myrockette
Board Enthusiast
Member since 5/04 233 total posts
Wedding Date:
8/5/2001 3:00 PM
Wed. Location:
Rock Hill Country Club
|
Breaking news on Jessica Lundsford case...
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 8:17 p.m. ET March 18, 2005
HOMOSASSA, Fla. - A registered sex offender with an extensive criminal history confessed Friday to killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who vanished from her bedroom in the middle of the night more than three weeks ago, officials said.
Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy announced at a news conference that John Evander Couey, 46, earlier identified as a "person of interest" in the girl's Feb. 23 disappearance, had confessed Friday after failing a polygraph.
After taking the lie-detector test administered by an FBI agent in Georgia, Couey said, "I don’t need you to tell me the results; I already know what they are," according to Dawsy. He then asked for investigators to return to the room and "admitted to abducting Jessica and subsequently taking her life," the sheriff said.
Dawsy said authorities were looking for Jessica's body in an area where Couey indicated he had buried it.
Yellow tape was used to block off an area near the home of Couey's half-sister, about 150 yards from where Jessica lived with her father and grandparents. Couey also has a home in Homosassa, about 60 miles north of Tampa, but sometimes stayed with his half-sister, authorities said.
The sheriff's office previously searched the half-sister's home and removed some items that were sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for further investigation, Dawsy said.
Couey was arrested Thursday near a Salvation Army shelter in Augusta, Ga., because he didn’t notify Florida officials he was leaving the state, a requirement for sex offenders. He had a first court appearance on Friday and agreed not to fight extradition to Florida, Dawsy said.
Jessica, a third grader, was last seen wearing a pink nightgown when she was tucked into her bed by her grandmother. She was discovered missing the next morning, with an unlocked door and a missing stuffed animal the only evidence of her disappearance.
Suspect left state around March 4
Couey left Florida on or about March 4, about a week after her disappearance, after telling relatives that police would be looking for him, officials said.
Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, has said he has never seen Couey. A sheriff's spokeswoman who answered the phone at the Lunsford home Friday evening said the family declined immediate comment.
The girl's mother, Angela Bryant, lives in Ohio. Jessica's stepfather in Ohio, Lonnie Bryant, told the Associated Press that he and the girl's mother planned to come to Florida soon.
"I'm going through agony right now," Lonnie Bryant said.
Couey’s criminal record includes arrests for burglary, carrying a concealed weapon and indecent exposure. In 1991, he was arrested in Kissimmee on a charge of fondling a child under age 16. Records don’t show how the case was resolved.
During a burglary in 1978, he was accused of grabbing a girl in her bedroom, placing his hand over her mouth and kissing her, Dawsy said. Couey was sentenced to 10 years but was paroled in 1980.
George Kanaris, owner of a restaurant about a mile from the Lunsford home, said Couey worked there as a dishwasher in the early 1990s but was fired after he wrote a three-page romantic letter to a busgirl who was 14 or 15.
Message edited 3/18/2005 8:44:14 PM.
|
holly231
$$ I Wanna be rich!! $$
Member since 2/03 5296 total posts
Wedding Date:
10/17/2004 3:00 PM
Wed. Location:
East Wind Country Gardens!!!
|
Re: Breaking news on Jessica Lundsford case...
I just read this story a few mins ago, and I must admit, I did find tears rolling down my cheeks...what has this world come to?? Its dirtbags like this who make me fear having and raising children.
I am so sad for this family, I have seen from the interviews her father gives, that he really truly deeply loves that little girl to pieces.
|
