Jennifer Kesse

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Missing Woman's Car Found In Orlando
Police Searching Area With Dogs



POSTED: 8:58 am EST January 26, 2006
UPDATED: 1:21 pm EST January 26, 2006

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Detectives in Orlando, Fla., have located the car of a missing woman and are searching an area near an apartment complex Thursday, according to Local 6 News.

Investigators said Jennifer Kesse, 24, did not show up for work at Westgate Resorts in Ocoee, Fla., Tuesday morning.

Family and friends were immediately concerned because Kesse can always be reached by phone or by her family. Kesse's family has tried to call her cell phone, but calls are immediately sent to voice mail.

Thursday, Kesse's 2004 Chevrolet Malibu was found abandoned at the corner of Texas and Americana at the Huntington on the Green apartment complex, Local 6 News has learned.

Detectives have brought out bloodhounds to search the area for the woman.

Meanwhile, the family continues to ask for the public's help in the search.

"I don't think any mother, father or brother expects to stand in front of a camera and ask a community to help," Kesse's father, Drew, said.

Friends and family of Kesse are going door-to-door with flyers in hopes of generating some leads.

"We always, always hope that in these cases that it is just a matter of somebody just maybe going somewhere to have their own time," Orlando police Sgt. Barbara Jones said. "And we hope that maybe if she sees this even, she will contact the family and let them know."

Kesse told her friends and family that she was concerned about living alone at her apartment complex.

The woman's apartment complex has a security gate, but the family said visitors are not monitored.

The last person to hear from her was her boyfriend but he does not know where she could have gone.

If you have any information concerning Kesse's whereabouts, you are urged to call Crimeline at (800) 423-TIPS.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.



www.local6.com/news/6461196/detail.html

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New Search Planned for Missing Orlando Woman



Orlando, Fla. (Crime Library) — More than a week has passed since a young Orlando woman left her first condo and hopped into her late-model Malibu, bound for her job at an Ocoee investment firm, and then mysteriously vanished.

Now, a national organization based in Orlando and most known for its work on behalf of missing children is planning a massive search for clues to the whereabouts of 24-year-old Jennifer Kesse.

"We're trying to get a big effort going over the weekend. That's when we can get most people out," said Don Wood of Child Watch of America, which is spearheading the search. "It's a big push."

Kesse, whom friends and family have described as a bright and vivacious young woman who had recently struck out on her own, buying her first condo and succeeding in her career, vanished Jan. 24, after leaving her home, as usual, for work. She never showed up.

A few days later, after news of her disappearance aired on local television stations, her car was found, apparently abandoned, near an apartment complex about a mile from her home.

Police are investigating the matter.

But so far, Wood said, they have kept whatever clues they have close to the vest. "Law enforcement is understandably keeping it quiet. There hasn't been any evidence of a real crime scene," he said. Still, those closest to her, including her family and her boyfriend, who has been actively involved in the search, fear that the young woman may have been abducted. "It may not have been a carjacking, it doesn't seem to be a robbery, so it may be that somebody is holding her," Wood said.

By all accounts, it is doubtful that the young woman engineered her own disappearance. "That's highly unlikely, especially because none of her credit cards were used," Wood said. "She wouldn't just disappear. She was tied to her cell phone and tied to her debit card."

What's more, "in every picture you see, she's a happy lady," Wood said. "She just got a promotion at work, just came back from a vacation in St. Croix and just bought a new condothere was nothing to indicate any problems."

The search to be organized by Child Watch is one of several that have taken place since the young woman vanished. Police and sheriff's officers have so far conducted four grid searches that have included officers on horseback but so far have reportedly turned up few, if any, significant leads.

A $115,000 reward is being offered for information about Kesse's whereabouts.

www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0206/0201_orlando_missing.html

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Jennifer Kesses Family looking for "One Tip"



By Chuck Hustmyre

ORLANDO, Fla. (Crime Library) — Family and friends of an Orlando woman, Jennifer Kesse, who has been missing for more than three weeks say they are confident she is still alive and that all investigators need is a break in the case.

Information from the area searches and from a special tip line (1-800-423-8477) has generated hundreds of leads, according to investigators.

"The police are very hot on something," Jennifer's father, Drew Kesse, told Crime Library. "We truly feel she's right here somewhere and she's with us. It's just that we need that one tip."

The most promising lead so far seems to be a grainy video image of someone investigators are calling a "person of interest" that was taken by a security surveillance camera on the day police believe Kesse disappeared.

The camera caught the image of what appears to be a man wearing a light-colored T-shirt, light—possibly tan—pants, dark shoes, and a cap walking past a metal fence near the swimming pool of the Huntington on the Green condominium complex, the complex where Kesse's car was discovered two days after she disappeared.

Investigators are being tight-lipped about the image, even refusing to confirm whether it is that of a man or a woman and whether the clothing is truly "light colored" or perhaps a bit darker.

"We don't refer to sex or race," said lead investigator Sgt. Rich Ring of the Orlando Police Department. "We want people, when they look at the picture, to call us whether it's a female or a male."

Ring refused to elaborate on the details of what led investigators to believe that the person captured on the video has specific information about the case. "It's an issue of strategy," he said.

Ring also declined to comment on specific evidence seized during the investigation, but he did say, "We do have information being evaluated by the FBI laboratory, as well as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement."



Investigators do not appear to consider Kesse's boyfriend, who lives about three hours away in Ft. Lauderdale, to be a serious suspect. Two days before she disappeared, Kesse and her boyfriend returned from a vacation on the island of St. Croix.

A family friend, who knows both Jennifer Kesse and her boyfriend, told Crime Library: "I know they're not focusing on him. He was in Ft. Lauderdale at the time and they've accounted for his whereabouts."



Jennifer Kesse


Drew Kesse said he spoke to his daughter by telephone for a few minutes Monday night and investigators have said that she spoke to her boyfriend at around 10 p.m. Monday. Drew Kesse said he is sure that Jennifer disappeared on her way to work Tuesday morning, Jan. 24.

Signs left inside Jennifer's condo have led family members to conclude that she spent Monday night at home and got ready for work Tuesday morning. "She was in her Condo all night," Drew Kesse said. "Once she walked out her door is really when the mystery started."



Acting on what they believed to be a very hot lead, members of the Orange County Sheriff's Office SWAT team raided a boarding house Sunday where they believed Jennifer was being held. The officers found six people inside the house but no sign that Jennifer Kesse had ever been there.

They had very credible information," Drew Kesse said. "They thought Jennifer was there but she was not."

Despite the heartbreaking setback, Kesse said he and his family believe that the officers assigned to the case are doing a remarkable job. "We have full trust in the detectives that are running this," he said. Many of them have worked without a day off since his daughter was reported missing. "These guys just don't stop," Kesse added.

One possible scenario that investigators do not appear to be seriously considering is that Jennifer Kesse disappeared voluntarily. Last spring, Jennifer Wilbanks of Georgia, dubbed the "runaway bride," set off a nationwide search when she vanished less than a week before her wedding. After police located her in New Mexico, Wilbanks spun a wild tale about having been kidnapped but later admitted she'd made the whole thing up and had just needed some time alone.

"I would be shocked," Sgt. Rich Ring said, if that turns out to be the situation in this case. "I'm talking about stepping all over my tongue shocked."

Despite the length of time that it's been since Jennifer Kesse disappeared, family, friends, and investigators remain hopeful that she will be found alive.

"It's a very critical point from what I'm being told," Drew Kesse said Tuesday, "and they (the police) hope to have results for us very soon."

Sgt. Ring believes in miracles. "We're going to get to the bottom of it," he said Tuesday. "We're still hoping that it can be a fairy tale ending."

Twenty-four-year-old Jennifer Kesse vanished Jan. 24, apparently after leaving her home in the Mosaic condominium complex in Orlando and heading to her office. When she didn't show up at the investment firm where she works, her co-workers became concerned and notified police.

Two days later, Kesse's 2004 black Chevrolet Malibu was found parked at another condominium complex less than a mile from her home.

Over the course of the last three weeks, more than 1,700 hundred volunteers joined police in several exhaustive searches of the area surrounding Kesse's home. Using bloodhounds, helicopters, horses, and four-wheelers, law enforcement officers and volunteers swept everything within a 10-mile radius.

According to a family friend, 60,000 flyers bearing a photograph and information about Kesse have been handed out since she disappeared.



Jennifer Kesse's family has set up a Web site with information about the case at www.jenniferkesse.com.

www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0206/1501_kesse_missing.html