True Crime All The Time - Kimberly Kessler

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

Joleen Jensen went missing in May 2018. The last person to see her alive was her coworker, Jennifer Sybert. Investigators quickly realized that Jennifer was not who she said she was, and she was charged with murdering Joleen. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Kimberly Kessler. Kessler had been on the run from the FBI for 25 years at the time that Joleen Jensen went missing. While authorities quickly ascertained her identity, they still had to put together a case that Kimberly murdered Joleen. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 409 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime Mike Gibson. Givney, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good. How about you? I'm doing great. Good. You know, we just did our weekly Patreon thing and talked about the fact that Halloween is passed. We just had the election. The year is, uh, it's going pretty quickly. It is. Next thing will be. be Thanksgiving and then before you know it, Christmas and a whole new year. And then we're being to 2025. That's hard to believe.

I know. When you think about, you know, I can remember being a kid in school, and it turning to like 1980. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. And what a big deal. You know, you got to write that on your paper.

Oh, yeah. 80. 80. And now we're in 2025. Isn't that crazy. I mean, just think about. when we all were all nervous about what's going to happen at year 2000 oh yeah why why 2k now we're 25 years going to be 25 years past that it's hard to believe sometimes and that we're you know

going to be 24 years past 9-11 well that's true too let's go ahead and give our patreon shoutouts we had shannon hey shannon hey shananan joshua patten thank you joshua hey kim soya hey kim david david david jose jumped out at our highest level that's awesome thanks david debby well Thank you, Debbie. Cheryl Joy. Hey, there's Cheryl. Jeanette. What's going on, Jeanette?

Catherine Crapo jumped out higher than our highest level. Catherine, you are amazing. Cheryl Pritcher Joy. Hey, Joy. And last but not least, Susanna Scarborough. I appreciate that, Susanna. And then if we go back into the vault, this week we selected Robert Williams.

Well, thank you, Robert. Yeah, we appreciate the new support, to continued support on Patreon. We also had a couple of great PayPal donations from Joseph Miller. Hey, thanks, Joseph. And Tammy Baldridge. All right. Thanks, Tammy. Yeah.

Thank you to everyone. So Gibbs, right now we have a brand new episode out on True Crime All the Time Unsolved, where we're tackling this case that, you know, over the years has become known as the Babes in the Woods murders. And this goes back a ways, but the bodies of three girls were found. in a state park in Pennsylvania. Now, obviously, it's still unsolved. But this is one where police are pretty certain.

They know who the killer was, but there is a lot of very interesting twists in turn. Yeah. When it comes to this case. Definitely give it a listen. Yeah, absolutely. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time?

I am. We're talking about Kimberly Kessler, but we have to, start off talking about Jolene Jensen. Because Jolene Jensen went missing in May 2018. The last person to see her alive was her co-worker Jennifer Seiberd. But as investigators, you know, started to dig in to this missing person's case. They realized that Jennifer Seiberd wasn't who she said she was.

Jolene Rebecca Jensen was born in 1984. and she grew up in Nassau County, Florida, with her mother and stepfather. Jolene was popular and well-liked by her classmates, according to oxygen. After high school, Jolene went to cosmetology school in Jacksonville. She wanted to open her own salon one day.

Didn't you used to do cosmetology work? No, I was just getting ready to say. I thought that was a dream that you had many, many years ago. You wanted to open your own salon. you wanted to be what's the guy's name paul harris is that paul mitchell paul michill yeah sorry i don't know who paul harris you wanted to be the next paul mitchell and for whatever reason that that got derailed but you're still pretty good at a lot of the things manny petties you know all that if i was going to do hair i'd be known as the k bar barber oh yeah you just cut people's hair

with a kbar. Absolutely. And that's the only tool that you need. You know, that cable bar can be used for a lot of things. It can be. I don't think cutting hair is, uh,

is at the top of the list, but, uh, you never know. Jolene was happy. When she had her first child, she loved being a mother. Her relationship with her daughter's father,

though, did not lapse. Okay. That happens, right? You meet someone, you're in love, or at the very least,

you think you're in love. Sure. You end up having a child together, but that relationship doesn't work out. That fizzles off. It fizzles out. I mean, that happens to a lot of people, whether they get married or not. But the one thing you have in common is this child.

Jolene then got a job as a hairstylist that tangles hair salon in Fernandina Beach, Florida. She built up her client base with her people skills and by using social media. That's how that whole business works, right? It's about having a good client base and how else can you do that besides networking and social media? Well, today's social media. Yeah. A little harder back in the day. Word of mouth, really.

You mean without social media? Yeah. Yeah. I always love your back in the day references. Because, you know, what is back in the day? Back in what? Who's they? Well, that's true.

What day? What year? But you're right about, you know, being a hairstylist or really anybody in the service industry where you are reliant on having clients, you got to build up a good base. You need repeat customers. And obviously, you got to be good at what you do to keep those people coming back time and time again. True.

In 2013, Jolene married Jason Cummings. they had two sons together. Jolene and Jason separated in 2017 in shared custody of the children. Jolene's kids were her main priority and she always put them first. It's the way it should be. Yeah, we hear that about a lot of mothers.

It is the way it should be. I think it is the way that it is for most people. Not everyone. No. I mean, there's some people make the case that you've got to put yourself first, take care of you first so you can take care of your kids the right way. Well,

and some people don't take care of their kids. Well, that's true. I'm going to put that out there. I mean, not everybody is a great mother. Oh, yeah, there's definitely some not great moms and dads out there.

If there were, then we wouldn't have the need for children's services. You mean if everybody was a great parent? Yeah. Some people aren't meant to be parents. Some people decide they don't want to be parents. I mean, it goes there's a host of reasons some people get you know into drugs or and let that control their

lives things like that on may 12th 2018 jolene left work at tangles hair salon around 5 p.m. the last person to see her was her co-worker jennifer cybert may 13th was mother's day and joelene's 34th birthday the kids had been with their dad for a week and jolene was supposed to be to pick them up, but she never did. And this comes up a lot in unsolved cases, a good mom who is supposed to, let's say, pick up her kids, but fails to show up. Right. That is just an unbelievable red flag. Especially if it's her birthday and it's mother's day. And it's Mother's Day. And she hasn't seen him for a whole week. You think she's probably going, you know, stir crazy, not seeing her kids yet. Yeah. Yeah. So.

bad sign, right? I mean, when something like that happens, Jason called Jolene's mother, Ann Johnson to ask about her and knew something was wrong immediately. And she reported Jolene missing on May 14th, 2018. So, you know, like we said, you know, this is the type of event, you know, that someone close to someone, close to a person would look at and say, this is totally out of character for them. Something obviously is terribly wrong for this to have happened. And it sounds like, you know, Jolene's mom wasted no time in reporting her missing.

The police spoke to the owner of Tangle's hair salon, who said Jolene closed up the salon around 5 p.m. on May 12 and was working with their new employee, Jennifer Cyber. The police also learned that Jolene and Jennifer had a confrontation. on May 9th, Jolene told another coworker that she had a feeling, Jennifer wasn't who she said she was. And she was going to look into her background. That's interesting.

That's very strange. How many people have you worked with Gibbs that you got this feeling? I don't know, I don't think they are who they are claiming to be. I can't remember ever having that feeling. Now, I've had a lot of other feelings about people that I've worked with over the years. Some good, some bad. Yeah. But I can't remember ever thinking that, oh, this person is using a fake identity or they're not who they're claiming to be.

Detectives contacted Jennifer. But she said she couldn't be involved in any investigation because she was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend. She claimed she wasn't close to Jolene and didn't know what happened to her. Okay. People do get stocked, especially women, by exes that happened. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

But to say to detectives, I can't be involved in your investigation. First of all, are they just going to back off and not question you because you're saying I don't want to be involved or can't be involved? I'm also not sure what that would have to do with the stalking. Yeah, I don't understand that either. Other than did she think her stalker would think she was going to the police about them and maybe things would escalate? That's the only thing I think of. I just can't imagine that a detective would say, yeah, okay, I got you. We won't talk to you.

We won't question you. When you're the last person known to have seen. somebody who is now missing. You think it'd be a priority. When investigators went to the salon a second time, they found Jennifer there and tried to ask more questions, but she refused to answer and left the salon. She told her boss she was quitting. Okay, you want to talk about red flags, the alerts going up. Huge. Second time that the last person known to have seen someone who's missing doesn't want to want to answer any of your questions and then abruptly leaves her place of employment up and quits. I think the concern is high at that point.

And the suspicion, both. According to News 4 Jaxx, when Jennifer learned the police were asking questions about Jolene, she called the salon owner to say she was leaving town. Okay. Even more suspicious. The Florida Times Union reported that when investigators tried to see, speak to Jennifer on May 14th. She didn't come to work, and the address she gave was fake. I think at this point, the police have to be like, okay, there's something here.

Yeah, you're ducking us for a reason, and that reason is probably not good. On May 15th, Jolene's SUV was found in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Yulee, Florida, a half mile from Tangle's hair salon. Surveillance footage showed the vehicle being parked there just after 1 a.m. on May 13. Jennifer Seiber was captured walking from the Home Depot parking lot to a nearby gas station. But Jolene was not captured in any of the footage. So, you know, if they weren't suspicious of Jennifer Seiber before, obviously they are now. And I'm sure they were before. But now, I think it's risen to... to more than suspicion.

When you're seen walking away on video surveillance from a missing person's car at 1 a.m. in the morning, we're going to need to talk to you. It's going to be hard to explain. Ebola was issued for Jennifer Seibert and her black Kia Soul SUV. Jennifer was found on May 16th, sleeping in her vehicle at an I-95 rest-up. in St. John's County, she was arrested and charged with auto theft. She also faced a federal charge of possession of a counterfeit passport. So I'm guessing that the charge for auto theft is that they have video of her being near

Jolene's car? Yeah, that's the only thing I can think of. Now, obviously, they want to talk to her. You know, so the easiest way to talk to someone is after they, been arrested, Jennifer had a bad cut on her face. She claimed she was riding a bike and ran into a tree. But investigators thought she looked like she'd been in a fight. You ever run into a tree on your bike? Actually, I have when I was younger. Yeah. I never ran into a tree. I did run into a park car on the street going down a hill. I wasn't, I was looking at like my friends behind me. Yeah. And ran smack

dab into the back of a parked car and flipped all the way over the front of it. It hurt. It did hurt because, you know, in those days, we did not wear helmets. Right. And, yeah, I was lucky not to get probably injured more than I was. Is that why you wear that hat now every time you go on a bike ride? Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I got that metal plate in my head.

Every time my wife turns on the microwave, piss myself and forget who I am. for half an hour. Yeah. It's always fun to fly with you too. Authorities then obtain surveillance footage, showing Jennifer carrying heavy trash bags to a dumpster behind tangles after closing on May 12. Okay. So,

I mean, we got a lot of things here already and none of it is looking good. You're seen walking away from this person's vehicle, one o'clock in the morning. Then they find surveillance footage of you. carrying very heavy trash bags. And I'm assuming she was struggling with these. That's how they knew they were heavy.

Right. To a dumpster behind tangles pretty much around the time that Jolene was thought to have gone missing. Definitely very, very suspicious. Yeah, absolutely. On the evening of May 12th, Jennifer was captured on camera at a Walmart, buying cleaning supplies, gloves, and an electric carving knife. She returned to the salon

and continued filling the dumpster with large full trash bags. This dumpster was emptied on trash pickup day and the contents were never retreated. Well, that doesn't alarm you. Electric carving knife? Now, we just went on a rant an episode or two ago

about being caught on surveillance video at Lodd. Walmart, Home Depot, buying cleaning supplies, gloves, shovels, things like that. An electric carving knife is a new one. I don't think we've ever heard of that. You know, we've heard of saws and different things like that. Investigators came to believe that Jennifer dismembered Jolene's remains and disposed of them in the dumpster. I mean, Gibbs, what else are they to think? Why else would you buy that?

Well, most people would buy it to cut up a, or carve a turkey or something, a ham, right? Something like that. But when it's the same day that your coworker goes missing, it's just the two of you there, you're seen with her car, and you're seen carrying these very heavy trash bags. Okay. The electric carving knife is going to be scrutinized. is. You know, it's not like my grandmother goes to Walmart during the middle of the day to buy an electric carving knife. You don't make a whole lot out of that. But if you go and you also buy

a tarp, trash bags, gloves, cleaning supplies or be nervous. Yeah, I'm locking my doors at night for sure. Socks, boots, and scissors were found in Jennifer's the police also found numerous fake documents. And we said earlier, right, that she was charged with auto theft, but also faced a federal charge of possession of a counterfeit passport. And that makes sense because Jolene even told people that she thought she's not who she says she is. Yeah, I just wonder how she got to that feeling.

And maybe we'll cover it. After 48 hours in custody, Jennifer Seiber revealed her true identity. She said, as quoted by oxygen, when you run my fingerprints through, they come up as Kimberly Lee Kessler. I'm 50 years old and I've been running from the FBI for over 25 years. Wow. Pretty successful run. To stay away for 25 years.

Yeah. Kimberly Kessler was born in 1968 and grew up. Butler, Pennsylvania. She went missing in 2004 and lived under multiple false identities. She claimed she did this because she was dating a bank robber from Arizona. And that's the oldest line in the book, Gibbs, you know, I'm dating a bank robber from Arizona. Yeah, how many times we've heard that? This is the first. It's a Florida investigators contacted Pennsylvania authorities and learned Kimberly was reported missing by her mother.

On May 22nd, 2018, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leaper hosted a press conference where he informed the public, per the Florida Times Union, we have obtained evidence that we're not releasing at this time, which leads us to believe that Jolene is not a lot. And how sad is that for family and friends? Oh, absolutely horrible. But here again, you know, you have the authorities coming out.

They're saying something. thing, but they're not able to release the why or the how they know, the evidence behind it. On June 1st, 2018, the Nassau County Sheriff's Office held another news conference to give an update on the case. Sheriff Bill Leeper announced that Kimberly Kessler used 18 aliases and lived in 33 cities and 14 states since 1996. She was on the move. Yeah, and maybe that's why she was able to successfully evade the FBI for 25 years. She never stayed in one spot for all that long.

Kimberly went missing under suspicious circumstances on July 4th, 2004, when she was 35 years old. A Pennsylvania State Police Flyer reported she was using the alias Pamela Kleber at the time of her disappearance. But Kimberly's mother didn't actually report her missing until 2012. She told her mom she planned on changing her name and leaving the area. She indicated she might go to Virginia Beach. She said she wanted to hide from a romantic partner. Pennsylvania investigators believe Kimberly didn't want to be found.

There was no evidence of foul play and her disappearance, so it was never entered into the National Crime Information Center. So she told her mom she wanted to hide from a romantic partner. So obviously there had to be something going bad in that relationship. Could it have been stalking or domestic violence or something in that regard? Could have been. Now, we don't know if any of that was true. We only know that's what she told her mom.

But it is interesting in 2018. that she tries to get out of questioning by detectives by saying she's being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. Kimberly stole her most recent fake identity and social security number from Jennifer Marie Cybert, who died from a car crash in Germany in 1987. Jennifer Seibert was buried in a cemetery in Butler, Pennsylvania. So did she go to the cemetery and look up gravestones to try to figure out who her next identity could be or go through the, you know, the obituaries in the paper? Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, I think that's how some of these people did it in the past.

I don't know if it is it still as easy as it was? I don't know. I remember seeing that movie with Brian Cranston where he was like a worked for the FBI. The infiltrators? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty good memory. Where he went to the cemetery with that other guy and they would look up names close to a date range to make him that age.

Yeah. Unfortunately, I think that's how a lot of people have done it, you know, throughout the years. Jolene's mother, Ann Johnson, pleaded for information that could help law enforcement. Two people then reached out on Facebook to offer information on Kimberly. one person wrote that they worked with Kimberly. Kimberly told her she was hiding from her ex-husband. They were supposed to go motorcycling together, but Kimberly left her job abruptly.

And that seems to maybe be a pattern. And maybe it has to be when you're on the run and you're using a series of fake identities. You know, situations are going to come up where people are going to find, out what you're doing and you've got to get out of town. So you're probably going to be leaving jobs abruptly quite often. I think it'd be really hard just to keep your story straight all the time,

trying to remember what did I tell them. Yeah, you're going to slip up. Yeah. From July 7 to July 13th, the Nassau County Sheriff's Office and the FBI searched the Chesser Island landfill in Folkston, Georgia for Jolene's body. but she wasn't found. However, investigators found several items of interest. In her disappearance, the landfill search was prompted by the surveillance video of Kimberly,

dumping trash bags behind the salon. And how could it not be? Right. You go and buy a bunch of stuff at Walmart, including an electric carving night. Right. And then you're seeing carrying what are obviously very heavy trash bags. to the dumpster. It's not a leap.

No. For investigators to believe that, you know, if you had something to do with her disappearance, you most likely use that electric carving knife to dismember her body and then put them in trash bags. And those trash bags were hauled off to the landfill. Now, the problem is with some of these landfills, they're flipping huge. It's like a needle in a haystack. So finding what you're looking for is not the easiest thing in the world.

On September 7, 2018, Kimberly Kessler was indicted for first degree murder. In February 2019, discovery material was made public that included photos, videos, interviews, and records showing that Kimberly made suspicious searches, such as co-worker guilty of murdering missing person body not found. Kimberly made 457 searches containing Jolene's name over a 48-hour period. Wow. So here's, you know, two things that we've been talking about in a number of episodes recently. The first being, don't get caught on surveillance video at Walmart Lowe's Home Depot, buying all these things to dispose of a body. Right. Or clean up. up a crime scene. And then the second thing is that nobody seems to understand that authorities

are going to find your your Google searches. And I'm telling you right now, 457 searches containing Jolene's name in a 48 hour period. That is obsessive. Highly suspicious. But let's also talk about the fact that this is pretty much all circumstantial. right yeah they don't have a body they don't have that that really what you would call that one piece of evidence that would prove Kimberly murdered jolline no but there's a mountain of stuff that makes her look pretty guilty you gotta find a way to pull it together surveillance images from may 12th were released showing scratches on Kimberly's face Kimberly told one detective the scratches on her body were caused by bedbugs at shelters. Now, I know you've had bedbugs a number of

times. You seem to have a real issue with them. At least that's what you keep telling me. I don't know if they would cause the type of scratches that another human would when they're fighting you. I'm from what I hear and what you've told me, they're pretty devastating, but I don't know if they cause those type of marks. Yeah, I don't think, maybe like the, you know, the crabs you get, but I don't know about bedbugs, yeah. You mean the crabs I order from Amazon? Yes.

And then cooking the pot. Those good ones you like that. Those can leave marks. Yeah. The new material included an interview with Kimberly's mother. When asked why her daughter disappeared, she said per news four jacks. I imagine she felt like she wasn't getting any support from me. And at the time, I didn't know what to do.

So I don't know if that goes back to her claim that, you know, she needed to get away from her romantic partner. And her mom saying she wasn't as supportive as she could have been. I don't know. The files included an interview with St. John's County inmate Brenda Brown. Brown said Kimberly told her detectives would figure out everything. Once they had her fingerprints, she claimed. claimed she had a boyfriend who was a bank robber and was wanted by the FBI.

And we didn't talk about that a lot, but, you know, she gave up pretty quickly. And I think it was because she knew the moment they ran her fingerprints, there was no getting out of who she really was. Right. So we're not come clean now. Yeah. Investigators also spoke to Tim Barnes, Kimberly's ex-boyfriend from the 90s. he said Kimberly shot his cat and assaulted both him and his father.

She said she stabbed me in the chest. She bit my dad in the leg. Wow. Talking about brutal. Well, she said she was trying to get away from a romantic partner. Sounds like this is a guy who in the 90s would have wanted to get away from her. Yeah. I mean, stabbed in the chest.

She shot his cat and bit his dad in the leg. way. Detectives traveled to Pennsylvania to get more information on Kimberly. A childhood friend said she used to be a popular girl, but her personality changed. This person said it was just like one day something snapped. It seemed to be over summer break. If I remember correctly, one school year she was great and the next she was this different person. Maybe something life changing occurred during the summer. It can. It can for some people. We don't know. In March 2019, additional texts and photos were released between Kimberly and Vicki Simmons, the co-owner of Tangle's hair salon. Vicki Simmons told Kimberly about Jolene's disappearance and asked if Jolene mentioned any birthday plans.

Kimberly didn't answer the question, but said she hoped Jolene was okay. Simmons repeated her question, and Kimmer. Kimberly said Jolene didn't tell her about any plans. Simmons told Kimberly that Jolene's mother reported her missing and asked if she remembered what Jolene was wearing when they worked together. She also spoke about how Jolene recently filed a protective order against her ex-boyfriend. Kimberly said she could only recall that Jolene was wearing dark pants. In another text, Simmons implied that detectives wanted to speak to Kimberly. and it was starting to look bad that she hadn't already spoken to them.

Kimberly claimed she had already talked to the police. Other released evidence included an interview with an employee at a boating supply store who called the police to report Kimberly's odd behavior a full week before Jolene disappeared. He recognized her because she cut his hair before. She purchased zip ties and had what he called a shawl. sheepish grin on her face while doing so. Really? Sheepish grin.

I know you buy a lot of zip ties. I do. I don't know if you make faces or not while you're making the purchase, but record showed Kimberly purchased the zip ties on Mayfit the day before she searched how to tie a tourniquet and inject someone with something. Again, back to these searches. Not looking good. No. And they never do, right? I mean, your searches would just make you look bad in general as a person. But if you had committed a crime, your searches would be viewed differently. Now, it would have to be taken into account the fact that we are true crime podcasters and we do some crazy searches. Oh, absolutely. There's no doubt about that. But you more so than me, some are not related.

to true crime at all. But, I mean, that's neither here nor there. I think you'd probably get on my fancy laptop here when I walk away and do some weird searches. Oh, I'm sure that's how you'd explain that. Absolutely. Investigators also had video from the early morning hours of May 13. After leaving Jolene's vehicle, Kimberly walked to a gas station and asked an employee to use his phone to call a cat.

News 4 Jax doesn't specifically state that the cab driver took her back to Tengles, but the article states that she parked Jolene's vehicle a half mile away and then took a half-mile cab ride. So I guess Gibbs, you could almost assume that she was returning to the salon to get her own vehicle. Seems logical. The driver also said that he found Kimberly's behavior odd. She asked him if he was a born-again Christian.

And whether or not he went to church, she suggested they could go to church together and gave him her phone number. That seems odd. For a short cab ride, especially. The police asked the cab driver if he questioned Kimberly about the vehicle she got out of. He asked, why someone would give her a ride half a mile down the road, Kimberly said she didn't have gas. He thought this was strange because she paid $20 for the short ride. So she obviously would have been able to pay someone a few dollars for gas money. Yeah.

So her story's just not adding up. No. I mean, not to the cab driver at all. And obviously not to police, right, who are hearing about these things later. In April 2019, the public learned that blood found on Kimberly's boot, sock, a pair of scissors found in her car, and in a storage locker in her name, belonged to Jolene Cummings. Investigators also found one of Jolene's fingernails inside a bin in her storage unit. So if things weren't looking bad before, they obviously are now. Yeah, because now you got

real physical evidence. Yeah. Investigators sprayed the salon with lumines. which revealed blood residue on the walls, chairs, cabinets, and sink. Blood was also found on a bleach bottle and mop. DNA testing determined that the blood belonged to both Jolene and Kimberly. But there was definite evidence of a cleanup effort. Isn't it funny how Kimberly thought she could get rid of all that just with some leech and a mop, wiping things down? Yeah, I don't know if it's that people. don't realize what technology is able to uncover, you know, as it relates to blood evidence,

or whether they just believe that if they cover it up enough, nobody's going to do the testing because they're not going to have any idea that something went down there. Local papers reported the description of surveillance video, showing Kimberly carrying two white trash bags to a dumpster behind tangles. They were heavy and she struggled to lift them. Kimberly also appeared tired and unsteady on her feet. This was further evidence supporting the theory that she put Jolene's body in the dumpster. Seems plausible.

It does. I mean, if you think about the type of trash that you would have from a hair salon, I would think a large part of it's going to be hair. Yeah. I think most of the time you're not going to have these super heavy trash bags that you're struggling to get out to the dumpster. I wouldn't think so. You're going to have normal trash, people eating their lunch, but you're also going to have a lot of hair clippings. The way this is described is that it took everything she had to get these bags out of the dumpster.

and it makes you think that there was something heavy in there. Additionally, $1,600 in cash was found in Kimberly's vehicle and the cash register at Tengles had been pried open. We got a little theft going on. Do you ever pry open a cash register before? No, I would just hit the button to open it. Just do it the right way. Yeah. When interviewed after her arrest,

said she didn't like to keep documents and accounts in her name because she was scared her ex-fiance would find her. She said he had friends who are hackers. She claimed she was in an address confidentiality program. That is not something I've ever heard of. Me neither. But I can see, you know, in a scenario where you have someone, let's say, an ex-boyfriend, an ex-husband, the next husband, the next fiance, who is stalking you? For real, you know, keeping your address, your information as limited as possible would be an important step to take. You would not want this person finding out where you are.

No. On July 2nd, 2019, a judge ruled Kimberly was not competent for prosecution after a mental evaluation hearing. The prosecution disputed these findings. So she was examined by a psychologist chosen by the state who also found her not competent. Wow. Yeah. And that's not something that you see every day where a professional from each side has the same

finding. Let's face it, in most of the cases we do, a psychiatrist chosen by the person. prosecution oftentimes comes back with something that benefits them right as does a psychiatrist chosen by the defense but here they're agreeing so now the prosecution is going to have to come up with a different plan right well they're not going to be able to prosecute her as quickly as they would have wanted to Kimberly was committed to the department of children and families which sent her to Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee to restore competency and reevaluate her in six months. On September 28, 2020, Sheriff Bill Leeper filed a civil suit asking for permission to force feed Kimberly.

At the time, Gibbs, she weighed less than 90 pounds due to a hunger strike. And Leeper argued that she was trying to kill herself by starvation. Well, it's not the first time we've heard of this. People have been on hunger strikes before. Yeah, a lot of criminals, especially a lot of high profile criminals, have gone on hunger strikes. I would not do good on a hunger strike. No, me neither. But you question why, you know, Kimberly would do it.

Did she think, you know, it was going to keep her at the state hospital longer, delaying, any type of trial, or was she really trying to end her life? Because she knew if she went on trial was not going to end well. I don't know the answer. Maybe she thought they would look at this act as they're still being not confident. Yeah, it's possible. But Kimberly eventually resumed eating, and the suit was dismissed on October 12, 2020. A judge declared Kimberly competent.

for prosecution after a second mental evaluation. In April 2021, Kimberly was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. An officer told her to stand up and move to another cell so the cell could be sanitized. According to First Coast news, Kimberly removed her clothing and said, okay, we can do this today. I don't know what that means. Doesn't sound good. Well, it depends on how you look at it. What point of view you look at it from?

Now, if you're in everyday life, you know, maybe that's a Saturday night. But this is in, you know, a penal facility or at least a psychiatric hospital or a state hospital. So you would think it's not, it's not an invitation that somebody wants to take up. Yeah. But this officer took his pepper spray out and warned her to comply or she would be sprayed. Kimberly began smearing feces on herself. She was given two more warnings before she was sprayed. She then began to throw feces at two officers.

I'm thinking the spray should have happened right away. Yeah, I don't know if I would have given out that many warnings. but maybe that is why, you know, she removed her clothing, you know, she had to get access to what she was going to use to assault these officers. Yeah, I think when you saw her reaching for what she was going to use, I would have been, I'm out of here. But when you definitely saw her making a snowball out of something to throw at you, I think I would have shut the gate, walked away.

on June 30th, 2021, a judge ruled once again that Kimberly was competent to stand trial after a third mental evaluation hearing. So you have to wonder, you know, what these acts that she was doing meant to her competency. You know, was this real? Was this something she was putting on? You know, I'm going to take my clothes off. I'm going to, you know, defecate my, my hand, smeared on myself, throw it at the officers. Obviously, there's no way they can find me competent. Yeah. If I'm doing this type of stuff.

But you've seen that stuff in movies and maybe she saw it in movies and said, hey, this looks like a good thing to do. Maybe they think that I'm, like you said, I'm not confident. In November 2021, a judge ruled that the jury would be allowed to hear that Kimberly purchased a carving knife, trash bags. cleaning gloves and a moan. And we talk about this a lot, right? This is something that the defense would not want the jury to hear.

And they would try to get it thrown out. Sure. Or for it to not be introduced. Later that month, the defense filed a new motion, suggesting Jolene could have become physically violent with Kimberly during an ongoing dispute over drugs at the salon. The defense accused the prosecution of withholding evidence that Jolene had drugs in her purse around the time of her disappearance. The state knew in 2019 that a small bag of meth was found in Jolene's purse, but intentionally failed to give that information to the defense.

Until November 2021, the defense also pointed out the discovery of a small bag of an unknown white powder at Tangle. Does that hurt the case? I don't know if it hurts the case, but it does seem to me that it's something that should have been turned over to the defense. And I don't know all the rules of law, but could it potentially be exculpatory? Maybe. It would have been better just to get it out there in the beginning when they knew about it instead of letting it sneak in on them. Yeah. And I think that's what the defense was saying.

according to the motion, Kimberly kept making a big deal about it and continued complaining of this in the presence of Jolene Cummings. They said it is the defense theory of the case that Mrs. Kessler's complaints about drugs in the hair salon angered Jolene Cummings and was an ongoing source of contention in the workplace. Evidence of such behavior could establish a motive for Jolene Cummings to become physically. violent with defendant Kessler. The motion noted that blood from both women was found in the salon and there was evidence of a violent struggle. So you can see where they're headed with this. Jolene had drugs in her purse.

There was a bag of white powder found at the salon. Could this be a scenario where the two got into a fight and Kimberly killed Jolene and what they would call self-defense. That's kind of the direction you can see them headed. Earlier that month, the judge denied a defense motion for a fourth mental competency evaluation. The defense argued that Kimberly refused to cooperate with her counsel. That's a problem.

It is a problem. I guess they're lucky. That's all she did. I mean, she could have, you know, shit in her hand and through that at him. Yeah,

or smeared it on him. She was probably so close to him. jury selection started on November 29, 2021. Kimberly was removed from court on the first day of trial after yelling Jordan Beard is Jolene's cousin. She had already been removed from multiple pretrial hearings for her outbursts and repeated this same statement at almost every court appearance. Jordan Beard was her former defense attorney and he is not Jolene's cousin.

Such a weird thing to say, though. But is it if you are trying to still lean into, hey, I'm not competent to stay in trial? Does it help your case to have excessive outbursts? You've already gone the fecal route. That apparently didn't work. Maybe she's trying other things. During opening statements, the state argued that Kimberly murdered Jolene Cummings, her body was never found, but there was a large amount of Jolene's DNA left behind at the salon.

They presented a timeline of Kimberly's purchases and internet searches, noting that on April 30th, 2018, before the murder, Kimberly searched, co-worker guilty of killing coworker. That is a very strange internet search. Yeah, that's very specific. It's like you're trying to find stories. about one co-worker who was found guilty of killing another coworker. Why? So you don't make the same mistakes that, you know, got them convicted or got them caught. Maybe help craft your story down the road. Yeah. Now, the defense argued that there was not enough evidence for conviction.

And the two women had an ongoing conflict at work. And I can see why, you know, the defense would argue that there's not enough evidence, right? This is, like I said before, a case with quite a bit of circumstantial evidence, but, you know, is there that smoking gun piece of evidence? And I would say, no, not really. Yeah, I don't think there's anything definitive, but it still doesn't look good. No, it looks horrible, right? When you make these purchases, you're carrying these heavy trash bags. Jolene's body has never found. But you can't tell the jury for sure what was in those trash bags. Nobody can say for certain that the reason why she bought the electric carving knife was to dismember Jolene's body.

But as a juror, you can use all of these things and put the story together. The question is going to be, can you do it beyond a reasonable doubt? A detective testified about the blood found inside the salon. And a crime scene analyst testified that Jolene's blood was found on Kimberly's boots, seized from her storage unit. She was wearing these boots the day Jolene disappeared. Jolene's fingernail was found in that same storage unit. Now, that's where we did talk about a little bit more physical evidence. Yeah.

And I think if you're the jury, you probably see. sees on that as a little more concrete. Why in the world would one of Jolene's fingernails be found in Kimberly's storage unit? Makes you feel like something happened. Yeah. Jolene's mother Ann Johnson testified that it was not like her daughter to disappear. Multiple witnesses testified that they went to Tangle's hair salon on May 12, 2018, and saw both Kimberly Kessler

and Jolene Cummings working. The prosecution presented the surveillance video of Kimberly carrying trash bags to the dumpster behind Tangles and a receipt proving she purchased cleaning gloves, ammonia, trash bags, and electric carving knife around the time Jolene disappeared. So again, if you're on the jury and you're digesting all of this, how hard is, you're, is it going to be to come to the conclusion that Kimberly killed Jolene and dismembered her body and put the pieces of her body in trash bags and put them in the dumpster? It's a pretty compelling case against her.

Yeah, I agree with you. Again, I said, I think most of the evidence is circumstantial, but it's still, it's very compelling. The only witness for the defense was lead detective Wayne Harrington. The defense showed Harrington a baggie found in the salon days after Jolene disappeared. The baggie contained a chalky substance. And Harrington didn't believe it was tested. It was unclear where the baggie was found in the salon. And again, I'm assuming this is part of their, you know, this is a baggie full of drugs and

this could have led to a fight and maybe a death in self-defense type of scenario. just doesn't sound that solid. Well, I think for one thing, it'd be pretty hard to prove that it was Jolene's baggy. Now, if there was meth found in her bag, then she had some meth, I guess. But a detective testified

about thousands of searches on Kimberly's phone in the days leading up to Jolene's disappearance. The searches included words and phrases like autopsy, cadavers, murderpedia, victimpedia, female murderers,

by country in Florida female murderers. I mean, something like our search engines will look like. Absolutely. And if you are doing research for a true crime podcast, some of these searches would make sense. If you're a hairstylist who is thought to have been the last person to see someone alive, these searches,

you know, are damning. They don't make sense. How are you explaining why you're looking these things up? Just curiosity? I don't think that's going to cut it. On May 16th, Kimberly searched Jolene Cummings, no body, no crime and made additional searches about Jolene's disappearance.

And we said it earlier, right? There was like 400 and some searches that had Jolene's name in it. This one specifically, Jolene Cummings. no body no crime. Could you make the case? Well, she was just curious about a previous co-worker. You could if she wasn't also on video leaving the victim's car. On video, buying cleaning supplies and an electric carving knife on video carrying these really heavy bags out of the salon.

You can make arguments about everything. Sure. but they become much, much tougher in the face of, you know, some of the evidence. The defense argued there was no way to know the full context behind the searches or who exactly made those searches. And that's true. Could somebody else have made the searches, possibly? And again, if it was in a vacuum and all you had were these searches, well, you wouldn't have a lot. But couple the searches with everything. else we've talked about and they'd look much, much darker.

The defense suggested it was possible Jolene and Kimberly got into a fight and she was injured while protecting herself from Jolene. The jury was shown photos of the inside of both women's cars. The defense argued there should have been blood everywhere, but none was found. And is that because, you know, she cleaned herself up before she got into, you know, either of these vehicles, possibly? Yeah. During closing arguments, the state reminded the jury that Jolene had not been seen or heard from in three years and had not used her bank account. So what are they trying to say? More likely than not, this woman is no longer a lot. Yeah. Now, we can't prove it. We don't have her body. At the time of her disappearance, she was looking forward to her birthday and was working on a mother's day present with her children. to give to her mother.

So again, you're offering up to the jury these things to say, this wasn't a woman who it seemed as though was getting ready to bolt, right? Just up and leave her children, her mother. She was in the process of working on things. Yeah, she was happy being a mom. She had a good relationship with her mother. And it was her birthday. Didn't make any sense why she would just check out.

Jolene and Kimberly did not get along. The day before she disappeared, they had a tense interaction. The evidence indicated Kimberly used scissors to kill Jolene, then dismembered and disposed of her body. Now, there are a lot of scissors, right, in a hair salon. There is. Some of those scissors are very, very sharp. How you know that? I don't know.

Because I don't think you go to a hair salon. I do. Even though I have very little hair, it still has to be trended. But you know, you look at the picture or the series of events that the prosecution is laying out, Jolene and Kimberly get into an argument. Kimberly kills Jolene with some scissors. Then, you know, later on, she goes to Walmart, right? She buys these cleaning supplies, gloves. and specifically this electric carving knife, she goes back to the salon, dismembers Jolene's body,

puts it into trash bags, takes the trash bags out and throws them in the dumpster, cleans up the salon. And then she drives Jolene's vehicle half a mile away to a parking lot. Yeah. Walks over to a gas station, gets,

you know, calls for a ride, back to the salon to get her car. I mean, that is the scenario they're laying out. And when you say it that way, it does seem to fit with the known evidence. It does. The defense argued the internet searches were out of context. And the fact that Kimberly purchased zip ties was not consequential to the case. Earlier at trial, the jury heard testimony from the boat store employee who sold

zip ties to Kimberly before the murder. And to be honest with you, I don't know how the zip ties play in. Might not. They might not have played in at all. Maybe she was going to use the zip ties in another manner and never ended up having to use them. We don't know. Maybe I'd carry an assortment of sizes of zip ties with me at all times. Right. And allegedly, never have to use them at all. Exactly. On December 9th, 2021, Kimberly Kessler was found guilty of first-degree murder and grand theft auto. After the verdict, Sheriff Bill Leeper said, as quoted by News 4 Jacks, I don't believe for one second that Kimberly Kessler or whatever name she's going by today, I don't believe this is her first murder. I don't at all. And that's an interesting take.

You think about a woman who was on the run for, as she said, 25 years. Yeah. Chances are she may have been discovered at other points during those years and killed to keep it quiet. Could have. We said how many different places she lived in over those 25 years. I'd be shocked if she didn't commit maybe another murder earlier. I'm with you on that. I just think if she did this, I can see that she could do it somewhere before this.

The FBI in Nassau County Sheriff's Office had questions about two other deaths that could potentially be associated with Kimberly. Over 60 names were found on the searches in Kimberly's phone records. One of those names was Kurt Christopher Allen. Investigators asked a woman who went to school with Kimberly about Allen. She said Kimberly was dating the most popular guy in school and then started dating Bob Allen. She was asked if Bob Allen went by. the name Christopher Kurt Allen, but News 4 Jax did not report her response to the question. Kimberly's notes referred to someone with the initials KCA. She wrote that he appeared in her dreams.

According to News 4 Jax, Kurt Christopher Allen died in Jacksonville in 2014. But his obituary doesn't say how he died or if he was connected in any way to any of Kimberly's aliases. So, you know, that may be a stretch, but it may not be. Exactly. We don't know. The second person investigators were looking into was a woman named Grace, who died in Kimberly's hometown in 2009. News 4 Jacks conducted in an investigation and believes her full name is Grace Darling

Bartley. Her cause of death was not listed, but she was married to Tim Barley, Tim Barley and his brother, Wayne Barley, were all. on Kimberly's list of names. Okay. So, again, I don't know what these list of names represented, but it's a little scary that a number of people on the list were dead. You don't want to be on someone's list of names, though.

No. Additionally, Kimberly's classmate told the detective that during her senior year, her best friend died in a motorcycle accident and Kim's brother Bob was injured in the accident. the rumor was that someone ran them off the road. What was that movie where that guy sitting on the couch had a big list of names? Oh, you're talking about Steve Bouchemmy? Yeah. Where he's putting on the lipstick and, you know, looking at his list of names of people that he was going to kill.

That was good. And it just happened that, you know, Adam Sandler called him to apologize and he got crossed off the list. Just at the right time. But it does make you think of something like this, right? Is this a person who held a lot of grudges and had a list of people who could potentially be crossed off? In mid-December 2021, a report was made public on an experiment by a forensic anthropologist. Dr. Heather Walshaney used a nine-inch electric carving knife on a donated cadaver to see how long it would take her to dismember a human body. In 73 minutes, she was able to sever the neck, shoulder, arm, and knee, but not the thigh bone.

Prosecutors ordered this experiment to see if it was possible to dismember a cadaver using the same type of electric knife purchased by Kimberly Kessler. I don't know if I would be okay doing that. I mean, it's your job description, I guess, right? It's what you're getting paid to do. It seems like it's like really close to actually... You seem like a person that would have no problem doing that. Well, I gotta act like I wouldn't do it. I know, but I don't know how many people are really buying that.

I don't need any more radar on me. Or you don't need to be on anyone's radar. I don't know if radar actually gets on you or if you get on someone's radar. But it's an interesting experiment. It really is. Right? Because if it comes out that you can't actually sever a body with this electric carving knife, well, that puts a pretty big dent in your, uh, your, your, your theory is the prosecution. It does. But 73 minutes is fairly fast, I think. Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, obviously you could do it

much quicker with a, a chainsaw or something like that, but I think there are other implements that would maybe even take you longer. The report was controversial because, it was completed in May 2019, but was not given to the defense until October 2021. A judge ruled Dr. Walshaney could not testify at trial. And it's kind of interesting because there was a couple of things that seemed like they were not turned over to the defense until years after they had it. Now, I don't know how this would have been exculpatory in any way because it seemed as though it proved what she was being accused of doing could be done in the way they said she did it. On January 27, 2022, Kimberly was sentenced to life without parole plus five years for theft.

Once again, she was removed from court for an outburst. During her victim impact statement, Jolene's mother, Ann Johnson, asked Kimberly to give the family closure by revealing the location of Jolene's remains. And of course, the victim family is going to want that. Yeah, absolutely. But does she know where they're at? Other than saying they're most likely at the landfill.

Now, there wasn't really much that I saw in the reporting about what she came back to say, if anything, but my thought is she probably couldn't lead them to her remains even if she wanted to. If it's in that landfill, I don't know how you would ever be able to find it. In July 2004, Kimberly filed a 224-page handwritten motion for a new trial. She claimed she was deprived of counsel and falsely accused of being incompetent. She also claimed she was never disruptive nor disrespectful in court.

Well, you know what? She could have probably left that last. piece out? Because at that point, you're calling the judge a liar. You're calling the record a liar. I mean, all of this would have been documented, right, in the court record. Six years later, Jolene Cummings' body has still not been found. Jolene suspected that Jennifer Seiber was lying. And she turned out to be right. It's thought that two women had a confrontation shortly before Jolene disobeysb. appeared. But based on her April 30th internet search,

co-worker guilty of killing coworker, Kimberly Kessler could have been planning to harm her days earlier. And we didn't really talk about the timing of the surge. I mean, that search was many days before the actual murder. Yeah. So, you know,

were they beefing? Um, did Kimberly think that Jolene was on her? her. Had she been thinking that for a number of weeks, had she been planning on possibly killing her? I'm starting to think that this wasn't just a spur of the moment thing. More behind it. Right? You had the zip ties. And you had some things that were done before the murder took place, including the searches. Obviously, you had a lot after and the night of, but maybe some premeditation there. Yeah. They're, they're, they're, they're,

could have been or it could have just been some planning that if something happens, I'm going to do X. Yeah. But, uh, you know, I thought as we wrapped this one up, I thought it was a very interesting case just because number one, you know, this Kimberly Kessler was on the run from the FBI for 25 years and was pretty successful at it. It is hard for me to believe that she didn't kill Jolene Cummings, based on the evidence that was presented.

It's also hard for me not to think that this probably was not her first murder. But I don't know how you ever, you know, conclude that or prove that conclusively. I think there's a majority of people that are going to agree with what you just said, though. Yeah. But I have that thought in a lot of cases. Yeah, sure. People get caught doing or committing their first murder. happens. But I think a lot of times people are just not forthcoming with other murders they've

committed and police are not able to tie them to them. Why would they? There's nothing in it for them to come out and say, I know you don't know about it, but by the way, I killed X number of people, right? I have killed before. Why would you come out and say that? Is it going to help you? No. No, if anything, it might be in a state that has the death pill, or, you know, something like that. But that's it for our episode on Kimberly Kessler. We got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out?

Let's hear them. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Sonia from Munster, Indiana. I discovered the podcast probably almost a year ago now, so I have a lot of catching up to do, which is kind of nerve, kind of scary because I'm almost caught up. So that shows that I listen to a lot of podcasts. but you guys have kept me pretty occupied during long flights for business trips, hospital stays from my daughter, moving to the new home, packing, unpacking.

So thank you for that. I do love the podcast. I love everything to crime, so I do enjoy all the banter back and forth. I'm not team Mike nor team Gibby. I think that I need one with the other. the show works only if you have mic and givey together um it actually is kind of funny i i listen to you on my my headphones so i probably look like a crazy person walking around cracking up constantly um in airports or you know in stores you know listening to the podcast so um thank you

for always providing us with so much insight uh and keep your own time chicken thanks all right appreciate the voicemail and uh thank you for the nice comments. Yeah. It was very sweet. Means a lot. Hi, Mike and Gibby. I prefer not to see my name,

but just wanted to let you know that I was a coworker of Cody, Amato. I'm traveling today and happened to click on the podcast, and it was on grant. And I remember very, very vividly the day Cody did not come to work. and just how devastating the whole thing was for all of us, and Cody was a really, really great guy. And I've been listening to you guys for quite a while,

and I was in my mind wondering, hmm, I wonder if you guys will hear about this case that happened because it's very twisted and sad and devastating. And so, but I just wanted to call and let you guys know how amazing Cody was. and he's in all of our part forever. And yeah, so love your podcast. An absolute true crime junkie. Like, addicted very much.

And so I just wanted to stay that. And thank you for what you do. All right. Thank you for the voicemail. And it's always interesting to me, Gibbs, to hear from people who, you know, knew one of the victims in the case. You know, it's one thing for us to read.

about, you know, how good of individuals these people were and how much they were loved. But when you have someone who knew them in real life, call in and say some of those things, it kind of brings it home. It really does. So we appreciate that very much. And we're sorry that you went through that. Yeah. I mean, obviously, it must have been very tough.

All right. We had no mail bag. So that is it, buddy, for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.