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Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead serious. There are some stories that never leave you as a journalist. No matter how many years go by, no matter how many cases you cover, they just sort of like live somewhere back here in your mind. For me, this one is is right up there at the top of the list. I covered it when it first broke in 2005 and I still remember the ache in my chest watching the search teams, the candlelight vigils. I remember doing interviews with the grieving father. It was a case that horrified the entire country and it broke the heart of every parent who heard about it. A little girl, nine years old, vanished from her own bed in a quiet Florida town. And when police finally put all of the pieces together and solved the mystery, they themselves were broken. Seasoned detectives became shadows of their former selves. And if you've never heard of this story before, I bet it's going to change you too. The little girl was Jessica Lunsford. And if you were around back in 2005, you'll probably remember her picture. Her smile and her bangs and her bright curious eyes. Jessica lived in Homosassa, Florida, a sleepy coastal town north of Tampa. The kind of place where people still left their doors unlocked and waved to everybody who drove by. She lived with her dad, Mark Lunsford, a single dad where working the night shift and living with his parents to make ends meet and care for Jessica. But on the morning of February 24, 2005, Mark Lunsford opened her bedroom door and Jessica wasn't there. She was gone. Just an empty bed and the beginning of one of the darkest true crime stories this country's ever seen. It all began the evening before Wednesday, February 23, 2005, when everything in the Lunsford home was perfectly normal. Jessica's dad, Mark returned home from a 15 hour shift. He played with Jessica and then he made some plans to spend the night at his girlfriend's house. The evening was a busy one. Jessica had dinner with her grandma, ran errands with her grandparents, went to Wednesday night church and watched a little TV before bedtime. Grandma Ruth tucked Jessica in about 10pm Something she did almost every night. Jessica was surrounded by her stuffed animals, including her favorite one, a little purple dolphin that she called Lovey. Grandma would always supervise when Mark was gone to work or anywhere else. The next morning, Mark came home around 5am and heard Jessica's alarm clock going off. He got ready for work, but then heard Jesse's alarm was still continuing to ring, which was odd. So he popped his head into Jessica's room to see if she was awake. And to his surprise, she wasn't there. Jesse's bed was empty. Lovey the dolphin was also missing and her night light was still glowing. Mark ran through the trailer calling Jessica's name, but nothing. She wasn't there. He asked his mom if he knew where Jessica was, but his mom said nothing was out of the ordinary. They went through the normal routine at night. She should still be in her bed. Mark searched the yard. Nothing. And then to their horror, they discovered an L shaped cut in the screen door. Six inches by six inches, right by the door handle. And that is when the panic hit. And at 6:41am Ruth dialed 91 1. Within hours, the Citrus County Sheriff's office launched a full scale search. Volunteers combed the swamps and the fields near the home. Helicopters hovered over the tree line and the story of the missing nine year old girl with the pink backpack and the bright smile that began to spread across the nation. For three agonizing weeks, no one knew what had happened to Jessica. Until investigators started looking a little closer to home. Not in the Lunsford's home, but very close by. And you're not going to believe what came next. Just down the street and around the corner from the Lunsford home, literally 150 yards away, sat a small weathered trailer on West Snowbird Court. Inside that trailer lived a 46 year old drifter named John Evander Cooey. A man with a long record of petty crime. But there was something else in his file. Something far more dangerous. John Evander Cooey was a convicted sex offender. He had recently moved into that trailer with his half sister Dorothy Dixon and her boyfriend. But he never registered as a sex offender at his new address. And that's a violation of Florida law. When police officers first knocked on the door of the trailer where he'd been living, it wasn't John Evander Cooey who answered the door. It was that half sister of his, Dorothy and her boyfriend. And they told the police John wasn't home, which was true. He was already gone. He had packed up and left the trailer on snowbird court Several days after Jessica disappeared. But investigators couldn't shake it. Something about that place felt wrong. They went back again and again, and with every search, and the evidence started to build. And on March 15, 2005, deputies finally tracked down John Evander cooey in Georgia. And when they sat across from him in the interview room, it didn't take long for cooey to break. And that is when everything started to unravel. And what came next dropped like an anvil and chilled every person in that building to the bone. John Evander coohy admitted that he had slipped through the Lunsford screen door in the middle of the night. He found Jessica asleep in her bed, Woke her up, Put his hand over his mouth, and ordered her to stay quiet. He then led her out of her room and right out of that trailer and walked her around the corner, straight into his trailer. Once inside, and remember, he shared that tiny little home with two other people. He forced Jessica into his bedroom closet, and he kept her hidden there in that small, dark closet for three days. From the moment he kidnapped her and led her into that room, Cooey began sexually assaulting her multiple times. While police, neighbors, and volunteers were searching for her outside. Jessica was literally trapped inside, within shouting distance of her own backyard. Cooey told investigators he listened to news reports about the manhunt While Jessica sat terrified and silent nearby. After three days, fearing that police were closing in on him, John Evander coohy decided to do the unthinkable. He tricked Jessica into getting inside several plastic garbage bags, Telling her that he was going to take her home, but that he had to hide her in those bags to get across their yards without being noticed. He told her to take her little purple dolphin to hold it as he closed the bags over her head and tied them shut. But instead of taking Jessica home a hundred and fifty yards away, he instead took those garbage bags with her inside out to his yard in the middle of the night. That's where he dug a shallow hole beside the trailer. He put Jessica into that hole and began to cover her in dirt, shovel after shovel after shovel. John Evander coohy buried Jessica Lunsford alive. After kidnapping her and raping her for three days, he buried this nine year old girl alive. On March 19, 2005, police excavated the yard behind the trailer belonging to cooey's half sister, Dorothy. And under a mound of freshly packed soil, they found Jessica's remains. For Mark Lunsford, A father who had spent weeks begging for his little girl's safe return. The news was earth shattering When Jessica's body was found in those garbage bags. Her hands were bound with speaker wire, and she was still clutching her little stuffed dolphin, Lovey, A toy that had been won for her by her father at a state fair. A toy that Cooey said she could bring with her while he was kidnapping her. A toy that she'd slept with every night before the devil himself entered her home and snuffed out her young life. The medical examiner later confirmed that Jessica died by suffocation, that there was dirt found in her lungs. And in a devastating detail, the ME Said that her little fingers were poking through the plastic bags, which was proof that she tried to claw her way out of that grave and was alive when she was buried. The medical examiner also confirmed that Jessica had been sexually assaulted. Evidence inside the trailer matched Coohy's confession. Inside the bedroom closet, Lab techs lifted a fingerprint that matched Jessica's little hand on the mattress. They found blood stains later confirmed to be Jessica's. At the time. And understandably, the state attorney called the crimes committed against Jessica one of the most disturbing cases in Florida history. But it didn't end there. If you're wondering how a man like this even goes on trial after confessing everything, Good question. John Evander Kuey didn't even plead guilty. He fought the charges in court. And that's because much of his confession to the police, with only all of those details, from start to finish, was thrown out. The judge found that John Cooey had asked for a lawyer sometime after the questioning had begun, and he'd asked for a lawyer several times. The detectives had continued to press on anyway, which is a violation of his rights under the fifth and sixth amendments. To be fair, police knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that whatever he said after asking for a lawyer would never be able to be used in court. But they didn't care. They kept pushing for information. And I get it, and you will, too. These detectives with John Cooey just vomiting this horror in front of them. They believed that there was still a chance to find Jessica alive. So his right to remain silent. They didn't give a. It was the least of their worries. They wanted to press him for information that would lead them straight to Jessica, hopefully finding her before it was too late. But sadly, when they did find her, it was too late. By the time they found the grave and dug her up, she was already dead. And once that confession was ruled inadmissible the state could no longer rely on all of it at trial. But they had enough of it. They had enough of what he said. Everything he said led them to her gravesite before he invoked his right to a lawyer. Still, there was another uphill battle that was waiting for them at trial. John Evander cooey's mental capacity. And before you say, who cares? Who cares what his mindset was, Wait until you hear what I'm about to tell you. It may change your mind, it may not. But it is one hell of a story. John cooey's defense attorneys argued that he was intellectually impaired. And they told the court stories of how John cooey grew up. He, sitting beside them at defense table, was coloring. John cooey, a man who's almost 50, is sitting at defense table with colored pencils, coloring through his entire trial. This, as his defense lawyers told the court about a man scarred by years and years of child abuse and brain trauma. Child abuse at the hands of his stepfather. They said cooey was intellectually disabled as a child, but that his stepfather beat him relentlessly, tied him to bedposts, and slammed his head between a bedroom door and a wall. As repeated punishments, Coohy's lawyers showed brain scans in the courtroom that indicated cooey had almost nothing viable left. Which may help to explain why John cooey thought he was being kind to Jessica when he told the police that he'd allowed her to take her stuffed dolphin with her into the grave, saying, quote, I mean, I'm not a monster. Yeah, let that sink in. That's what he's telling detectives across the table. I told her, you can take your dolphin there, and you can take her. You can take it with you. I mean, I'm not a monster. That was how he relayed that information to detectives. Almost like he believed it, like, he's not that bad a guy. He let her take the dolphin into the shallow grave where she was buried alive. I never got over that. I never got over those details. And just hearing him say those words in that way, trying to get into his head and realizing there was so much that was wrong there. Couhy's mental capacity was tested by the court, and one set of tests showed that his IQ scores were between 61 and 69. That is far below the threshold for intellectual disability by law. But the state countered with different and more credible tests that showed a score of 78. And that's eight points above the legal threshold. So the court concluded he was eligible for the death Penalty. During testimony, jurors saw photos of the closet where Jessica had been trapped, a narrow, windowless space no larger than a pantry. They heard how John Evander cooey had failed multiple lie detector tests, how he told a jailhouse pastor that he, quote, did a bad thing, and how investigators had to pause their search to comfort hardened detectives who broke down in tears. They heard how while hundreds of volunteers were searching fields and canals and back roads across citrus county, police unknowingly came within feet of Jessica. According to a prosecution memo that was filed later in the case, Cooey's own timeline left open the possibility that Jessica was still alive and inside that closet during at least one of the times that police visited coohy's sister's home. Just heartbreaking. On August 24, 2007, the jury found John Evander Cohey guilty of kidnapping, sexual battery, and first degree murder. And judge Rick Howard sentenced him to death. In doing so. The judge's words brought the entire courtroom to tears. He described how cooey became nervous when he heard the police dogs closing in. He described that cooey told Jessica he was going to take her home but didn't want anyone to see her. So he persuaded her to get inside those trash bags and tied another one over her head before taking her outside and burying her in that shallow hole alive. The judge described what the medical examiner had testified to, that Jessica died slowly as the air in those plastic bags ran out, as she was being covered with dirt from the yard. She could have been alive for five minutes, he said, maybe longer, before she lost consciousness. Judge Howard said, quote, he caused a slow, suffering, conscious death. And the judge noted that Jessica's only source of comfort during those horrifying final moments was her little purple stuffed dolphin named lovey. He also pointed out one of the most haunting details of all, that Jessica had indeed managed to poke her little fingers through the inner trash bag, desperately trying to claw her way out and get air. Before she died. The judge said kui had shown no remorse. After his arrest, Coie made what the judge called crude, vulgar, and repulsive comments about the assault on Jessica and even dismissed the entire case. Telling investigators the media was, quote, blowing it out of proportion. His exact words, quote, this kind of thing happens every day. Imagine being the cop hearing that. Imagine what the cop hearing that was wanted to do to the man across the table. Imagine the restraint that they had to practice in this case. Jessica's dad, Mark Lunsford, gave a victim's impact statement and turned to face the man who had murdered his little girl, who had raped his little girl and who'd put her in a shallow grave alive. And Mark Lunsford spoke directly to him. He said, quote, For 29 months, my daughter has heard me cry and begged God to stop the pain in my heart. I hope you hear her cry as you try to sleep at night. I hope you see the tears at night when she asked you if she could go home. You will never hurt another child again. But the sense of justice and the promise of an execution did not last long before the death penalty appeals process could even begin. John Evander Coohy died in prison of natural causes. That was back in 2009. He was 51. Mark Lunsford said he was sad when he heard the news of Coohy's death. He said, quote, to me, death is sad, but her death, Jesse's death has been redeemed. I'm relieved. I'm glad it's over with. The crimes committed against Jessica exposed huge flaws in the way America tracked its most dangerous offenders. At the time, there were thousands of sex offenders unaccounted for, moving freely, skipping registration and falling through cracks in the bureaucracy. Mark Lunsford spent months in Florida's capital, Tallahassee, pushing for reform, and lawmakers listened to him. Eventually, Florida passed what became known as Jessica's Law. It required convicted child sex offenders to wear GPS tracking devices. It imposed mandatory minimum sentences. And it increased penalties for failing to register at an address. And Jessica's Law quickly spread right across the country, adopted in some form by over 40 different states. Since then, databases have been modernized, verification checks tightened, and community notification systems expanded. But Mark Lunsford still says the system isn't perfect, not by a long shot. He continues to speak publicly through the Jessica Marie Lunsford foundation, reminding lawmakers and parents alike that, quote, evil doesn't always look like a monster. Sometimes it looks like your neighbor. Even today, Citrus county honors Jessica Lunsford every March with memorial walks and candlelight vigils. Two decades later, her pink ribbons and dolphin emblems still decorate signs along Snowbird Court, the street where she once lived and the place where. Where she tragically died. Jessica Lunsford's story is one that no parent will ever forget. She was nine. Nine. She loved school. She loved singing in church, and she loved making people laugh. And she'd today be in her 30s had she lived, maybe even would have kids of her own. Instead, Jessica is remembered for a law that bears her name, Jessica's Law, a law that changed how America protects its children the best it can. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thanks so much for watching. Thank you for listening. And remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead seriously.