The Missing Person Case Of Jennifer Kesse, Who Vanished In Her Own Home
Public Domain/Wikimedia CommonsGrainy security footage of a promising investigative lead in the unsolved disappearance of Jennifer Kesse, pictured on the right.
Jennifer Kesse had it all: a loving family, a loyal boyfriend, and a reliable job. When she disappeared On Jan. 23, 2006, her family knew that something horrible must have happened to her. Although there is some grainy footage of a person of interest and Kesse’s abandoned car was later found, her mysterious disappearance nonetheless continues to elude investigators.
On the evening before that January day, the 24-year-old Floridian returned home from work and chatted with her family over the phone. She called her boyfriend Robert Allen around 10 p.m. and then went to bed.
Then, texts and calls to Kesse went unreturned throughout the following day. Coworkers were surprised that she didn’t show up to work. By 11 a.m., her parents drove from Tampa to Orlando to check if she was home. They found her car missing, but everything else seemed normal.
Footage was retrieved from her apartment complex surveillance system, which showed an unidentified person dropping off Kesse’s car at noon on the day of her disappearance. Unfortunately, any distinguishing characteristics of theirs were obscured by the apartment’s gate. Journalists covering the case reported the mysterious figure was thus “the luckiest person of interest ever.”
In the following frustrating years, police have found Kesse’s abandoned Chevy Malibu but not much else. The car yielded a latent print, which was deemed “too minuscule” to reveal any helpful information. Additionally, none of the valuable items in Kesse’s vehicle had been taken, which suggested that her unsolved disappearance wasn’t instigated by a robbery.
Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Getty ImagesJennifer Kesse’s grieving parents, Joyce and Drew Kesse, behind Orlando Police Chief Mike McCoy during a news conference.
Authorities pivoted from a lack of evidence to the acquaintances and friends of Kesse’s who might know more. Kesse’s brother and boyfriend both investigated one of Kesse’s ex-boyfriends on their own, but he was quickly ruled out. An older work colleague interested in Kesse was also cleared as a suspect.
By this point, investigators had no more clues to follow. Kesse’s credit cards went unused and her cell phone was turned off. Kesse, it seemed, had simply evaporated into thin air. It has now been 14 years since Kesse’s mysterious disappearance.
“Imagine waking up and your daughter is nowhere to be found,” said Orlando Police Detective Teresa Sprague. “You can’t reach her, you can’t locate her. The police can’t locate her. Hours turn into panic and days into your worst nightmare. I cannot imagine the nightmare the Kesse family has been sleepwalking through.”
The Unsolved Disappearance Of Maura Murray, Who Vanished On A Remote Road
YouTubeMaura Murray with her boyfriend.
Shortly after 7 p.m. on the night of Feb. 9, 2004, the Grafton County Sheriff’s Department in New Hampshire began receiving reports of a car accident. The first call notified police that a black Saturn had been wedged against a snowbank in Woodsville, New Hampshire.
The second came from a local school bus driver named Butch Atwood, who said a young woman was inside the car still and appeared unharmed, but she was notably cold to the touch. Atwood also said that the young woman had begged him not to call the police. He obliged her at first and then reported the incident once he got home.
When police finally arrived at the scene, the woman was nowhere to be seen, but they believed it was Maura Murray, a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts student who had recently gone missing. And indeed, they were able to confirm that it was her car.
YouTubeThe car Maura Murray crashed and then abandoned — or was forcefully abducted from.
Murray’s mysterious disappearance initially seemed clear-cut. Murray likely got into a drunk driving accident which could have then resulted in her death in the nearby woods. But the case grew more sinister as police continued to investigate it.
The last person to see Murray alive and well before Atwood was her father, Fred. The two had dined together the night before the black Saturn was found in the snow. Fred recalled how the two of them had a perfectly normal meal. He then lent Murray his car so that she could drive back to campus in time for a party.
Murray then crashed the car on her way home from the party at around 2:30 a.m. When Murray called her father to explain the incident, he assured her that she would need to report the crash to the DMV the next day, but that there was nothing to worry about.
When she finally got home that night, Fred recalled how his daughter seemed perfectly fine. But the next day, Murray disappeared.
YouTubeFred Murray with his daughter Maura.
The morning of February 9, Murray contacted her professors and told them that she was taking a week off due to a death in the family. She then packed up her dorm room, drove to an ATM in her own car and withdrew $280, went to the DMV, and then bought a large amount of alcohol. She called her own voicemail at 4:37 p.m.
These were the last pieces of evidence regarding Murray’s whereabouts and activities. When police found her car later that night, they also found printed directions to a condo complex in Burlington, Vermont, and phone records showing that she had called one of the owners.
A note to her boyfriend detailing their relationship issues was then found in her cleared out dorm room. Despite purported sightings of her in the years since, Murray has remained a missing person ever since.
