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details [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:02:06
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man who knows it's very hard to get a table for one at
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chuckecheese he is the captain I prefer Little Caesar Pizza Hut his store his store it's good to be seen and
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it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week we are very happy to be
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featuring The Carlson Amber ale by the Exquisite Brewers over at Elizabeth Brewing Company this medium bodied T
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four out of five bottle caps and let's give some cheers to our good friends right here Captain first up cheers to
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last but not least cheers to Shelby in Portland Maine everyone we just mentioned went to True Crim garage.com
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our old episodes check us out on the Stitcher app they are are free and you can also check out our bonus show called
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off the Record that's on Stitcher premium and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:40
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] a missing person's mystery is a special
00:04:39
breed of True Crime Story the lack of answers or closure for most of us is enthralling but even if you fall into a
00:04:47
different category and you find disappearance Stories unappealing the case we are discussing will change your
00:04:54
mind this is a missing person's case so perplexing and so unpredictable that thousands around the world have been
00:05:04
riveted by the inexplicable disappearance of this young woman this is a case with far more questions than
00:05:12
answers a story in which no one is even sure when it began yet it is a tale rif with Clues
00:05:22
Intrigue and evidence in many missing persons cases we discuss there is some for shadowing
00:05:30
in the victim's life that something bad is going to happen maybe they were going
00:05:36
through personal turmoil or they were in abusive relationship maybe they were making
00:05:41
questionable choices or leading an unsafe lifestyle sometimes a person is unhappy
00:05:48
and they choose to run away or maybe they spiral into addiction or Worse we're going to say this upfront none of
00:05:57
this was the case here with this missing person's case this is true crime garage
00:06:04
and this is the case of Jennifer [Music] kessie Jennifer was born on May 20th 198
00:06:29
81 to loving parents Drew and Joyce kessie she her parents and her younger brother Logan were Incredibly Close
00:06:38
Jennifer was born in New Jersey but the family moved to Tampa Florida when she was a child as a kid Jennifer was always
00:06:46
very responsible and well behaved she got good grades had a ton of friends and she got along with her parents Jennifer
00:06:53
truly was a golden child with blonde hair big bluish green eyes she grew up to be 5' 7 or 5'8 tall 130 lb she
00:07:05
graduated high school and moved on to the University of Central Florida where she majored in finance after switching
00:07:12
from Premed Jennifer worked hard and was serious about her schooling and Ambitions when she graduated in 2003 she
00:07:21
had multiple job offers she accepted a job with CFI Westgate Resorts in okoi this is a massive time share company
00:07:30
where she had interned while in college she recently was promoted to manager of process engineering at the age of 24
00:07:39
right she was the youngest employee to earn a promotion to management she was working on streamlining a new Mortgage
00:07:47
Debt system installed by the company the CFI Westgate owner is David seagull a somewhat
00:07:55
showy I I have to laugh at my own words here a very showy individual he's well known he's a multi-millionaire who built
00:08:04
a house so large 90,000 Square ft that it was featured in the documentary the queen of versales which if you haven't
00:08:14
seen that it is total like guilty pleasure sit down eat popcorn drink beer watch that documentary Jennifer loved
00:08:24
her job and had good friends in the division of the huge company she worked worked in she was a creature of habit
00:08:32
many people would probably describe her as type A she was the kind of person who
00:08:37
left for work at the same time every day who planned her outfits in advance who had common sense and who was not afraid
00:08:46
to stand up for herself and speak her mind right although Jennifer was self-confident independent and didn't
00:08:53
take crap from anyone she was also fun Jennifer had a lot of friends both from childhood and her sorority in college
00:09:02
all of whom describe her as a wonderful person who was a great and loyal friend and who could be counted on she was
00:09:10
obsessed with the New York Giants and insisted on watching every game she loved the Dave Matthews Band shopping
00:09:19
and the beach Jennifer made an amazing mac and cheese and drank beer and loved to dress up and go out at night but she
00:09:28
was always in bed at a decent hour and at work on time the next day Jen had a tiny tattoo of a shamrock on her left
00:09:37
hip I found this interesting I have a couple friends like this that have a lot of safety measures that they take some
00:09:44
precautions that they take seems like Jennifer was really into that yeah she has been described as very cautious and
00:09:52
also aware of her surroundings she never walked alone at night if she could help
00:09:56
it always locked her car doors and carried pepper spray which was purchased for her and all of her friends by her
00:10:04
father drew some of this is attributable to her parents who having been mugged at gunpoint years
00:10:15
earlier they were sure to teach their daughter about safety and awareness some of it was because Jennifer was a big fan
00:10:24
and watched a lot of Law and Order SVU which will if you watch enough it will scare the crap out of anybody Jennifer's
00:10:32
mother even says that Jen knew to deliberately crash her car in the event that she was carjacked to set off the
00:10:40
airbags and have a chance to escape she also knew that in the event she was ever
00:10:46
placed in the car trunk that most trunks have internal latches or you can kick out the tail lights to attract attention
00:10:55
right up until November 2005 Jennifer lived with her friend and roommate in Metro West it's a planned Community but
00:11:05
her roommate was getting married so she needed to move on right around Thanksgiving 2005 24-year-old Jennifer
00:11:14
purchased her first home for $27,000 this was a condo in a complex called Mosaic at Millennia right that
00:11:24
was being converted from Apartments to condos in the height of the Florida real estate bubble yeah but this area wasn't
00:11:32
super great it was located by a mall a new mall this is what I call when you have a
00:11:41
an area that's trying to be a nicer area and it's also kind of surrounded by poopy areas oh that's those are real
00:11:51
estate terms yeah poopy yeah you don't want to live here it's kind of poopy half of the complex was still being
00:11:58
constructed and the other half was being converted over from Apartments to updated condos
00:12:04
now Jennifer's unit number 2226 was in building 22 on the second of three floors Logan cessie described the
00:12:15
Mosaic at Millennia as a literal construction zone this complex was located at 3573 Conroy Road and featured multiple
00:12:29
buildings fronted on a very large pond and had an even larger wooded area behind the
00:12:37
complex Jennifer's parents helped her pick out the place it was right across the street as the captain said from a
00:12:44
fancy new shopping mall called The Mall at Millennia which featured retail shops
00:12:50
and eateries the newspapers at the time described the Mosaic at Millennia as quote upscale gated and fenced
00:12:59
but it's a fair statement to say that the area was just newly becoming nice and that it bordered on some areas that
00:13:07
were not so upscale yeah well and it's also not gated at the time because there's so much construction going on
00:13:14
there are Gates they are not being closed or used properly and we'll get into that heavily later right some of
00:13:23
the neighboring areas have even been described as sketchy or poopy or poopy uh Mosaic of Millennia is your typical
00:13:31
pastel colored Florida stucco buildings with open air hallways leading to the condos this was still a major
00:13:38
construction zone just like her brother described and this place was not close to maximum capacity news reports from
00:13:47
2006 indicate that only about 250 of close to 500 units were full and only one other condo on Jennifer's floor was
00:13:57
even occupied many of the condos were still being renovated and were empty and in fact it came out later that many of
00:14:05
the workers that were employed in the construction project were permitted to live or stay for a while in these empty
00:14:14
condos while they worked the job one well-known story is that Jennifer who had only been living in her new condo
00:14:22
for about 3 months when she vanished had told friends and family that while she loved her new place face this was a very
00:14:30
nice condo by the way with a balcony overlooking a pond granite countertops and her own laundry room she did not
00:14:37
like the workers she told people that the workmen cat called at her and whistled when they saw her for anyone
00:14:44
especially a young woman living alone this is quite an uncomfortable situation her parents who lived about 2
00:14:53
hours away encouraged her to report this Behavior to the manager's office but it
00:14:58
does not seem that Jennifer ever did so Jennifer refused to allow anyone into her condo when she was not home but when
00:15:07
she first moved in her condo needed some finishing touches like paint and plaster
00:15:12
so she would come home from work on her lunch break let the workers in and stand
00:15:18
there with the door open to the hallway on the phone with a friend or her parents while the men worked she always
00:15:25
locked up after she left there seems to be no way to track who all the workers were
00:15:32
on site at the time some of them were undocumented workers with no papers who were probably doing a lot of work under
00:15:41
the table right there were no surveillance cameras in place at the complex just yet well like you said some
00:15:48
of the workers were permitted to stay in the empty buildings correct but I guarantee you there was other workers
00:15:56
that were staying that weren't allowed or people didn't even know that they were staying who's to say that this
00:16:01
worker staying in a condo or in a unit couldn't have friends over or people that that worker knew right you know
00:16:10
staying for a weekend or a couple of days it's just there's a lot of things going on in this condo complex is what
00:16:17
we're trying to point out that there's no real checks and balances of these types of activities and movements and
00:16:26
there was also virtually no security at the armless gate when Jennifer lived at mosaic at Millennia The Unfinished work
00:16:35
and progress nature of the buildings meant that lots of workers gardeners maintenance workers and so on were
00:16:42
constantly coming and going no one kept track and according to the cesses when Jennifer disappeared and her story broke
00:16:50
all over the news many of the workers seem to just disappear or evaporate they did not want to be be
00:16:58
under scrutiny even if they were not involved in any way in her disappearance Jennifer had been dating
00:17:05
someone for about a year when she disappeared this was Rob Allen he's an English soccer player who lived in Fort
00:17:14
Lauderdale almost 3 hours away they had met at the tiki bar in downtown Orlando in
00:17:22
2005 Rob was 8 years older than Jennifer but the two seemed to be a good match since Jennifer was somewhat mature for
00:17:31
her 24 years of age they spoke multiple times every day and the two of them alternated trips to stay with each other
00:17:40
taking turns every weekend Rob figures heavily into this story Into the story of Jennifer's disappearance since he was
00:17:50
the last known person to speak with her Rob has grown very close with the kessie
00:17:56
family and remains so to this day well I'm back to your one point it's really hard to have undocumented workers
00:18:04
because we don't know what kind of criminal history that they have and so in this case too we have the
00:18:11
undocumented workers staying in the same complex as the owners yeah and the other
00:18:19
thing I want to point out too to top all of that off we have the the false sense
00:18:26
of security that some of the Optics provides for the condo owners right there's they are sold that this place is
00:18:36
gated and secure I'm here to tell you it's neither and there seems to be no question of
00:18:43
what happened to Jennifer kessie in January of 2006 Jennifer was abducted everyone including the Orlando Police
00:18:53
Department agrees to this but the remaining questions surrounding her disappearance is who took her how did
00:19:01
they take her and even when did they take her all of this is unknown even to this day let's go through the timeline
00:19:10
of The Disappearance of Jennifer kessie to establish what we know and what we do
00:19:15
not know on Wednesday January 18th 2006 Jennifer drove from Orlando to her boyfriend Rob Allen in Fort Lauderdale
00:19:26
this was after work on Thursday January 19th the two of them flew from Fort Lauderdale to St Croy for some
00:19:36
RNR they stayed in a condo there this is with family friends of robs photos of the two show them doing the usual
00:19:44
vacation type things they're at the pool they're relaxing in the sunshine they were scheduled to fly back to Fort
00:19:51
Lauderdale on Sunday but for whatever reason their flight was cancelled so after some scrambling around they
00:19:59
managed to get a flight to Miami and have a friend pick them up to make the 40-minute drive back to Rob's Place
00:20:07
Jennifer got up at 6:00 a.m. on Monday and after Rob filled the gas tank her gas tank and her black Chevy Malibu for
00:20:17
her she made the 3-hour Drive North all the way up to Orlando and went straight to work that day according to Jennifer's
00:20:25
work colleagues she had a normal day at work she raved about her trip and said she didn't want to leave around 6:00
00:20:35
p.m. she stopped in and said good night to her boss this is John Wilman she got in her car and drove the 12 miles home
00:20:46
her cars transponder said that she went through the usual toll at 6:15 p.m. that
00:20:52
day do we know how many miles it is from her boyfriend's house to her house it's
00:20:56
a little over 200 miles now while she was in her car on her way home from work she did call her parents Drew and Joyce
00:21:04
to tell them about her trip she also spoke with her brother Logan who was living with their parents at the time
00:21:12
right Jennifer had given Logan a set of keys to her condo he was just 21 at the time and Jen had given permission for
00:21:21
him to stay at her place while she was away this is with some of his buddies with Logan at Jennifer's place that
00:21:28
weekend was Travis borgan Yang a longtime family friend of the kessis and joining the two of them was a guy named
00:21:38
Matt this is Jennifer's ex-boyfriend Logan and Matt remained friends despite Matt and Jennifer breaking up Matt
00:21:46
didn't actually stay at Jen's condo he lived in Orlando so he's very close only about 30 minutes away he just hung out
00:21:56
there with the other two guys the family says that Matt took the breakup with Jennifer very hard and he
00:22:04
continued to pursue Jennifer for quite some time yeah it's not clear where things stood in January of 2006 because
00:22:13
we know that Jennifer had been dating Rob for it seems like years or over a year
00:22:20
and rumors are that Matt had moved on to a new girlfriend right on the phone with
00:22:25
Jennifer Logan told Jen that Travis his buddy had inadvertently left his work cell phone at her condo and he needed it
00:22:35
for work ASAP Jennifer agreed to find it at her place and she was going to FedEx it or
00:22:44
UPS it to Travis the next day the family is unequivocal about this Jennifer planned to bring Travis's cell phone to
00:22:56
her work with her on Tuesday and send it out at that time right again Jennifer's
00:23:05
family says she was a creature of habit so they can predict or they say they can
00:23:12
predict what she did next she arrived at home at the condos at Millennia and parked in her designated spot this is
00:23:20
number 2226 the same as her condo unit that was very near the bottom of the stairwell
00:23:29
that went up to the second floor where her condo was it's literally a matter of maybe 30 ft to her spot from the stairs
00:23:39
yeah it was dark out when she arrived home she brought in her luggage from her trip which was later found still packed
00:23:48
in her condo she checked her mail which was also found in her condo at the main office on her way in it isn't known
00:23:58
whether she ate anything her parents say that there were no takeout containers in
00:24:02
the trash so perhaps she just ate something from the fridge which did have food in it right and likely changed into
00:24:10
her sweats which she always wore at night when home then got on the phone yeah Jennifer's going to get on the
00:24:17
phone but her condo had notoriously bad cell phone service according to her parents the phone or her cell phone only
00:24:27
really worked and this would be sporadically when she was out on the balcony so when at home Jennifer would
00:24:35
usually use her landline the Orlando Police have all of her phone records but have never
00:24:41
released or discussed them in fact the Orlando Police Department has been incredibly tight lipped about this
00:24:49
entire case releasing virtually no information this has resulted in a major legal dispute now now that night Jen
00:24:59
spoke with her best friend from childhood this is Lauren McCarthy the two were as close as sisters and shared
00:25:06
everything Lauren told ID's disappeared that Jennifer told her on the phone that
00:25:12
she had a great time on her trip but that she and Rob were actually having some trouble mainly with the distance
00:25:19
that they live from one another the distance between was providing this trouble and neither one of them wanted
00:25:26
to move to correct this right this of problem yeah anybody that's been in a long relationship
00:25:34
understands that this is a very common situation Jennifer may have talked to other friends that night but we don't
00:25:42
know for sure as said they've not released the call records but we do know that Rob told the police and Jen's
00:25:52
family that the two of them had a phone conversation on Jen's landline as they did did basically every night this one
00:26:01
was at 9:57 p.m. Jen told Rob that she was in bed when they spoke the two argued on the phone a bit it isn't known
00:26:11
exactly what they discussed but Lauren told Greta vanister that Jen was quote feeling the distance end quote Rob and
00:26:21
Jen wanted to be together but neither was willing to commit to moving Rob later said that
00:26:28
he wished that he had told Jennifer he loved her in the year that they were dating since he hadn't it's possible
00:26:36
that she was questioning his commitment and it sparked an argument in any event Rob was the last known person to speak
00:26:45
with Jennifer and this is the last of the concrete facts for that night again this call this conversation ends around
00:26:55
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cheers now the next morning Tuesday January 24th 2006 Jennifer had an important meeting
00:29:58
at work this was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. her typical routine was to leave for work between 7:30 and
00:30:06
7:45 she may have left early on that morning if she intended to stop at a FedEx to send off Travis's phone but it
00:30:15
is more likely that she intended to do as she said and make use of the FedEx services at work Rob and Jennifer always
00:30:24
spoke by phone in the mornings when they were apart Jennifer would call him from
00:30:31
the phone on her way to the office here's what Rob told Nancy Grace quote every day she would either call me just
00:30:39
to say good morning have a great day or just text me to wish me to you know have
00:30:46
a good day love you that type of thing and when I didn't receive it Tuesday morning I thought it was odd end quote
00:30:55
Rob chocked Jen's being Mia up to being busy just getting back into the swing of
00:31:02
things after this short little vacation right but after a while he called her cell this was before his 9:00 a.m.
00:31:10
meeting at work and he got her voicemail he tried again a little later but got the same result Jennifer didn't show up
00:31:20
for her 11 a.m. meeing Not only was this totally out of character it was completely unheard of Jennifer was known
00:31:29
for her punctuality and if she had planned on missing work at all she would have called in to say
00:31:36
so after calling her cell phone and repeatedly getting her voicemail her boss John Wilman had the IT department
00:31:45
check her computer calendar and it showed that she knew about the meeting that day and had planned on attending it
00:31:53
was so unusual for her to be absent without any explanation at all right that her boss ended up calling
00:32:00
Jennifer's parents and sometimes in cases we see this people not taking action right away and you got to applaud
00:32:08
her boss for doing so I I do applaud her boss for doing so but I do want to point
00:32:13
out it seems to me like look with with these very popular cases the ones that are more well known right you know
00:32:22
there's hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears on these things I've notice though it seems like
00:32:29
the employers or whoever notifies whomever or does not notify anyone they're like vilified either way right
00:32:36
because I've seen especially in this case where they're like well after only a few hours why are they reaching out to
00:32:42
her parents um they saying that it seems unusual no and I feel like look we you and I and all these other people that
00:32:53
are questioning this Behavior they do not know Jennifer kessie they do not know the relationship
00:32:59
between her and her employer and the people she worked with the co-workers we don't know that we're going off of
00:33:06
reports so I bring that up only because I don't find it to be strange and I think that it might given this situation
00:33:15
and what we told about Jennifer and and about this company and her co-workers it
00:33:19
might be more strange that they didn't call anybody and and keep in mind this is after repeated attempts of trying to
00:33:25
reach Jennifer herself right and I think if I was working with people in general
00:33:32
and opposed to animals as opposed to you you filthy animal or or even you know if
00:33:39
we're supposed to get together to record in the garage and you didn't show up and
00:33:45
you didn't call and then I called you and it went right to voicemail multiple times I try to get a hold of somebody in
00:33:53
your family well some Reports say that this call to the parents was either because Joyce kessie was listed as Jen's
00:34:03
emergency contact and some say it was because John Wilman was a friend of Drew kessie either way Jennifer's parents
00:34:14
were notified that she had not shown up for work or for this meeting right and this was reason enough for them to go
00:34:22
into panic mode Joyce kessie was at a Kinkos at the time copying materials for her work presentation that day when she
00:34:32
got the call she walked out immediately leaving everything behind to be shredded
00:34:39
Jennifer's parents called both her cell phone and her home phone and of course we know that they're receiving no
00:34:48
answers her cell phone went directly to voicemail Drew kessie told Nancy Grace that this was the first time in 8 years
00:34:56
that Jen had a cell phone that she did not answer his call right Drew was stuck at home waiting for Travis to get back
00:35:06
from the gym with Drew's car Travis hadn't taken his phone and Drew didn't know the name of the gym so Drew made
00:35:15
some phone calls first to the Orlando Police Department then to the property manager at mosaic at Millennia the
00:35:23
property manager reported that Jennifer's car was not in it parking spot at the cessy's request he knocked
00:35:31
on Jen's door and then opened it and looked around and said he didn't see anything unusual when he reported this
00:35:39
the Cassies became very alarmed Drew and Joyce and Logan and their friend Travis
00:35:46
in two separate cars set out for Orlando which would be a 2-hour drive on the way
00:35:54
Joyce called Rob and some of Jennifer's friends who had not heard from her either and she also called hospitals in
00:36:01
the area thinking perhaps Jennifer was in an accident well think about what her brother's going through at this moment
00:36:08
too you're really close with your sister and your dad is saying hey look we're going to be taking a drive cuz your
00:36:14
sister's missing that'd be frightening stuff right and he had just stayed there at her place that weekend right Travis
00:36:23
and Logan arrived at mosaic at Millennia around 300 p.m. and the kessis arrived around 3:15 Rob also arrived on the
00:36:33
scene they convened in Jennifer's condo where this is what they found okay they found the door was locked when they
00:36:42
arrived it was also reported to be locked when the complex manager checked on it right from what I can gather one
00:36:49
needs a key to lock the door from the outside so either Jen locked it or someone used her key to do so right but
00:36:59
just to be clear I'm assuming her parents had a key I don't know if her parents had a key I think they may have
00:37:06
but we do know that Logan had a key because he stayed there that last weekend the lights were off Jennifer's
00:37:14
bed was unmade now laid out on the bed were two work outfits in the tan and black color scheme her new 9 West
00:37:24
alligator pumps were missing this is interesting and this is this could be key here this is a pair of shoes that her
00:37:33
mother was well aware of these are shoes that they had discussed on the phone many times remember Joyce and Jennifer
00:37:40
have a daily phone call her luggage from her trip was still in the hallway remember it's still packed at this time
00:37:48
she had not unpacked her luggage from that short weekend trip her mail was on the counter and some of the junk mail
00:37:55
was in the trash which was otherwise empty other than this junk mail there was no evidence that Jen had ate
00:38:03
anything for dinner was not obvious that that took place but we would later learn
00:38:08
that she had not used her credit or debit cards and there were no containers or dishes lying about MH the clothes she
00:38:16
wore to work on Monday were hanging over the back of a chair her t-shirt and underwear which her family says she
00:38:25
normally wore this type of thing to bed they were on the bathroom floor and our contact case was empty and they found
00:38:32
her glasses I'm I'm assuming on the bathroom counter yes they were on the bathroom sink counter in the contact
00:38:39
lens's case was found to be empty her makeup and hair dryer were on the bathroom sink as well and you know it's
00:38:48
thought that where these items were left that someone had possibly recently used
00:38:54
them or used them that morning mhm in the shower there were still puddles of water this is in the corner shelf areas
00:39:01
surrounding the shampoo and cleanser bottles there was a damp towel draped over the washing machine in the laundry
00:39:09
room a portable can of pepper spray was on the kitchen counter remember we discussed earlier that she carried
00:39:17
pepper spray on her keychain this was purchased for her by her father but he is guessing that Jennifer had to leave
00:39:27
it at home since she could not bring it on the airplane on the flight to St Croy
00:39:33
right that would make sense take it off the keychain and for whatever reason it's still sitting
00:39:38
there which is has got to be driving the parents nuts she's missing they're checking out her apartment pepper spray
00:39:46
on the countertop the evidence we have right now you can go well she she talked to her boyfriend at night she probably
00:39:53
slept in her bed it seems like then she woke up she got ready for work we have the puddles in the shower got the wet
00:40:01
towel it seems as if everything would add up that she left the apartment my mind would immediately go to and this
00:40:10
makes sense as to why Joyce called the the area hospitals mhm with her car not being there and the appearance that she
00:40:19
got ready for work and probably kept to her routine my mind would immediately go
00:40:25
to either we're just missing something here and she arrived incredibly late at work for some reason or she was involved
00:40:33
in a vehicle accident on her way to work and we can't find her or get a hold of her that's where my mind would go to in
00:40:41
that that instance well again this is why I think people need to jump into action because let's say it was some
00:40:49
thing where Jennifer was going to work and her her phone was messed up and she decided to stop and get a new phone
00:40:55
before she got to work and she was running late so she couldn't call um because let's say the phone stopped
00:41:02
working on the way to work or whatever that eventually you're going to find her safe and you're going to go well maybe
00:41:10
we overreacted but it's better than to [Music] on the counter and the condo directly
00:41:29
across from Jennifer's was found to be unlocked Logan her brother found this and went inside and he said that it was
00:41:39
empty and found that the condo unit had no carpeting according to her parents Drew and Joyce Jennifer was a morning
00:41:48
shower person she always showered before work and never showered in the evening so after seeing what we just
00:41:56
said they observed in the condo they came to the conclusion that Jennifer probably woke up for work on the morning
00:42:04
of the 24th showered as usual got ready for work we talk about what was there at
00:42:10
the condo what they found in the condo but let's talk about what was missing because what's missing from the condo
00:42:16
clinched this belief for them that she got up performed her normal morning routine and then something happened
00:42:25
here's what was Miss Travis's Nextel cell phone which Jennifer had told Logan she would FedEx
00:42:32
from work the next day Jennifer's cell phone this is a Verizon LG flip phone Jennifer's purse which included her
00:42:41
driver's license her iPod which apparently she took this with her everywhere her car keys there her car
00:42:50
keys are on the same ring as her house key and her mail key Jennifer's briefcase was was also missing which is
00:42:57
often left in her car or even in her car trunk sometimes overnight this is according to her
00:43:05
friends and her car is missing this is a Chevy Malibu right and I would bet that
00:43:12
everyone is kind of thinking the same thing here everything that was missing Jennifer would have taken with her to
00:43:20
work that day but as we know she never made it there so what the hell happened yeah what happened and when did it
00:43:27
happen yeah and that's really a big piece of this case I believe it's I mean it's a huge missing puzzle piece really
00:43:36
what we have here Captain is we have a 957 p.m. phone call that ends and we have an 11 a.m. meeting that
00:43:46
she was scheduled to attend that meeting seems to set off all these alarm bells that she is not where she is supposed to
00:43:54
be right and that there's something going on so that gives us a 13-hour window of time when something went wrong
00:44:03
now right but we can start assuming with the evidence that she slept in her bed and she woke up at some point and she
00:44:10
was heading to work possibly the other thing you can do here is instead of working with the 13-hour window of time
00:44:17
we can assume that maybe we could minus 3 hours or so off of that because her regular time to arrive at work would be
00:44:27
roughly 8:00 a.m. right so you know now we're working with a 10-hour window and but don't you think the evidence and her
00:44:36
condo suggests that she one slept there and then two got ready for work yes I lean I certainly lean that way there are
00:44:44
plenty of people that make good strong Arguments for something could have happened late that night mhm and I think
00:44:51
it's worth examining but I'm with you I feel like the evidence that we see points to everything was normal up until
00:45:00
the time she was supposed to leave for work or just before yeah and I think maybe he it's a I don't know if they did
00:45:08
this but could you just test the towel if it's her DNA and then you would start assuming again that she took a shower in
00:45:16
the morning and not at at 1: p.m. I can say that was not done right so we just don't know now was probably a good time
00:45:27
to discuss Jennifer's parents Drew and Joyce Cassie it's safe to say they were not the typical powerless family members
00:45:35
of victims that sometimes we see in these cases who have no choice but to put their faith in law enforcement and
00:45:41
wait patiently for answers as far as the cesses are concerned Jennifer's disappearance understandably so was an
00:45:50
unmitigated disaster and they were not going to take it lying down they immediately became activists outspoken
00:45:59
Advocates outspoken advocates for their daughter's case as Drew told a CNN reporter in 2009 quote we both have big
00:46:09
mouths we know how to use them and we will do everything within our power to give her the best chance of being found
00:46:17
Drew and Joyce are both smart articulate motivated and in Drew's case somewhat intense people being realistic about why
00:46:26
people abduct women Drew said they abduct them to rape them and kill them they sprang into action immediately yeah
00:46:35
I mean one of he one of the things I heard him say was they don't kidnap a a female to just put her in the corner and
00:46:42
look at her yeah yeah but at least he's being real at least he's being honest and I think that's also a cry out to the
00:46:50
public if somebody took her the chances are the the reasons they took her for very bad reasons yeah and that's and
00:46:59
this needs to be some this needs to be important right and it's in it's important that he remind the public of
00:47:07
what the likely actions were by the offender because somebody may have knowledge there's just no victim's name
00:47:15
attached to that knowledge sometimes people brag or tell stories and they tell of their actions but they don't say
00:47:22
who they did that to right and this is a case where we need help from the public
00:47:28
the Cassis immediately dropped everything in their lives this is an interesting move but I think it shows
00:47:36
the level of their commitment to finding their daughter finding out what happened
00:47:39
to their daughter and their intelligence as well they moved into Jennifer's condo
00:47:47
they actually lived there fulltime for several months while they pushed law enforcement to find their girl this is
00:47:54
good for many reasons I really believe that the the condo complex is at the center of this whole
00:48:01
case so if there was any knowledge to learn about that condo complex or who may be going in and out of there MH one
00:48:10
could gain that knowledge by living there by being there after hours being there on the weekends so on and so forth
00:48:17
but on top of that they live in Tampa it's going to be a mess to try to keep law enforcement on top of their
00:48:25
daughter case and be 2 hours away from 2006 until the present day they have been constant a constant thorn
00:48:35
in the side of the Orlando Police Department they hired private investigators they put flyers everywhere
00:48:43
they held press conferences they got Jennifer's face on the sides of buses in Orlando they handed out playing cards
00:48:52
with Jennifer's face to prisoners to try to drum up up tips yeah and it wasn't just her face they ended up taking a a
00:49:00
bunch of different missing people and putting them on the cards that shows the level of
00:49:07
their just the goodness in their hearts well yeah they're trying to help their daughter's case and other missing
00:49:13
person's cases right but also the sophistication that their brains can think hey wa we we have heard that
00:49:20
sometimes by this is a tactic that people use and then why prisoners are playing with the cards somebody comes
00:49:27
out and says hey I know this person mhm Drew even got miked up and went into death row to meet with a prisoner who
00:49:36
claimed he had information sadly it turns out this was just a hoax was this the guy that
00:49:45
um he he was on death row but he claimed to know things about a lot of different
00:49:52
cases and and I think this is the guy that they said if he brings up whoever mhm that you'll know right away that
00:50:02
it's the whole story is [ __ ] he had nothing to do with it or has no knowledge right but think again put your
00:50:08
brain into the the mind of the the father you have this beautiful daughter she's gone missing you have no answers
00:50:17
hey there's this guy on death row he might know something you know this guy is a bad mama jama right and you have to
00:50:25
get miked up and go into a room with them and then knowing if he brings up so and so that the whole story is [ __ ]
00:50:35
and so you're hopeful that you get some kind of information or some kind of lead
00:50:39
and you're sitting across the table from this creepo and then he brings up that name and then it'd be want to talk about
00:50:48
a roller coaster of emotions the whole time and it's been going on for many years they set up a Facebook page or
00:50:55
Facebook pages and established the Jennifer ki.com website which is still very active today if anybody wants to
00:51:02
look that up it's it's Jennifer J NN f r kessie is k s.com they contacted every Consulate in
00:51:15
the United Nations as a result Jen is listed as missing on interpole and vicap the cessy's documented everything
00:51:25
they came across in their search for their daughter and they participated in countless tv specials news stories and
00:51:33
podcasts to raise awareness of their daughter's disappearance eventually the cesses would be forced to sue the
00:51:42
Orlando Police Department before we get too far along Captain I want to make sure that we do
00:51:48
our due diligence here we have to give credit for much of the information the good information anyway way in this case
00:51:57
this is due to some of the sources we have already mentioned but a big garage cheers has to go out to the podcast
00:52:05
unconcluded so to Sean and Scott over at unconcluded cheers mates we have relied
00:52:11
heavily on the unconcluded podcast and the help find Jennifer kessie Facebook page which discusses the case and
00:52:19
maintains a database of timelines and facts of course we recommend both by late afternoon on the day that
00:52:28
Jennifer was discovered to be missing the Cassies had already printed off hundreds of Flyers with Jennifer's
00:52:35
picture and a photo of her car and the license plate number they rob Lauren and 12 of Jen's sorority sisters stood on
00:52:45
street corners near her condo and handed out these flyers to rush hour drivers they also posted Flyers all over the
00:52:53
area including at her condo complex the cesses of course had called the Orlando Police and they met with detectives Gau
00:53:02
and right at the condo that evening along with Rob Travis and Logan I do want to point out here though that
00:53:10
detective Wright was almost immediately replaced by detective brownie So for anybody looking into this case just be
00:53:18
aware of that Drew and Joyce were not really impressed by the detective Ives and with this meeting although they took
00:53:28
the report the missing person's report and said they would look into the case Drew and Joyce said that the Orlando
00:53:35
Police Department's opinion was that Jennifer simply took off after a fight with her boyfriend and eventually she
00:53:42
would turn up yeah that's what we're told almost every time right Captain yeah it's a bunch of lazy people so of
00:53:49
course the Cassies flan out refused to believe this they were incense at the implications there was no way that
00:53:59
Jennifer had left she loved her life Drew and Joyce vowed to find their daughter no matter what it took but
00:54:08
there was very little to go on the Orlando Police Department issued a be on the lookout for Jennifer and her vehicle
00:54:16
this went out around 900 p.m. that evening the Orlando Police spent 13 years investigating Jennifer's case
00:54:26
and Captain you are more than well aware of this because of your work on the Tyler Davis case but I found this to be
00:54:34
just an interesting little stat over 3,000 missing persons reports are filed annually in Orange County
00:54:43
Florida during that time the detectives initially assigned to the case retired a
00:54:50
year into the investigation and new detectives came and took over the in investigation they too left and new ones
00:54:59
were assigned this is a 13-year old investigation I'm Not faulting Orlando Police Department for assigning new
00:55:06
detectives we when we have people retire that's what has to happen it's a 13e investigation right you can't force them
00:55:12
to stay on the force so a lot of work was done mhm I was just going to say there's a episode that disappeared it's
00:55:21
called Girl Interrupted it aired in 20 16 um and they had some detectives I I don't know which detectives they were
00:55:32
right but they had some detectives on that show talking about the case again they they make the claim hey well we
00:55:38
know that she got an argument with the boyfriend so maybe she just took off very unimpressed with these detectives
00:55:45
the thing here is too with the switching of detectives so the new detectives are only left with
00:55:51
what the old ones provide them with right and and there was a lot of work done in this case and the files number
00:55:59
tens of thousands of pages one thing that was obvious to be a problem and extremely unfortunate was
00:56:08
that the original detectives were old school they didn't use computers they didn't really even take any notes so
00:56:18
when they were retiring and moving on put out the pasture uh and the new detectives come in they're left with
00:56:27
with almost nothing and I think that they were that the original detectives were forced or at least asked and did so
00:56:36
like write down everything you can remember about the case before you you're you're done and you're out of
00:56:40
here right that's awesome right right that basically says yeah we know your daughter went missing but we don't give
00:56:47
a [ __ ] I'll tell you what man I cannot tell you I don't watch the show anymore
00:56:52
but remember the like the first 48 and and then there's I think there's another show that's the 72 hours whatever anyway
00:56:59
I'm talking about these these cases where you you can watch a unit homicide detective robbery detective whomever and
00:57:09
they're interviewing people and there I cannot tell you how many times that I've
00:57:14
seen what I call like old school detective work work in a case and I love it like that's one of my favorite
00:57:22
things these are guys and and and women that are interviewing people and taking down notes they're writing things down
00:57:30
even [ __ ] that doesn't seem important at the time they write it down and multiple
00:57:36
times there's something that happens a week later or some vehicle is spotted elsewhere a week later and they can flip
00:57:45
back through their notes and go oh yeah I remember I thought I remembered something like that I wrote down a blue
00:57:50
Lincoln was spotted here and then all of a sudden now they've got the Le that they needed so I get that not everybody
00:57:59
was raised around computers and to use them this in computer school I don't understand the fact that they it's been
00:58:08
reported that these guys didn't even take notes that seems to me to be the most basic and simplistic portion of
00:58:16
detective work and and recording your work along the way yeah you wonder if that's [ __ ] or if they took some
00:58:23
notes and and the apartment can't find them I mean you start by the obvious we have this girl that went missing let's
00:58:31
try to figure out did she stay there that night roughly what time do we think this happened is there any eyewitness
00:58:38
that saw her car there at night start there now we go to the boyfriend now we go to the ex-boyfriend now we go to
00:58:44
anybody else that maybe she had any romantic ties to now let's go to the family and and at the same time then you
00:58:52
go to Every staff member and that condo complex and then you go to the different
00:58:58
staff members of the construction but that lies a big problem when you don't have a list of those
00:59:07
workers uh now you have any of those workers plus any of their immediate contacts that possibly
00:59:15
worked with them at some point so now the pool is becoming so big to try to investigate well and anyone that's
00:59:23
experienced of these renovation large scale Renovations or construction projects on on housing sites and
00:59:32
residential areas and even in commercial areas MH understands that it's not as easy as just going to one big company
00:59:41
and going give me a list of all the workers that are working on this property it doesn't work that way
00:59:47
because there's multiple multiple companies some of them big some of them small some of them one man own owner
00:59:54
operated operations property so right because difficult right cuz they could hire one contractor that is only there
01:00:01
to do tile one contractor that's only there to do drywall the problem is is when you're able to contact that
01:00:09
contractor and they're not going to give you the proper names of the people that
01:00:14
work for them because they're undocumented that becomes an issue that becomes a safety issue for others and
01:00:22
and that's where yeah maybe I cannot be so impressed with these detectives from this TV series or maybe not impressed
01:00:30
with some of the rumors that I heard but the stacks you know but the cards are stacked up against these detectives
01:00:38
anyways especially the newer ones because they're left with very little information from the original detective
01:00:45
detectives so for whatever reason or however you want to slice it much about the early months of this
01:00:53
investigation is lost or unknown there is virtually nothing in the case File from the first 16 months of the
01:01:01
investigation we do know that the falling was done or was not done by the Orlando Police Department Jennifer's
01:01:10
condo was never processed the handrails on the two sets of stairs leading from Jennifer's floor the second floor to
01:01:18
street level were not dusted for Prince Jennifer's credit cards were checked their was no activity after the
01:01:26
Abduction the Orlando Police Department has never commented on her bank records or phone
01:01:32
records the Orlando PD checked closed circuit TV and traffic cameras near all relevant locations Jen's condo did not
01:01:44
have surveillance cameras at that time the Orlando Police Department checked pawn shops in the area they also took
01:01:52
Jennifer's laptop into EV evidence the police visited Jennifer's workplace about a week after she went missing and
01:02:01
did some cursy interviews with her colleagues and took her work computer into evidence as well the Orlando Police
01:02:10
ordered a ping study to try to see where Jennifer's cell phone was on January 23rd and 24th the discussion of the
01:02:21
pings and Jennifer's phone is probably one of the most debated and confusing pieces about Jennifer's case Drew kessie
01:02:32
addressed the pings in the in an episode on unconcluded and in one entry in the guest book on the Family's website as
01:02:40
well and we will revisit this issue further a little later for now remember the kessis said that Jennifer had
01:02:49
terrible cell service in her condo in addition they have said that one of the cell towers near the Mosaic at Millennia
01:02:57
was damaged or down at the time implying that Jen's phone had to Ping off a further away Tower when the Orlando
01:03:07
Police Department looked at 11 pings related to Jennifer's phone according to Drew and Joyce the police believed that
01:03:15
Jennifer was out and about late on the night of Monday the 23rd moving away from her condo after after her 9:57 p.m.
01:03:26
conversation with Rob further they believed that she had gone to a shady area of town it's not known where this
01:03:34
was the cesses absolutely denied that there was any way Jennifer would go out that late on a work night after getting
01:03:43
up at 5:00 a.m. that day and they said once she was in for the night and in her sweats and glasses she would never have
01:03:51
redressed and gone back out the Orlando Police Department detectives said to the
01:03:57
Cassies quote you don't know your daughter as well as you think you do one more thing that the Orlando Police
01:04:03
Department seems to have told the cesses was that both Jennifer's phone and Travis's phone were powered off at some
01:04:11
point that night around 10:40 p.m. but the Cassies knew that Jennifer used her phone as an alarm clock and didn't turn
01:04:19
it off that night [Music] want to thank everybody for listening and thank you for telling a friend make
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back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
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