OCT 24, 2020
Parents of Jennifer Kesse take over investigation in hopes of solving missing daughter's case
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"… she was in love. … She had a great job. She had just gotten promoted," her mother Joyce Kesse told "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant.
"She had just bought her first condo with her own money," said Jennifer's father, Drew Kesse.
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After years went by with no breaks in the case, Jennifer's parents sued the Orlando Police Department to get Jennifer's case file – and won. Now, Drew and Joyce Kesse hope
they will solve their missing daughter's case.
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Jennifer's car had been seen the morning she disappeared. A couple said they saw it swerving out of her apartment complex at around 7:40 a.m.
Det. Joel Wright | Orlando Police Department: It appeared that somebody was fighting over control of the car.
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Det. Joel Wright: Unfortunately, the witnesses couldn't say which way the car went once it got out onto the surface road.
Then, two days after Jennifer vanished.
Sgt. Roger Brennan [2008]: The Orange County Sheriff's office received a call about Jennifer's vehicle being … in the Huntington on the Green condominiums … approximately 1.1 miles away from her condominium. … What was concerning about this was the area it was located is not an area frequented by Jennifer. … It's actually a complex that's been known where stolen cars were -- would be recovered from.
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Sgt. Roger Brennan [2008]: This is the interior of Jennifer's car as we found it. Several items were located inside the vehicle … her cellphone, charger … sandals and shoes … Nothing appears to be disturbed in the vehicle at all.
Sgt. Roger Brennan [2008]: It didn't appear that it was a robbery. Didn't appear that it was a car theft. It didn't appear that is was a carjacking.
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Drew Kesse: We have film of the car being dropped off …
Around noon on the day Jennifer disappeared, one of the cameras captured a person driving Jennifer's car.
Drew Kesse: He … pulls into a … parking spot next to the pool area … backs out to even straighten himself in there, sits in there for 32 seconds … gets out, walks away, never looks back.
The phantom figure walked away in the direction of Jennifer's complex.
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But to the Kesses' frustration, the person caught on that camera could not be identified.
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Sgt. Roger Brennan: [2008] We printed out pictures and then we brought them out here. … We were hopeful that someone would recognize just the gait or just the general appearance or the stature or maybe the hairstyle or some aspect of this individual … but that didn't happen.
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Det. Joel Wright [2008]: We didn't find any fingerprints on the steering wheel.
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And what about DNA?
Sgt. Roger Brennan [2008]: There was some vacuuming samples taken from each section of the vehicle that were subsequently sent off to the lab for evaluation.
But the samples were inconclusive.
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In all, the Orlando Police Department handed over more than 16,000 pages of documents and 67 hours of video and audio to the Kesses. But under the agreement, the Orlando Police Department would no longer lead the investigation.
Drew Kesse: So, at this point in time, the only people that are truly investigating what happened to Jennifer is us and our team.
Michael Torretta: When you talk about challenging investigations, this is the one.
Michael Torretta is the Kesses' private investigator.
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Colleen: When I would come home from work, there would be a large group of men outside drinking. And whenever I would have to walk past them, you know there would be a little bit of comments or just a lot of uncomfortable stares. It -- it wasn't a great feeling. I didn't like it.
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Tami: From the very beginning there were some uneasy things that I kind of brushed off that were red flags.
When Tami, who also asked to only use her first name, moved into the complex years later, she believed workers often entered her apartment when she wasn't home.
Tami: There was creepy things … like my underwear drawer was tossed … one time the shower was wet. … there was footprints in my closet.
And then, Tami says she caught a "peeping Tom" – a man she believes was a worker at the complex.
Tami: He was pleasuring himself in the corner of my patio.
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After years of working for the Kesses, private detective Michael Torretta says he has a new theory as to what he thinks could have happened to Jennifer. Based on interviews with people who lived at the complex, he believes that up to 10 construction workers were living in an empty apartment just across from Jennifer's.
He thinks it was one or more of these workers who abducted her on January 24, 2006.
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Michael Torretta: It's impossible to find those individuals. There's no lease.
Peter Van Sant: There's no list of names of who was staying in which apartment?
Michael Torretta: Absolutely not.
Michael Torretta: That was one of the most shocking parts of this investigation.
As he continued his investigation, Torretta learned that 10 months after Jennifer disappeared, a person was seen dumping a rolled-up piece of carpet into a lake not far from her condo.
Peter Van Sant: What's intriguing based on your investigation is the men that were in the apartment across from Jennifer's were putting down carpet that day.
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