Fla. Police Look for Missing Girl’s Body
HOMOSASSA, Fla. – More than three weeks after 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford disappeared from her bedroom, police searched for her body Saturday in a densely wooded area where a registered sex offender said he dumped her body.
Jessica’s father, Mark Lunsford, visited the search scene Saturday morning, and issued a brief, emotional statement to reporters.
“Everyone heard me say, time after time, that she would be home,” Lunsford said, his eyes hidden behind dark black sunglasses. “She’s home now.”
John Evander Couey, 46, confessed to kidnapping and killing Jessica after taking a lie-detector test Friday, Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said.
“At the end of the polygraph, he said, ‘You don’t have to tell me the results. I know what they are,’” Dawsy said. “He apologized to the investigators for wasting their time.”
Officials have four other people in custody for questioning, sheriff’s spokeswoman Ronda Hemminger Evan said Saturday. It was not immediately clear why those four people – whose names were not released – were questioned, or what relationship investigators believe they may have to the case.
Authorities cordoned off the area near the trailer home of Couey’s half-sister, who lived about 150 yards from the house Jessica shared with her father and grandparents.
Crews worked through the night in temperatures that dipped into the low 40s. Bright search lights were erected around the perimeter, and several candles left from a late-night vigil burned nearby.
A stream of official vehicles came and went throughout the pre-dawn hours, and a state mobile forensics unit left the scene about 3:30 a.m. Sheriff’s officials remained silent on what, if anything, was found.
About midnight Friday, Dawsy was asked how long he would be at the site.
“Until Jessica is in a better place,” he said.
Mark Lunsford has said the family did not know Couey, who was arrested Thursday.
At a news conference late Friday from Ohio, the girl’s mother, Angela Bryant, repeatedly made the same vow: Couey, she said, “will pay.”
“This man’s hurt too many people,” she said through tears. “He’s hurt too many children. And one of them is my daughter. He took her life from her and she didn’t deserve it. He will pay. He will pay. For hurting them children out there and my daughter, he will pay.”
Jessica, a third grader, was last seen when she went to bed in her home Feb. 23. She was discovered missing the next morning, with the door unlocked and her stuffed animal gone. The clothes she had laid out for school were still in place, and her shoes weren’t missing.
More than 100 police and volunteers, with help from bloodhounds and helicopters, searched the area about 60 miles north of Tampa for days following her disappearance. Jessica’s family made emotional appeals on national television for her safe return.
Detectives grew interested in Couey while interviewing all registered sex offenders in the area. They tried to contact Couey at his home in Homosassa five days after Jessica disappeared and discovered he no longer lived there.
When investigators followed up with the half-sister, she denied that Couey had lived with her. But another relative confided to a detective that Couey sometimes stayed at the home.
Authorities said Couey left Florida on or about March 4 after telling relatives that police would be looking for him. He was arrested in Augusta, Ga., on a probation violation for failing to notify officials that he was moving, a requirement for sex offenders. He was awaiting extradition to Florida on Friday.
Couey has an extensive criminal record that includes 24 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 house burglary in 1978, Couey 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 in prison but was paroled in 1980.