby, she'd make you come back. No. OK.

So how many times did she pass away? Not, not, not, not, I mean, not, not. She is. I say try to make it, maybe, no process. John claimed that during the time that did make a whole process. John claimed that during the time that Jesse was with him, the two of them rarely spoke. Jesse only occasionally asked for food, water, and when she would be allowed to go home. What do you feed her that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, Amber. Amber. Amber. I have a guy from Amber. There's water. There's tea.

What does she have to do? She had to go to the back. She's through out there. She's speed right there in the closet. Did she put in the closet? Not out of that. No. Dispeed in the closet. Do you feed her anything? There's a barrier or not. Okay. Did you have... Did you masturbate with her again on the Thursday night? No, masturbated. Did you masturbate yourself? Did you have her masturbating?ate with her again on Thursday night? No, last minute. Did you masturbate yourself? Did you have her masturbating? Uh, but she done it, I've done it. She did it before you again.

I've done it. Okay. She goes to sleep with you better or she's letting the club... She's letting the clubs... She doesn't. She'll at least let me one night. Did she ever ask you that let's you go home or anything like that? Let her go home?

She asked me when I would have to go there, go, and I told her I would let her go. And I had to handle that. I could say, I don't know why I got scared. John told the police that it wasn't until the third night of Jesse's captivity that he decided he would rape her. And after John did so, he then decided that he needed to dead, of course. How did you lay on top of her? She's going to tell me to go. No, it'll top her. OK. Johnny, when you had sexual intercourse, did you jack leave us out of her? Yes, sir.

I did. What about the blood on the bed? Is that sure of leaving from her vagina? She's telling me when I got done, as she said, the pill I used on her period. She's bleeding so much. Yes. OK.

When did you get a sexual intercourse? That first night, or the time that I heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard heard and then went outside. He grabbed a shovel, dug a shallow grave in his backyard, and then returned to his bedroom. John tied Jesse's hands together with a cord he had cut from a radio speaker, and instructed Jesse to climb into a large garbage bag. She did, as she was told. I thought you were going to put another little top down. Did you think the whole first? Yeah, the whole first. And then you brought it out there? Yes, I know. And then it rained very deep on it. And she was alive when you heard her alive?

Yes. OK. And then what did you do next? I covered a bunch of leaves over and there's all that. And I went back and have one bit. Did anybody in the house know what you did? Listen. The body of 9-year-old Jesse Lunsford was recovered three weeks after she was reported

missing. She was found in a shallow grave outside John Kooie's trailer, not 200 yards from where she lived. Jesse was inside two large trash bags, just like John had said, as was her stuffed animal, a purple dolphin. According to the autopsy, Jesse poked two fingers through the bag before suffocating to death. She likely died within two to three minutes after being deprived of oxygen. The cause of death was ruled as a murder, big job.

So now we're going to be able to do what's profitable for us. It's just the life you need, how the right to do that, baby. Yes, sir. I did that. Listen to me. Listen to me. If you could say something for just for writing him, what would you say?

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. As his confession came to an end, John sobbed and expressed remorse for what he had done, but that remorse didn't last long. John ultimately pleaded not guilty to the crimes of kidnapping, sexual battery, and first-degree murder,

and his defense team successfully had John's confession thrown out of court. A judge ruled that the confession was inadmissible because police had not granted John's request to speak with a lawyer when he was initially arrested. Yet another example of this police department completely bungling this investigation. We've heard about some really bad police work, but this particular story really seconds me. If the police had done their job properly, not only would his confession have been admissible, but Jesse may have survived the abduction. They could have found her that day in the closet, still alive if they had just done their fucking jobs.

The jury never got to hear John's sickening confession and all the horrible things he had done to Jesse. Despite the incredibly inept police work, all the evidence gathered after the confession, including the recovery of Jesse's body and the forensic processing of John's bedroom, which proved that Jesse's blood was on John's bed and her fingerprints were inside his bedroom closet was deemed admissible. And in March of 2007, two years after Jesse was murdered, John Kui went to trial. Prosecutors started to lay out their case against John Evander Kui accused of murdering nine-year-old Jessica Lunsard in 2005. She was put in two plastic bags with her dolphin, put in a hole.

And there in the dark, with only the dolphin, she suffocated. The evidence will show that the one main responsible for all of these acts is sitting right there. John's trial only lasted a week, and in in the end John was found guilty on all counts and in a vote of 10-2 his jury voted in favor of the death penalty. After John's sentencing, Jesse's father Mark Lundzford addressed the court and spoke directly to John. Glundsford addressed the court and spoke directly to John. I hope you hear her cries as you try to sleep at night. I hope you see the tears run down her face when she asked you to go home. I hope you spend the rest of your life in fear of death.

You will never hurt another child again. Judge Howard, speaking for myself, for my community and the nation. I plead with you to accept the recommendation of the jury for death, and to remember the words of a wise old black man in Teravis. It's just too heavy, your honor. It's too heavy for mercy. In August of 2007, a judge sentenced John Cooie to death for the murder of Jesse Lunsford, but the state of Florida never got a chance to carry out that sentence. Two years later, John Cooie died in prison of anal cancer, a fitting end for this disgusting monster.

Following Jesse's murder and John's subsequent trial, public outrage over the case spurred Florida lawmakers and politicians to introduce new legislation. This new legislation was dubbed the Jessica Lunsford Act, or you guessed it, Jessica's law. Jessica's law is a fairly complex piece of legislation, but because John Cooey was a previously convicted sex offender before Jesse was abducted, the bill mainly focused on the trafficking and punishment of child sex offenders. One of the key provisions of Jessica's law is that any adult convicted of performing a sexual act on a child under the age of 12 is deemed to have committed a life felony.

This means that the offender must be sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. Likewise, offenders that are considered to be sexual predators are required to wear an electronic tracking device for life after their release from prison. Jessica's law has yet to be enacted on a federal level. But as of October 2021, over 40 states in America have some form of Jessica's law on their books. In 2014, the governor at the time, Chris Christie, signed the Jessica Lunsford Act into law in the state of New Jersey. Today, we're ensuring justice is served, and it will hopefully be at the turn to prevent

these heinous acts and the life-changing trauma they bring from being committed at all. But when they are committed to make sure that justice is done swiftly and surely and significantly. And I want to thank Mark for taking the time to be here. You're going to hear from him in a moment. for committing himself to this cause, ensuring that the tragedy that his family sustained and his daughter's memory will live on in this law and in the law being passed in other states as well. Since the death of his daughter, Mark Lunsford has committed himself to ensuring that the Jessica Lunsford Act is signed into law

in every state in America. Unfortunately for Mark, not every state has been willing to accept Jessica's law with open arms. Today her father again in Colorado trying to convince lawmakers to strengthen our laws. If your laws are so tough and so good here, why are your repeat offenders repeating their offenses? Right now in Colorado. The average sentence for a sex assault with physical harm is about 14 years. The bill

to make it 25 years minimum was shot down at the Capitol. Why shouldn't someone get 25 to live? And is pursuit to see that Jessica's law is enacted on a national level. Mark Lundzford asks a valid question. Why shouldn't a convicted child sex offender be sent to prison for 25 years? Well, one of the main arguments against Jessica's law is that this is especially harsh sentence can put victims of child sex abuse and even more danger. If a sex offender is aware of this law and chooses to sexually assault a child anyway,

they might be more inclined to do whatever is necessary to keep the child from speaking out about their abuse. This could include murdering the child. This makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways. There are a lot of victims of sexual child abuse that are still around to speak about it. They weren't murdered in order to avoid a 25-year sentence. After all, most murders get about the same type of sentence.

So if you're gonna rape a kid, hell, why not kill him? You're not facing any more time. Then, again, the whole thing assumes that the number of years is a deterrent. If you could go to jail for 10 years, for raping a child, as opposed to 25, for killing them, and you're willing to do those 10, if you potentially get caught. I don't think the extra 15 are going to matter to you that much. Also, the mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years removes the ability of state prosecutors to offer plea deals. If, for example, a sex offender is found to have child pornography and the state wants to know who produced that pornography.

They aren't able to offer any deals to get that information. Plead deals are the cost of doing business, I guess you would say. Opponents of Jessica's law generally favor a more proactive approach when it comes to protecting children and often push for increased funding for support groups and therapy for non-offenders that find themselves forming a compulsive sexual attraction to children. I'm sure all those social workers out there are making a huge difference. Clearly. But hell, what do I know?

I'm just a podcaster. These are highly complicated concepts. And who knows who's right? But despite all of these arguments and alternative approaches to dealing with child sex abuse, Mark Lundsford has continued his fight. I never forget about my daughter Jessica. But the other pains that I have is that she's not the only child that I think of on days

like this. The parents that I've had to meet, and I didn't even know what to say to them, and I don't really know what they're going through. It's horrible, and it's sad, and the only way that we can make things different is by joining together and every state passing something that is so tough that it makes other people so angry. Because it's so hard for them to do their job to protect a guilty man. Jesse Lunsford was raped and buried alive over 15 years ago. And yet, the problem of widespread child sex abuse is no less prevalent and no less horrifying today than it was back then. Whether or not Jessica's

law has been a step in the right direction is open for public debate. But one thing is certain, whatever we've done is not enough. to be back as she tried to get air. Our whole body brought it in her own clothes. Is that the way we want our children to die? Are these things the fear that we want our children to go through? We'll never be able to imagine what that's like. That's what we can imagine is what it's going to be like to keep them safe. If you live in America, then you live in a country where roughly one in every ten children will suffer some form of sexual abuse before the age of thirteen. And about 20% of all sexual abuse victims are under the age of eight. No matter where you stand on the issue of how the law and society should handle sex crimes committed against children,

there is no denying that Mark Lundsford is right about a few things. No family should ever have to endure the pain that Mark and his family went through. No child should suffer anything resembling the fate of nine-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford, suffocating to death in a shallow grave. mere footsteps away from her home. And more than fifteen years after her rape and murder, we still have a long way to go. And the job of ending child sex abuse remains far from finished. That is it for this episode of Sword and Scale. Thank you for joining us.

We hope you've enjoyed it. Until next time, stay safe. My name is Jennifer and I am from Missouri. My boyfriend found your podcast about a year and a half ago. And just in the past six months or so, I have completely gotten addicted. I've always been a true crime fan, killer smotherer, whatever. And I have already gone through the 200 episodes, signed up for plus. And I'm listening to all of them. I absolutely love it. You're fucking amazing.

I love your sarcasm. You're just like of most people. I would consider myself a mis-amppurist. Anyways, I love all of your stories. And I know that they're never ending. And there will be never ending stories unfortunately but anyways love all of you and keep putting out amazing podcasts, you're fabulous. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

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1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc Thank you.