Loading summary
Transcript2 lines
- [00:00]
A
You're tuned into Auto intelligence live from AutoTrader where data, tools and your preferences sync to make your car shopping smooth. They're searching inventory. Oh, yeah. They find what you need, they gonna find it. You can make a budget for your wallet to help you succeed. Pricing's precise and true. So true. It's smarter. Car shopping. Ooh, just for you. Oh, it's just for you. Find your next ride@autotrader.com powered by Auto Intelligence.
- [00:30]
B
There's something so incredibly eerie for me when someone disappears and then they're found incredibly close to their house. Just knowing that there are massive search parties, so many search efforts to look for this one person and then they're found right there and they were there the entire time, it sends shivers down my spine. And in this case particularly, there was one incident that's going to make you so angry because obviously in hindsight I don't want to spoil anything. So I'm not saying. But in hindsight it's so easy to say, oh, well, if I was a cop, if I was the investigator, I would have done X, Y and Z differently. Obviously, now we know. Knowing the difference that that would have made it just that side of it is so heartbreaking. Knowing that if one small detail would have been different, then this little girl would still be alive today. That being said, today's case is about a nine year old child. So if you think that listening to this is going to harm your mental health in any way, shape or form, please, please skip this video. I know none of these cases are easy to listen to, but I know the ones with children involved are especially hard. So I've said this a million times, both on the podcast and on TikTok. I would hate nothing more than for one of my videos or one of my episodes to hurt your mental health. So I mean it when I say take care of yourselves. If this isn't the one for you, then I will see you in my next ones. I love you. Jessica Marie Lonsford. She was a little girl who was born in South Carolina. She has been described as outgoing, confident, friendly. Overall, such a happy, energetic little bundle of joy. And she lived on this earth for a very short nine years. But in those nine years that she was here, Jessica experienced more love than some people do in their entire lives. Her parents were called Mark and Angela. Mark had other children. They were older, from his previous marriage. But out of his kids, Jessica was the baby. She was the youngest by a good amount of years and they, her parents absolutely adored her. She was A rainbow baby. Her mother had suffered numerous amounts of miscarriages in her adult years. So when she got the news that she was pregnant with Jessica, needless to say that she was over the moon. That little baby girl was already loved so much by so many people before she was even born. When Jessica was only one year old, her parents made the decision to get a divorce. And it was her father who ended up getting custody of her. And to say that Jesse was a daddy's girl would be such an understatement. The two of them were like two peas in a pod. They were the best of friends. The bond between them was so strong that Jessica would tell anyone around her that her ultimate best friend in the whole entire world was her, her dad. They would go out to eat, they would go to the movies. Mark would take her to work, he would take her to church. He would sometimes just take her out on drives to go and listen to music. Jessica loved music so much that at one point she said that she actually wanted to become a famous singer when she grew up, which is so adorable. And Mark, he supported every single one of her little dreams. Even if she. If what she wanted to be changed every single day. Because, I mean, she was nine years old. She was saying that she would want to be an actor one day, and then a movie star and then a veterinarian. I have such a hard time saying that word. But she had big dreams, this little girl. And Mark would tell her that she could be anything that she wanted to be. And he made sure that she knew that no matter what, she would always have him right by her side, not only supporting her, but also cheering her on. The two of them did literally everything together. They spent so much, so much time together. They were obsessed with each other. And Jessica had Mark wrapped around her little finger. There was nothing that Mark would not do for his daughter, but vice versa. Jessica would also do anything that she could to be attached to his hip at all times. They often did get into arguments and little fights, but they would literally argue about who loved the other person more. The relationship between them, honestly, seems like it was the kind of relationship that makes a human being rich. And they could have nothing and still be so rich in life because there was just that much love in between them. Post divorce, the two of them were still living in North Carolina. But when Jessica's grandparents moved to Florida, they followed. And they ended up moving to Florida, too. They moved in with Mark's parents in a trailer park. And it was really nice because Mark was a single dad. So having the help of his parents to not only help take care of Jessica, but also to help give her the life that Mark wanted so badly to be able to provide for her. It meant a lot. And Jessica as well, was so happy to be living in the same state as her grandparents again. She was really, really close to them. They were always around. And the two of them would also spend so much time with Jesse. Her grandma specifically loved to do arts and crafts with Jesse. And this is so cute. Listen, because Jessica loved playing with her dolls. She loved to play dress up and do their hair and put their little outfits on and pretend that she was doing their makeup. You little girls treat their dolls so kindly and innocently. Well, Jessica's grandma would take Jesse to different fabric stores, and Jessica would be able to pick out the kind of fabric that she liked. And she always gravitated towards purple. Anything purple, like patterns or just plain fabric. Just the color of purple was her favorite, that that was her favorite color. And they would buy the fabric, and then her grandma would sew little outfits together using that fabric for Jessica's dolls. Is that not the most wholesome thing that you've ever heard? That is so sweet. February 23rd of 2005 was a Wednesday. And that day went like any other Wednesday usually would for Jesse and Mark. At this point, Jesse was 9 years old, and that day she went to school after school in the afternoon. She hung out at her local church group, as she often did when she got back home to the trailer park. Her and her dad made some food, they sat around to eat together, hung out for a little bit until Mark had to start getting ready for his date. Because as we know, Mark was a single dad. But at this point, he had been. He'd been signaled for, what is that, like, seven, 8ish years? Because the divorce happened when Jesse was one. So, yeah, he had been single for a while, and he was ready to get back out there. He had started dating again here and there. And that night he had a date scheduled, and he was looking forward to it. And he really wasn't worried at all about leaving Jesse back at home, because Jesse's grandparents lived with them. They were there. They all lived together in the trailer. So they would be there to watch Jesse while Mark was out on his date. Not that they necessarily even needed to watch her, really, because it was almost her bedtime. But it was very comforting for Mark to know that his parents were there to be able to take care of Jesse if she did need anything. It was something that really was a very positive thing in his life to have his parents around. Before leaving for his date, Mark said good night to Jesse. They told each other they loved each other, and then Mark left to to go on his date. Not long after, her grandma put Jesse to bed, tucked her in, kissed her good night, and that was that. That night, Jessica Lunsford would be taken. From what I could find, it sounds like Mark spent the night over at his date's house because he did not get back to the trailer until the next morning. Around five in the morning, he got back, he started getting ready for work, and then he heard Jesse's alarm go off. Expecting at any second to hear Jesse wake up, turn her alarm off and walk out of her room. But a couple of minutes passed and her alarm was still going off. So Mark is thinking that she must have either been sleeping through her alarm or she must have already been awake. So he walked over to her room to go and wake her up. But when he entered, Jesse was not in her bed. So his immediate thought still is, okay, she's not here, her bed is empty. Maybe she did wake up and maybe she went outside, maybe she's in the bathroom or outside playing, whatever. So he starts walking around and I mean, there's only, there are only so many rooms in the trailer that she could be in, but she wasn't. He walked outside, yelled out her name, but he got no response. When he walked outside, Mark realized that he had left the front door of the trailer unlocked the entire night. And he got a sick gut feeling. I feel like as a parent you just know. So somehow, some way, parents can just sense when their kid is hurt. And that's the feeling that Mark felt in his gut. Before doing anything else, he began making phone calls. And after quickly realizing that nobody else had seen her nor heard from her, her grandma hadn't seen her, the grandpa hadn't seen her. Mark called the police to report his nine year old daughter, Jessica Lunsford, a missing person. The missing person report was officially reported at 6 in the morning. And within hours there was a nationwide alert out for Jess. Jessica. When authorities got there, they could see the concern and the worry on everyone's faces. But they could also see that there really weren't any signs of a kidnapping. I mean, other than the fact that Jessica was literally not there, she was gone. But there were no signs of forced entry, no signs of a robbery, no sign that anyone actually had been inside of that trailer apart from Jesse's family. And because of that, authorities could not say for sure yet that this was a kidnapping. And they were considering the possibility that Jesse could have left on her own accord. Of course, Mark did not support the theory for a second. Neither did her grandparents, because there was just no reason at all as to why Jesse would have disappeared. Even if she had woken up before her alarm, even if she had gone outside to play or whatever, she would have come back. She woke up at the exact same time every single day. She had her little usual morning routine. She had school. There was just no world in which it made sense that Jesse would leave and then not come back. On top of that, yes, she was a very outgoing little girl, but she was that way with the people that she knew and loved and was comfortable with, with strangers or neighbors or people that she just didn't know. She was generally a very, very shy kid. Like, she wasn't the type of kid to see someone out in public and go up to people or just talk to people that she wasn't comfortable with because she got quite anxious. And Jesse was terrified of the dark. Everyone that knew her knew that, and I don't know. So she would have been. They started looking for her sometime between 5 and 6 in the morning. She was reported missing at 6 in the morning. I don't know if it was dark outside still or if the sun had already come up, but if it was dark, that would then just add another layer as to why Jesse would not have just walked out on her own. So by 6am she had been reported missing. And by that evening, hundreds of volunteers had gotten together, offering to help out where they could. There were search parties spreading out, walking around the area, looking not only for Jesse, but also for any evidence. They talked to neighbors. They also eventually reached out to Jessica's mom, who was still living in North Carolina, wondering if maybe Jessica could have walked out the door and thought that it would be a possibility for her to walk, to go see her mom because she was younger and she didn't know any better, and maybe something happened to her on her walk, but nobody could say that they had seen or heard anything. So without having anywhere else to turn to, investigators began looking into Jessica's dad, Mark, and her grandfather, Archie. And this is one of the most frustrating parts of the case, I think, because. Let me explain. They were intensely interrogating Mark and Archie for hours until those hours turned into a total of three days straight. And they had focused all of their attention, zeroed in completely into Mark and Archie, basically accusing them, asking them leading questions about what they knew or what they did. They were using different tools, such as lie detector test. And over the course of those three days, they. They were also using different tactics, like playing good cop, bad cop, or trying to gain their trust, but then trying to use what they were saying against them, attempting to try and get them to turn on each other. It was. It just, like, it makes me so uncomfortable. It was quite brutal, to be honest with you. And I always think about this, because if you're innocent and you're being intent, like, just put yourself. Put yourself in their shoes for a second. Like, even in a different situation, even if, let's just say your sister is accusing you of stealing, stealing her phone charger, and you know that you didn't steal it. If you are innocent, you know for a fact that you did not do something, but you are being intensely questioned for days with investigators in your ear, saying, you did this, you did this, we know you did this, or hinting at the fact, while you're also in the darkest place already because your daughter is missing, your granddaughter is missing, and you're scared and you're worried and you're not sleeping. Like, I always think about how frustrating it must feel to try and get someone to believe you because you can't seem desperate, right? Like, you're trying to get someone to believe you without having any proof. But it's so tricky because you can't get angry and freak out because then they can think that that would mean that you're guilty. But you also can't not act disheveled because then they'll think that you don't care, and then they'll think that you're guilty. And, like, you can't say too much because that can seem excessive, but you also can't say too little because that can seem concerning. I don't know. I always think about that. It's. It sounds harrowing, and it really was. In the interrogation room, Mark was crying. He was very clearly devastated. But his dad, on the other hand, Jesse's grandpa Archie, he was doing a better job at being able to keep himself composed, keep. Keep himself together. But in the eyes of authorities, that only made Archie all that more suspicious. Investigators even at one point allegedly said that they had DNA against Archie the grandpa, when they did not. Attempting to convince Mark to question Archie to try and get him to confess. And this is his father, Mark's father, let's not forget that. His dad that he knows and loves, and his dad, who has adored Jesse his entire life. So it goes without saying that Mark was absolutely distraught that him and his dad were being looked at as suspects. He was heartbroken. But Archie. Archie was pissed. He was trying to do what he could to keep himself together and not lose it in the interrogation room saying, quote, I'm not guilty of anything except loving my grandchild, end quote. And he eventually got up and tried to leave. The officers had to physically put their hands on him, stop him from leaving, and they put his hands behind his back, even though they never officially arrested him. It was weird, the entire situation, and incredibly frustrating. But three days after that, authorities finally decided to rule both of them out, which is great, but by that point, they had already wasted three days focusing all their attention on them and not looking for Jesse. It felt like such a waste of time, but I guess, whatever. Finally, thankfully, they were ruled out. They were still very much in contact with the police and investigators, but now, finally, they were talking to them more as a let's work together way to figure out what happened. Instead of saying, you did this, give me the answers. So remember, Mark and Jesse lived in the trailer with the grandparents, and we know that her grandma Ruth was. Put her to sleep, tucked her in, and said good night. Archie says that he woke up to use the bathroom around 4 in the morning, and he remembers hearing their dog barking outside. He remembers that because he thought that it was unusual for the dog really to be barking at all. I think he was a generally quiet dog, but especially that early in the morning. At the end of the day, though, he's a dog, so what much can he really say about that? But other than that, there was really nothing out of the ordinary and. And inside of the trailer, after walking around and looking for evidence, they notice that one of Jesse's favorite stuffed animals was also missing. Authorities thinking again that, oh, she could have left on her own and maybe she took her stuffed animal with her. But no. Mark, Archie and Ruth knew that something way more sinister was at play here. Other than the stuffed animal missing, they pretty much had nothing pointing to what could have happened to Jesse or where she could be. Days turned into weeks, and every week felt like it lasted a million years without little Jesse home. And I think you guys know this, but the chances of finding a missing person after 24 hours are way lower than they are within the first hours. And the first 72 hours are considered to be the most critical period because within those first 72 hours, the likelihood of finding the child is at its highest. But as more and more time passes, the likelihood of finding them decreases severely, and the odds of them returning Home safely do as well. By week three of the search, authorities were searching woods, they were searching fields, continuing to spread out further and further. They had people on foot, on helicopters, they had sniffer dogs, divers searching lakes and rivers. They were doing what they could, but it literally felt like this nine year old little girl vanished into thin air. Police's main theory now was that this was most likely probably a kidnapping. And they began looking into registered offenders in the area as well as looking closely at people who had criminal records and a history of committing violent crimes. They narrowed the list down to 208 people and they questioned every single one of them. And, and one name kept coming up. 46 year old John Coey. A foul excuse of a man. John Coey was really something, and I really do mean that in the most negative way. He had a rocky childhood, he grew up in poverty and he suffered a lot of abuse as a child, not only from his mom, but also from his mom's boyfriend. His life at home was hard, his life at school was also hard. He, he experienced a lot of bullying, Bullying. And the path that he was going down from a very young age was not a good one. And it's sad really because a lot of the things that he went through were completely out of his control, but super alarming to say the least. John started committing petty crimes at a pretty young age, started stealing money from different things. But then his crimes escalated and in his teenage years, John broke into a woman's house and essayed her. In 1991, he essayed a child under the age of 16. And for that, luckily he was caught. John Cooey was sentenced to 10 years in jail, but he was released after only serving two. And then he was sent back out into the world where he would just continue committing more crimes and things from now on. Not that they've been good, but they would just continue to go downhill for him. After getting out of jail, he fell completely in the wrong path. He was using substances and drinking all the time and robbing people and breaking into homes. His life was pure and utter chaos. He did have a job at one point, but he was fired from it because of his abnormal behavior, I guess. John wrote a letter to a 15 year old girl that was very weird and very uncomfortable, obviously. And the owner of the restaurant for in the restaurant that he worked out was consistently getting reports of John acting weird around young girls. And the people who worked with him, worked around him, spent time with him, said that he was really strange because he had this gross fascination with girls. Who were much, much younger than him. So he was let go of his job because of that, and rightfully so. But because he was convicted of SA of a child under the age of 16, that meant that John had to legally register as an offender, and he did so. But the thing about that is that if you are a registered offender, you need to inform police of where you live at all times. It's not an option like you can't choose not to. You legally are required to tell authorities where you are living and give them your address so they know where you are at all times. And if you move without notifying anyone, then that's considered an offense, and you can get arrested for it. While looking into him, looking at his past, and realizing that on paper at least, he was the exact kind of person who would be capable, who would want to kidnap a little girl, authorities went over to his house to go and speak with to him. But guess what? John Cooey had moved out. He had moved out and had failed to notify anyone. So he was now in trouble. Even if they found out that he had no connection to Jessica Lunsford at all, he was still in trouble, and they needed to find him because he broke the law by moving and not telling anyone. And after poking around, talking to people, talking to neighbors, authorities found out that John had been staying at his sister's house, at his sister's trailer. They talked to his sister. They also found other family members of this, but no one had seen him, or at least that's what they were saying. But luckily, they did figure out where he was living, his sister's trailer. And that trailer was incredibly close to where Jessica lived. I'm talking.05 miles close to Jesse's trailer. So now you have this guy with a criminal history, a prior conviction of essay for an underage child, a registered offender, a guy who was known to take a lot of substances and to be just a complete menace to society, really. A guy who has been staying 100 yards away from where Jessica Lunsford lived, and a guy who is now also missing. Red flags, neon red flags. Flashing, flashing neon red flags. So their next step is to now get a search warrant. Obviously, that takes a little bit of time, so while they're waiting on the search warrant, they dig a little bit deeper, and they look at his past, and things look suspicious, to say the least. They also discovered more of his petty crimes that included things such as fraud and burglary. So in their heads, authorities now feel confident in saying that this was a kidnapping. Right, Everything is pointing to that. But knowing that he also had a history of robberies as well, just thinking through what could have happened, they were also considering the possibility that even if John did not set out to kidnap Jussie, he could have, let's just say, broken in thinking that Mark was out because he was maybe not knowing that the grandparents also lived there. Maybe he just thought that Jessica would be alone, sleeping. Or maybe he just didn't care. But maybe he broke into their trailer with intentions of robbing the place. And maybe Jesse either woke up and saw him, she saw his face, and he couldn't have that, so he took her. Or there is still the possibility they were considering that he had intentionally entered the trailer with full intentions of kidnapping Jesse. Oh, and also his sister. The trailer that John had been staying at, living at with his sister, it was not only his sister, it was also her partner, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. So with John, that makes a total of five people that were living in that trailer. And every single one of them did substances, meaning that they needed to fund their addiction, which that could make sense that John would break into a trailer maybe looking for money to rob, looking for cash to use that to be able to buy more substances for all five of them. Who knows? Whatever the case was, they needed to find John Kooey and they needed to talk to him. Guys, I have something so exciting to tell you about. I've been waiting to be able to sit here to tell you guys about this brand that I'm recently obsessed with. Like, I think this obsession is going to be, it's going to be a big one for me for sure. But the holidays are coming up, sales are coming up, Exciting, fun time of the year. And I have always said that my dad and my fiance are the hardest people to shop for because what do you really buy? Men. But do you know who else is hard to shop for? Your mother in law or your boyfriend's mom. Not because they're a difficult person, but because at least me personally, I want to be able to give her the best of the best. I don't want to just give her a little gift that she's going to like for a few days and then put away and never see for the rest of her life. I want to give her something that she's going to have and use for years to come and think, oh, Michelle got me this best gift ever. And when I think of that, I think of cozy Earth. Not only do they have pajamas and towels and all the cute Cozy stuff. But what I'm obsessed with is their bamboo sheets for a lot of reasons. Biggest one being is that they are designed to last long and to get better over time, which they do. I have had mine for I don't know how long now, but I've washed them so many times and they somehow really do get softer over time. The first time that I tried my sheets, I put them to wash, took a shower, put my little robe on, matching pajamas on, clean my entire apartment, lit a candle, you get the vibe. And I laid in my bed. I'm not even kidding you. I slept better that night that I had, I think in the entire year. And I think a big part of that being is that the sheets are also made to be temperature regulating. So if you are a hot sleeper, they're meant to keep you cool. And if you're a cold sleeper, they're meant to keep you warm and not all at once. Because my fiance, Mitchell, he gets hot at night, but he doesn't want to cuddle, he just wants to be on his side of the bed because he gets hot. I get cold. And the first night after trying out the sheets, I was like, how did you sleep? He asked me how I slept. We both slept the best that we had in such a long time. And I'm about to tell you a fact that's going to scare you if you didn't already know. You spend one third of your life asleep. Is that crazy to think about one third of your whole entire life you you spend sleeping in your bed? So I think that makes it makes so much sense to spend money to have the highest quality of sleep that you can. Not only does it look good, it feels good, and it's going to last you for literal years. Something else that I love about Cozy Earth is that they have a 100 night sleep trial. So they will send you the sheets, which by the way, the packaging that it comes with feels so lux, but they will send them to you. You can try them out for a hundred nights and if you don't love them, you can return them hassle free. But I don't know that they've had anyone return the sheets because everyone that I have personally talked about genuinely falls in love with them. And after getting mine and using them for a while, I can totally see why Black Friday has come early at Cozy Earth. Right now you can stack my code Wish W I s H on top of their site wide sales, giving you guys up to 40% off in savings. That's cozyearth.com code. Wish for up to 40% in savings. Guys, this is a big deal. These deals also will not last. So start your holiday shopping today. And if you get a post post purchase survey, be sure to mention that you heard about Cozy Earth from my podcast. I just told you guys that you spend one third of your life sleeping. And you know what's another thing? This is pretty recent for me. Maybe within the last year. I have noticed I have always been a teeth grinder. If you've slept next to a teeth grinder, you know what that means. You literally just grind your teeth at night. But it's so loud and. But something weirdly enough that I've been going through for the last year. I don't know if it's like an anxiety thing, but I've been. And this is probably tmi, but we're close. We love each other. I've been, like, biting the inside of my lips when I get anxious. I don't know why. And I've noticed that I do it mostly when I'm researching a case. I'm in the middle. I'm like, I enter the flow state and I'm like biting the inside of my lips. I think. I don't know, I think it's just an anxious tendency, but it hurts my lips even when I go to brush my teeth. This is. I don't know if I should be sharing these kind of details with you guys, but even when I go to brush my teeth, I'm like, oh, my. The inside of my lips hurt. And up until a year ago when this started, I had never considered using a night guard because I just kind of thought, like, I don't know, I don't need one. I also didn't want to spend the money and the hassle and driving to the dentist appointment, spending a million dollars on a night guard and sitting there and then having to wait however long for the night guard to be shipped by my house. It just always seemed like too much and I didn't want to do it. And that's why I was so excited when Remy reached out to me. First of all, cutest name in the world. My sister's dog name is Remy. He's a king. So love the name of the brand caught my eye immediately. But the thing about Remy is two things that I love. One is that you can do everything from the convenience of your own home, which is so nice. We live in a world that you where you can do anything you need to from the inside of your house. And that's what Remy Wanted to be able to offer to make it as convenient for you as possible. And it is the easiest process in the world. Because you get your Remy impression kit shipped to your door, there's a step by step guide on how to do the impressions. So easy, I did it myself. They will take your impressions to get your custom fit guard for yourself and then they'll ship it right to your door. I cannot express how easy it is. It's so convenient. Way more convenient than having to drive to your door dentist office. Also 80% less price wise. The more and more I grow up, I realize how awesome it actually is to take care of yourselves. So whether you have anxious tendencies and you bite the inside of your cheeks like I do, or whether you're like my little sister who grinds her teeth at night, try Remy out. I'm being so serious. It's so convenient. It's so easy. And I guarantee that you guys will love them. And for the holiday season, Remy is gifting their customers with their 22 in 1 foam that both cleans your night guard and whitens your teeth for free. When you order a night guard between now and December 24th, go to shopremy.com wish and use the code wish to receive 55% off your new night guard plus a free foam gift. That's shopremy r e m I.com wish for 55 off a night guard plus free gift using code Wish. Thank you so much Remy for sponsoring this episode. Nine year old Jessica Lunsford disappeared on February 23rd of 2005. By March 18th, so 23 days after her disappearance, authorities got the search warrant back for John's house. Well, not his house, his sister's house, the trailer he was staying in. And in conducting the search, inside of a bedroom on a mattress, they found a stain, a blood stain. And John's sister admitted that that bed, that mattress was John's. Very, very suspicious. And it feels like everything that they do have so far, which isn't much, but everything that they do have is pointing directly at John. Cooey. After talking to John's sister Dorothy some more, they started to try and put a timeline together of events of what could have happened, slash, where John was the night of Jesse's disappearance. And not to say that she's a very trustworthy person, but they still cannot find John. So all they can do for now is talk to Dorothy and she tells them that the night of February 23rd, they had all been hanging out, drinking, using substances, having their own little party up until around One in the morning when they decided to call it a nine. So according to her, what she knew, or what she was saying that she knew was that John went to bed at 1 in the morning. Authorities believe that Jesse was kidnapped at some point between 2 and 5 in the morning. So even though it's a pretty big timeline, it still does add up that John could be the guy that they're looking for. So they then decide to loop in the public, and they put John Coohy's face out to the public, as well as his name, as well as his face. They put out a picture of him in relation to Jesse's case, asking the public to come forward with all in any information that could be helpful. And guess what? They did get a call. A woman called in, but she was from Georgia. And remember, Jesse and Mark and John lived in Florida. So it was weird that a woman from Georgia, 400 miles away, was calling about John Cooey, but she was. And she told investigators that she worked at a homeless shelter there, and she had just checked in a man that she thought was John, or at the very, very least, a man that looked exactly like him. And with that, Florida officers got in contact with Georgia officers, looping them in on the situation to try and get their help to find John and arrest him. Now, obviously, they suspected him in connection to Jesse's abduction case, but completely separate from that, they still had a leg to stand on when it came to his arrest. Sometimes in these cases, when they suspect someone, they have to wait and gather up enough evidence to be able to, one, arrest someone, but two, to be able to keep them in custody. But in this case, John was already in trouble because he was a registered offender and he had not notified anyone that he had moved and changed addresses. So there was more than enough for authorities to be able to arrest him. And it turns out that the man the woman in Georgia saw was John Cooey. So police went in, arrested him, and brought him in for questioning. By that point, investigators from Florida had also made the trip to Georgia to be there when John was questioned. And when they sat him down, they asked him if he knew who Jessica Lunsford was. And John claimed that he had absolutely no idea who Jesse was, because how convenient is that? They showed him a picture of Jesse, and he said that he had never seen her before in his life. So he's denying everything, but investigators are not having it. They're not being patient with this guy whatsoever. They tell him that they know that he has something to hide, and they say that they know that he had been staying at his sister's trailer a hundred yards away from Jesse's trailer. They tell him that they've already spoken to his sister and that they know about his criminal history. They are not treating this interrogation lightly by any means. They're just fully, completely grilling him to try and get him to confess, because they really felt in their gut that they had the right guy and they knew that they were on the right track, and they just wanted him to finally confess. And you can find the transcript of his questioning, of his interrogation online, by the way. And even from just reading the conversation, not listening to it but reading it, you can feel how uncomfortable and tense it must have been in that room. John kept saying, I don't know her, man. I don't know her. I don't have her. I didn't take her. And they kept telling him that Jesse's disappearance was being reported on every single day, that her face was all over the news, and that it happened in the area in which he was from, saying that there was just absolutely no way that he didn't know who Jesse was. And then John admits that he does know who she is, but he says that he only does because of what he's seen on the news. He said that he saw her picture on the news, but that's about the extent of what information he had was anything that was being reported on. On tv. And then he kept saying, I don't know her. I don't know her. I didn't take her. I don't have her. I only have seen what I saw in the news. I only know what I've seen on tv. He wasn't cooperating with police. He didn't want to talk. So they ended up ending the interrogation, and they sent him back to his cell. Since that didn't seem to get them anywhere, authorities decided that they wanted to give him a polygraph test. And polygraph tests, as we know, are not super accurate. We know that those results cannot be used in court because they can't be used to say with 100% certainty that someone did commit a crime. They're not super reliable. But still, they wanted John to take one. At that point, John asked for a lawyer, but he did also take the polygraph test. And before they told him what his results were, John looked at the FBI expert and said, quote, you don't need to tell me my results. I know what they are. Bring the investigators back in. I will talk with them. End quote. So that's what they did And John then made a full confession. He confessed that he had lied to them and that he did in fact know Jesse, telling them that he had been watching her playing outside in the trailer park from the time that she was about six years old, so four years now, because remember, she was nine years old when she disappeared. And then John tells them that on February 24th of 2005, the night of the abduction, he was hanging out with his sister and her boyfriend and her daughter and her boyfriend, matching up to what his sister had already told investigators. He said that they were drinking and taking substances. Again, matching up with what his sister said. He claimed that they ran out of substances and drinks, but that instead of looking for more, they called it a night and everyone went their separate ways. At one in the morning, everyone went to bed, according to John. Everyone went to their bedroom, but he went to his. And when he was attempting to fall asleep, he just couldn't. He couldn't fall asleep. And he decided that he wanted to take more substances. But there was one problem, first of all, I guess too, because one, he did not have any more substances, they ran out of them. But two, he didn't have any money. He didn't have any money to go and buy more. So he needed to find the money first. And, and that's when he decided that he was going to break into a trailer and look for money and steal that money to be able to go and buy more substances. And that's when he remembered the little girl that he often saw playing outside in a nearby trailer. And he decided that her trailer was the one that he was going to break into to rob. So around three in the morning, he walked into the trailer. Remember, the front door had been left unlocked, so he just let himself, himself in. He walked in and he started quietly walking around for money to steal. But then he accidentally made a noise. That noise woke up Jesse and she opened her eyes and saw John Cooey standing in her trailer. John said he put his hand over her face to cover her mouth and he told her, quote, don't yell or nothing, end quote. And now he had a problem. Jesse had woken up, she had seen him, she saw his face and she would be able to point him out if he did end up getting in trouble for breaking and entering and stealing. And John couldn't have that. There was a witness and that stressed him out. And the only option that he saw now was to get rid of said witness. So he instructed nine year old Jesse to follow him out. And he described her as being really really scared in that moment, you can tell that she was just kind of following whatever he told her to do because she was terrified. He was a stranger and he was inside of her trailer. He said that Jesse was visibly terrified, visibly nervous, and that as they were walking out, she asked him if she could please take her favorite stuffed animal with her. And he said yes, which we know is true because remember, the stuffed animal was the one thing that we know was missing from her trailer. So he broke into steel, didn't even end up stealing any cash, stole a human little girl instead. John said Jesse grabbed her stuffed animal, the dolphin, held it very tightly in her arms, hugging it against her. And then they walked out out of Jesse's trailer and made the short walk over to John's sister's trailer. He said he broke into the trailer, his own trailer, through the window, I assume because he had a little girl with him and he didn't want to see anyone, he didn't want anyone to see him walking in with his little girl. So he entered into his bedroom through the window and he confessed that that night was the first time that he s a'd nine year old Jessica. And the next morning he essayed her again. After he was done, he shoved Jessica in his closet and told her to stay there while he left for the day because he had to go to work. But we know that he didn't have a job. He literally was unemployed. So I'm not sure exactly what he was doing. But point being, he left her inside of his closet, leaving the TV on in the bedroom, apparently to give Jessica something to listen to. But in my opinion, he probably just left the TV on with the volume on high to cover up the sounds, if Jesse did make any sounds. So he left, quote unquote, for work. By the time that he got back, he started to debate what he was going to do with her, trying to think of what his next steps were going to be. Was he going to keep her? Was he going to let her go? Was it too late? Not only because she had seen him, not only because he had broken into her home and she had seen that, but now he had also essayed her and kidnapped her. And John made the decision that it was too late, that he had done way too much damage and that letting her go would be way too risky. So he had to figure out how he was going to get rid of her. For the next three days, 46 year old John Kubey essayed nine year old Jesse. According to him, which, this is so sad. Jesse would put up a fight and she would try and fight him off of her. Obviously he was about a hundred times bigger than her. And he said that no matter what he quote, always got his way. And this part makes me sick to my stomach because remember towards the beginning of the investigation when detectives first started looking into the registered offenders in the area and when they narrowed it down to around 208 people, when they were doing that, they were obviously going around questioning every single person who was on the offender list, meaning John Coey. And, and they had stopped at his trailer before, before they suspected him and officially named him a person of interest. They had stopped by his trailer and even though they didn't have a search warrant, they did enter and they did do a loop around and they peaked in the exact same room that Jessica was in. They literally walked into the room that Jessica was being hid in. And they took a quick look around, but they did not look in inside of the closet. Should they have opened the closet doors up, they would have found nine year old little Jessica hiding inside of there. And it later comes out that officers had actually stopped by the trailer twice when Jessica was inside of the closet, but they never looked inside. When John got back to his trailer and he was told by his sisters that authorities had stopped by to look for him, that's when he decided that's staying in town was way too risky. And that's why he ultimately ended up in Georgia. But before leaving town, he had to get rid of Jessica. He didn't want to hold her captive anymore. He didn't want to put the effort in to hide her. He actually just didn't want her at all. But he couldn't necessarily just drop her off back at home without facing any consequences because Jesse had already seen way too much. And that's when John made up this lie. He decided that he was going to lie to Jesse and he told her that, that he was going to allow her to go back home. But the entire area, their entire street was covered with police officers. Obviously there was an entire search for this little girl that John had been hiding in his closet. So he told Jessica that in order for him to not get in trouble, they were going to be. They were going to have to figure out how to secretly get her out without anyone seeing him. And he said that once she was out, she would be able to just walk back home. He told her that he would let her go home as long as she promised not to tell anyone about him. And Jesse was terrified of him. Of course she was. She was nine Years old and this scary, gross old man who had hurt her. John pulled out two trash bags, and he told Jessica that he had to wrap her up with them, saying that she would be covered up with the trash bags, inside of the bags. And he would then tie up the bags, pick them up, drag them closer to her trailer, and drop her off at her front yard. And little Jesse, I imagine, scared and not knowing what else to do, she ended up getting inside of those bags voluntarily. But of course, we know that that was never John's plans. He was not going to leave those bags with Jesse inside of them at her front yard. Instead, he had prepped for what he was really planning on doing, and that was to bury her alive. John had dug a hole in his backyard, and he walked with Jesse outside. She was in the bags, and he tied the bags up. He then threw the bags with Jesse in them into the hole in the ground. And you might be like, because I'm pretty sure this was in broad daylight. So you might be wondering how he was able to do all this without anyone seeing them, seeing him. Well, because the police were set up. They had been there for days, all up and down the road. They had set up this tent to kind of serve as the meeting point for everything. And their tent, the police tent, directly covered up John's backyard. So he literally was able to do what he did because the tent was blocking anyone from seeing into his backyard, blocking him, burying Jesse alive and throwing her in there. And he did so. And then he grabbed a shovel and he shoveled mud into the hole, buried her life, and put leaves all over the ground, messing them up, but stacking them directly on top to cover the hole. After that, he got a bus ticket under a different name, which his niece helped him do, by the way. And then he left for Georgia. I cannot imagine how scared Jesse would have been inside of those bags, Unable to see anything, thinking that she was going to be dragged to her front yard and eventually reunited with her family favorite person in the whole entire world, her dad. But instead, then feeling the drop of him dropping her inside of that hole in the ground when he threw the bags in the hole. And knowing that she was likely listening to him shoveling the dirt, it makes me sick. She definitely felt the dirt falling on top of her more and more and over and over again until all she could see was dark. And then struggling to breathe, understanding that she had just been buried alive, feet underground. It breaks my heart. I literally cannot fathom what must have been going through her head and how Scared she was. When John made it to Georgia, he didn't want to use any money to pay for a hotel because he was planning on being on the run for the rest of his life, for forever. Which is when and why he checked into a homeless shelter. At that homeless shelter, he did register under his real name. And his name somehow flagged in the system because he had previously been arrested for substance use, etc. But when his name did flag, it flagged for different reasons, not connected at all to Jesse. So when he was first arrested by Georgia police for that, they had no clue about Jesse, and they had no clue that this guy had just abducted and kidnapped and murdered a nine year old little girl. So he was just released. But that scared John. He was so on edge and scared of being caught that after that he ended up traveling another two hours to a different part of Georgia, checked into a different homeless shelter there, which is when that woman recognized him and called the police. That was the lengthy, horrible, sinister confession that John Cooley gave authority. Sitting in that room at the police station. And he told them exactly where to find Jesse's body. Just after midnight that night, cops headed over to the area and they went to dig up Jesse. She was found exactly where John said that she would be. Her wrists were tied together, and this is heartbreaking, but Jesse was found with two of her little fingers held up, poking out of the bag. She had poked two fingers through the bags before suffocating to death, and her little fingers had skeletonized in that position. Because of that, authorities believe that until she could not anymore, she had been fighting and trying to escape. Her one little hand was found poking those holes through the bag, and her other hand was found holding onto the stuffed dolphin close to her chest. Jesse's body was severely decomposed, so much so that the autopsy was difficult to conclude. But her cause of death was ultimately listed as suffocation. And it's estimated that it would have taken around three minutes for Jesse to suffocate. John Coy was charged with capital murder, kidnapping, burglary and sexual battery. He was also put on unaliving watch because of certain comments that he made that suggested that he was planning on hurting himself. The other people that lived with him at his sister's trailer were luckily also arrested because they had lied to authorities about knowing where John was and about him living in that trailer with them. John Coey's trial began two years later in Miami, and it proved to be very difficult to try and find a fair jury because the case had gotten so big, and it was being talked about so much. But get this. Remember how I said that John asked for a lawyer before he agreed to take the polygraph test? Okay. So he took it, and then he said, don't even tell me the results. Just bring the investigators back in. I will tell them everything. And that's what they did. And that's when he gave his confession. Well, because he had asked for a lawyer right before confessing and gave the confession without a lawyer present, his incredibly detailed, damning confession was. Was ruled to be inadmissible in court. Does that not make you want to throw up? His lawyer argued that it was an unfair interrogation and that it should not be allowed to be used in court. Luckily, however, they had recovered Jesse's body. And because of the recovery of her body and further evidence that was collected after the confession, as well as other incriminating statements allegedly made by Cooey on top of DNA evidence and the blood stain that was found on his mattress, the prosecution thankfully, still had more than enough to be able to prove his guilt. And on August 24th of 2007, John Cooey was sentenced to death, in addition to three consecutive life sentences. His lawyers had tried to argue that he had disabilities, that his traumatic childhood messed up his brain, and that his brain was incapable of know knowing what was right from wrong. Regardless, John ended up passing away before his execution date. He passed away September 30th of 2009. Jesse's dad, Mark, not even going to mention how upset he was because his entire world shatter. He was devastated. Doesn't even begin to describe it. But he was also incredibly infuriated with everything. One of the biggest reasons being because John was a registered offender and he had been previously let out of jail early for his prior conviction. And if only one, he had not been let out, or two, he had been accounted for and watched and arrested for changing addresses without notifying authorities when he was supposed to, like he should have been. If tabs were being kept on him, then this would have never happened and Jesse would still be alive. Her family and her loved ones were devastated. And they very much felt like law enforcement had not only disappointed them, but also fully let them down. Jesse's dad, Mark, became an activist and campaigned for a law, Jessica's Law. Jessica's Law is designed to protect potential victims and reduce an offender's ability to reoffend, which is why now people in the area must be notified if an offender moves nearby. From the day that he lost Jesse, Mark has continued to do everything in his power to keep Jesse's memory alive. And since 2006, 46 states have enacted Jessica's Law. He also there's an amazing documentary, it's called Jesse's dad that he made highly recommend. Definitely go watch it so you can kind of see directly from his point of view, which I think is the most important, how he felt throughout this entire case. So recommend it. That is all I have for you guys today. Thank you so much for spending time with me today for listening to Jessica's story. Hope you guys are having the best day. If not, go do something to make the best day. Make somebody happy and I will see you in my next video. Also, if you haven't already and if you want to do so, please leave me a review for the podcast. It honestly means the world. I love reading through the reviews, love the happy sweet ones. Also really love and appreciate the feedback because it really does help me. So thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for coming back here every single week. It really means so much for to me, you guys have no idea and I love you all so, so much. Massive kiss on the forehead to every single one of you.