Jessica Marie Lunsford was born on the 6th of October 1995 in Gastonia, North Carolina.
She loved school and was a well-mannered student who all staff and fellow pupils liked. She loved singing songs and spending quality time with her father who would often take her out for rides on his motorcycle; one of her favourite things to do.
Her family didn’t have much money and Jessica lived with her father, his parents and their dog Corky in a trailer home in Homosassa, Florida.
The family did not have a lot of money, but they did their best with what they had. Jessica was a daddy’s girl and one of her favourite possessions was a stuffed dolphin toy that her father gave her, she took it everywhere with her and wouldn’t sleep without it by her side.
Jessica didn’t have much contact with her mother, Angie who had split up with her father Mark and moved away when Jessica was just 1 year old.
Angie had also gotten married and had another child, so Jessica’s father and her grandparents meant the world to her.
And this love was reciprocated, she was the love of their lives, she brought so much joy and they loved having her with them.
Jessica often attended church with her dad every Sunday, she never complained about having to get up early, in fact, she was always dressed and ready to go even before her dad.
She was only 9 years old but Jessica had dreams of becoming a singer or a fashion designer. She was creative and ambitious; and had the world at her feet.
Sadly, this would all change.
On the 24th of February 2005, Jessica’s father was up early to get ready for work. Whilst he was getting dressed, he heard Jessica’s alarm that had been going off for quite some minutes and she wasn’t turning it off.
He entered Jessica’s room as she had to get up for school and he didn’t want her to be late. He noticed that her school clothes were still on the chair all folded up and she was nowhere to be seen.
Understandably, he was in a panic wondering where his daughter was. He searched his home frantically but Jessica was nowhere inside the home so the authorities were alerted.
Straight away, the police, the neighbours as well as volunteers were out searching for Jessica but could not find a trace of her anywhere.
Nothing appeared to be missing from her bedroom other than her pink nightgown and white shorts that she went to sleep in the night beforehand and her favourite toy — her stuffed dolphin.
She had last been seen at around 10pm the night before when her grandparents had put her to bed. The night before she disappeared, Mark had been at his girlfriend’s house and had come home the next morning at around 6am to get ready for work. It was then that he discovered Jessica to be missing.
Immediately when the police arrived, they determined that the front door was unlocked.
Jessica’s family had a habit of leaving the door to their trailer unlocked. This was a very common thing to do in the area they lived. Everybody in their little community knew everyone else and they each looked out for one another. Or so it seemed…
A nationwide missing children’s alert was issued and the police carried out extensive searches for Jessica.
Unfortunately, an Amber Alert was not issued because it requires law enforcement to describe what vehicle might have been used in an abduction or provide some evidence of danger.
Bloodhounds were called in in the hopes that they could pick up a scent. Jessica’s neighbour, Alvin Harris, even brought along his own bloodhound, Buford, to aid in the search.
The search also included volunteers and officers on horseback while a police helicopter could be heard buzzing from above all throughout the day.
A dive team was assembled to search all nearby bodies of water. The search initially focused on the densely wooded area surrounding the family home. Despite the exhaustive search, it turned up no clues as to where Jessica could have gone.
The Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy expressed great concern that this was possibly an abduction case stating:
“I have some grave concerns about the welfare of this child. We’re working on something that is a step up from a missing person”.
Nobody believed that Jessica had gone missing voluntarily or of her own accord. This was not like Jessica, she didn’t act up, she didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night, and it wasn’t her character. She was also scared of the dark and slept with a flashlight.
Authorities also announced that they didn’t suspect that either her parents or grandparents were responsible.
Mark made appeals, begging for the safe return of his daughter, saying:
“If there is anything anybody knows, there are a lot of numbers you can call. Help me find my daughter and bring her home.”
Sadly the search would go on for over a month.
In early March, The Florida Department of Law Enforcement listed 208 sex offenders and predators in Citrus County, with more than 50 in the ZIP codes surrounding Jessica’s home.
As is protocol in all missing children cases, sex offenders in the area were checked out by investigators.
On the 15th of March, they disclosed that these routine checks led them to “a person of interest” who was acquainted with Jessica.
This person of interest, police announced, had been gone from Citrus County for around two weeks and that if he did not come back for an interview within 48 hours, his identity would be publicly released.
When the person of interest didn’t come forward for questioning and couldn’t be located, police released his name to the public: 46-year-old John Evander Couey.
He lived two miles north of Jessica’s home and often stayed with his half-sister Dorothy Dixon, who lived just 60 yards away, within “eyeshot” of Jessica’s home. He was apprehended in Georgia on the 17th of March.
Couey was a career criminal who had been arrested 24 times in a 30-year period. His crimes ranged from burglary, carrying a concealed weapon, disorderly intoxication and driving under the influence to indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, fraud, insufficient funds and larceny.
He had spent time in prison and had his driver’s license suspended for 99 years, but as his drug addiction to crack cocaine became more extreme, his crimes escalated into sexually assaulting two young children. Couey was tracked down and arrested in Savannah, Georgia.
Under police interview, the Lunsford’s nightmares would become a reality.
Couey wasted no time admitting to his part.
In a 2 hour confession interview, he said that around 3am, just a few hours before her father had arrived home, he had snuck through the open door of the Lunsford’s home. He crept into Jessica’s bedroom and woke her up and told her “Don’t tell or nothing…”
He then took her outside and across the way to his half-sister’s mobile home, taking her up to his bedroom on a ladder, where he kept Jessica alive for the weekend where he raped her over and over again.
In a cruel twist of fate, investigators had come to their mobile home during an initial door-to-door search while Jessica was still alive. “For some reason, they came to my house but they didn’t come in and search; but I wish they would have because they would have found her, but they didn’t,” he said.
In addition to the sexual assaults, Couey kept Jessica hidden in a closet and mentally tortured her by letting her look out the window at a police car that was searching for her.
Jessica apparently never attempted to escape, Couey allegedly told investigators. She sat quietly in the closet, playing with Couey’s cat and singing quietly to herself.
When Couey was done with Jessica, he told her to climb into a garbage bag and that he would take her home. He told her she needed to be in the garbage bag so that nobody saw him dropping her home.
Believing her captor, she did what he said. Instead, however, Couey took her to a pre-dug grave and buried her alive.
He would later attempt to justify his actions by saying that Jessica didn’t try to fight back. When Jessica was unearthed, she was tightly clutching her stuffed dolphin.
She had managed to rip two small holes in the garbage bag but her attempt to escape was unfruitful. Prosecutors in Couey’s capital mur*der trial introduced the two black plastic garbage bags into evidence. Jessica’s right index and middle fingers were poking out of the bags, which were knotted at her feet and her head.
“There in the dark, alone with the dolphin, she suffocated,” said Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway during Couey’s trial.
By the time Couey spoke to investigators, his sister, Dorothy Dixon, had already granted authorities permission to search the single-wide trailer where she and Couey lived with her boyfriend, daughter and her daughter’s husband.
In the search, investigators seized several items of evidence from Couey’s room that revealed trace evidence linking Jessica to the middle bedroom of the trailer. The items proved invaluable to the prosecution’s case against Couey, especially after a judge suppressed Couey’s confession, ruling that police violated his Miranda rights.
The evidence against Couey was damning. Other than his confession, investigators found a bloodstain containing Jessica’s DNA on his bed. They also found Couey’s DNA in semen which was mixed with the bloodstain.
In the closet where he kept Jessica, a pizza box containing Jessica’s fingerprints was found. Her fingerprints were also found on a glass table in Couey’s bedroom.
The jury also saw the stereo speaker wire that was used to bind Jessica’s wrists. A fibre analyst testified that the ligatures matched wires that ran from inside Couey’s room to a makeshift antenna on his roof.
Mark Lunsford addressed John Couey in court saying “I hope you hear her cry as you try to sleep at night. You will never hurt another child again”.
Mark went on to tell the court stories of his little girl, “I can remember when she was about 1 year old and would give me kisses and hugs and steal the raisins from my cereal,” he said.
“From bumps to bruises, from Band-Aids to bicycles, she was a tomboy with her daddy and a very nice little lady for her grandmother.”
Couey responded with “I’m a sick person. … I don’t even know why I did it to her,” he said.
“I just snapped and did it… I don’t know why… I’m a sick man.”
Couey also admitted to having sexual contact with his young female nieces, incidents that had never before been reported to authorities.
“I don’t want to go to prison…but I deserve it. Deserve to just die” Couey said. In his alleged confession, Couey was asked what he would say if he could speak to Jessica.
“I’m so sorry. … I wish you were alive, and you could walk to your parents,” he said.
Despite John’s attorneys trying to convince the jury he was mentally incompetent, Couey was found guilty and sentenced to de*ath. He died in prison of natural causes in 2009.
John Couey’s half-sister Dorothy Dixon was later arrested and appeared in a mug shot released by the Citrus County sheriff’s office, on March 19th, 2005.
Dixon and two others living in the home where the confessed k*iller stayed were charged with obstructing police for failing to notify authorities when Couey had allegedly told them he had committed a crime.
Following Jessica’s brutal mu*rder, her family campaigned for states to pass ‘Jessica’s Law.’
This law mandates a minimum sentence of 25 years and a maximum of life in prison for first-time child sex offenders. Since Jessica’s Law passed in Florida, other states have introduced their own form of Jessica’s Law.
As if this entire case wasn’t sad enough, Mark Lunsford was diagnosed with lymphoma a couple of years after the case. Chemotherapy used to treat his Lymphoma stole his trademark long hair and goatee, but it never stole his spirit.
Lunsford’s fight is fuelled by his love for his daughter who always told him nothing would ever come between them. He works constantly on behalf of children and has become a nationally recognised spokesman for tougher, smarter laws regarding child predators/offenders.
