Christopher Marlowe's Saturday morning (2/25) 'Follow-up' post on "Help Find Jennifer Kesse". Most interesting!
13th Juror
Christopher Marlowe
Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 1
Location: Central Florida
Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:46 am
Post subject: Another Possibility - Car as Crime Scene
I had no idea that my "possible scenario" would generate so much controversy. Let me begin by saying that my sole motivation in writing this scenario was to try to help in solving this case. When I posted the scenario Jennifer had already been gone for four weeks and it seemed to me that many of the unpleasant realities of such cases were not being addressed. More to the point, the chances of Jennifer being found alive after such a long disappearance are not good.
The Elizabeth Smart case is often used as the classic example of a young woman who survived a lengthy abduction, but it must be kept in mind that Elizabeth was only 14 years old at the time of her abduction and she was not only physically not strong enough to resist her abductors, but she was also not yet mature, and therefore she was not psychologically strong enough to endure the brainwashing that was foisted upon her. In the end, it was not even certain whether Elizabeth was a helpless victim or a willing participant. This is hardly the case with Jennifer Kesse. From what we know about Jennifer, it doesn't seem likely that anyone would be able to keep her captive for very long.
After I posted my scenario, I was surprised, but not overly so, to find that it had been deleted after only about twenty minutes. Not only that, but I was banned from making any more posts. The opinions of the other forum members regarding this action were mixed and covered the full spectrum, although most were taken aback by what they perceived as a rash move. Personally, I think that the administrator over-reacted, and, he would probably find that the Kesses are much more realistic than he would give them credit for. If Jennifer was indeed murdered, then all of us will eventually have to face that fact. I don't think that I am being callous; I think that I am just being realistic.
There are between 20 and 25 thousand homicides in the USA every year the USA is a very violent society. At this point, we don't really know what happened to Jennifer, but we have to investigate the full spectrum of possibilities, and murder is one of those possibilities. The police are not going to be able to solve this case unless they look at all of the possibilities, and I am sure that they are doing that, although they are not always speaking in plain text about it.
My approach was more clinical than most of the other posts, but that is likely a function of my background, i.e., I have worked as a private investigator and I have taken graduate-level, university courses in abnormal psychology and criminology. I am currently writing a book having to do with the psychological aspects of various types of homicides. The principles that I applied to analyzing the Jennifer Kesse case are the same ones that are generally used in trying to solve such cases, i.e., trying to develop an understanding of how the crime was committed and using whatever information is available to develop a perpetrator profile. It is my understanding that some criminal profilers were asked to do a profile of the Kesse case but refused because they thought there wasn't enough to go on.
It may well be that my scenario and especially my criminal profile are off-the-mark, but I think that there are some valid inferences to be made from certain facts and assumptions.
For example, it looks as though Jennifer was overpowered after she left her condo-unit on Tuesday morning, January 24, 2006, somewhere between her condo-unit door and her car door.
The reasoning here is that if she had made it off of the Mosaic Condo Complex property, she would have had to have encountered the perpetrator somewhere between the security gate of the Mosaic Complex and her work-place parking lot. But, as I outlined in the original scenario, any such encounter would have likely been a loud and chaotic affair. And, although the Orlando Police were at one time, early-on, talking about a possible carjacking, such speculation has long since ended.
Since I posted the original scenario, I have given the case some more thought. Because the Orlando Police, after having received a forensics' report from the FBI, have declaratively stated that the car is a "crime scene," a possible scenario, whereby the assault could have taken place at her car, could go something like this:
There must be hundreds of construction workers at the Mosaic Condo Complex during the course of the day. Most of them drive vans or pick-up trucks. So, if there was a van parked next to Jennifer's car when she was walking out to her car that morning, it wouldn't have seemed out of place. The temperature between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. was 64 degrees and there was a light breeze blowing. There were scattered clouds and it would rain lightly in the afternoon. The temperature would eventually reach 77 degrees this day.
Jennifer, being young and healthy, likely has a good metabolism rate, and her body generated enough heat so that she wouldn't need a jacket. She was probably dressed in a sleeveless blouse or light sweater with a tight-fitting skirt or slacks. A construction worker, whose van was parked next to her car, could have been getting out his tools and work material as he saw Jennifer walking toward him. He could have had the sliding-door to his van open as he was getting his things together. The workman's opened sliding-door could have been right across from Jennifer's driver's side door.
Jennifer, who was reportedly always in a good mood, would likely have pleasantly greeted all of the workers that she encountered around the complex, although she may not have felt completely secure with so many of them around. But on this Tuesday, with thoughts of the Caribbean and St. Croix still fresh in her mind, she may have been particularly friendly, just like all of the people she and her fiancé had met on their vacation. Everyone is always so amiable and open and pleasant when they are on vacation, especially on such an enchanted island like St. Croix. Jennifer likely still had a vacation mind-set.
Depending on where Jennifer's car was parked and how close the van was to her car, it is possible that the van blocked Jennifer and the construction worker from general view. When Jennifer turned her back on him to open her car door, or when she bent over to put her things inside, he could have grabbed her from behind and put his hand over her mouth so that she couldn't scream. He could have then pulled her the short distance over to his van and brutally forced her inside through the wide-open sliding-door. Once inside, he could have used his free hand to close the sliding-door and then raped her. Figuring that he would most likely get caught if he let Jennifer live, and that he would be sentenced to many years in prison for rape, he could have decided to murder her, thus killing the only witness to his crime. He could have figured that he had a good chance of not getting caught.
He would likely have left her body in the van, covered with a blanket or canvas, or something else that the perpetrator used for his job. Then, reasoning that her car might attract someone's attention if it were still in the parking lot, after she was supposed to have already left for work, he likely decided to move it to another location. Being a building contractor, who was very familiar with the area, he drove directly to the Huntington on the Green Apartment Complex, parked the car and walked back. He slipped through a break in the fence, walked through a wooded area and then walked to his van. Since he may not have started work as yet, he could have just jumped in his van and driven off to dispose of the body. It is also not outside of the realm of possibility that he drove off and disposed of the body and then drove back to the Mosaic Condo Complex to do some work.
According to this parking-lot scenario, when the tracking dog reached the point in the parking lot where Jennifer encountered the perpetrator, the dog would have smoothly switched from the perpetrator's scent to Jennifer's scent, which he then would have backtracked up to her condo-unit. As I theorized in my first possible scenario, this would have led investigators to believe that the perpetrator walked back from Jennifer's car, that he had just left at the Huntington on the Green Apartment Complex, straight back to the Mosaic Condo Complex and up to her condo-unit, when, in fact, he probably never knew which condo-unit was hers and may have never even been in the building.
The parking-lot scenario would change things somewhat as far as the investigation was concerned, though: If the assault took place in Jennifer's building, this would limit the number of possible suspects to those workmen who might have had work to do in her building. But, if the assault took place in the parking lot, depending on where Jennifer's car was parked, many more workmen would now come into question.
It doesn't, however, seem likely that the perpetrator would have put Jennifer's body in her car and driven off with the idea of disposing of it. Whether he would have tried to put her in the back seat or in the trunk, this in itself would likely have attracted someone's attention this would have been too risky for him. Additionally, had he transported the body in the back seat or in the trunk, there likely would have been much more forensic evidence left in either of these places, and it would not have taken so long for the police to declare the car a crime scene. It seems much more likely that, whether he murdered her in her building or in his van, he would have transported her body out of the Mosaic Condo Complex in his van.
In conclusion, let me say that one has to be careful to maintain the focus on solving the case at hand and not get sidetracked by making a scapegoat out of someone who presents ideas that others may not yet be ready for. The criteria should be that the ideas are pertinent and plausible, and that they are presented in a responsible manner.
Murder is an extremely horrible crime, and especially so when it is random and takes the life of someone so young and vibrant, and who has so much promise. Many people become understandably very upset and are extremely frustrated, especially when the perpetrator has not been apprehended and the victim cannot be found, but the answer is not to take out one's frustrations on those who are trying to solve the case by presenting ideas that some people consider to be premature. There are always those who will not be able to deal with these matters on the same time-table as those who are involved with these cases professionally, but "killing the messenger" has never had positive results.
And finally, let me close by saying that I have sent the original scenario to Don Wood, who is the head of Child Watch (with the request that he inform the Orlando Police about some of the ideas since he has been working closely with Detective, Sergeant Richard Ring, who is in charge of this case), and to Greta van Susteren, of Fox News, On the Record.
Christopher Marlowe
