- 3 months ago
- #kidnapping
- #homicide
- #florida
In 2005, a nation wide search took place to find a little girl who was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night. Only to find that she was just across the street in a career criminal's home.
#kidnapping #homicide #Florida
#kidnapping #homicide #Florida
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to the Dark Mystery Lounge.
00:03Today we're going to take a look at the Jessica Lunsford case.
00:06Finally back in Florida, this was one of those cases I remember watching the trial on TV.
00:12That poor little girl suffered a horror that no child should ever face.
00:16And this case was a fine example as to why there should be harsher penalties for child predators.
00:23Anyways, let's go ahead and dive right into this case, shall we?
00:30The final bell rings at Homosessa Elementary.
00:35Little Jessica leaps out of her seat to go home and get ready for church.
00:38Her family always attended church on Wednesday evenings.
00:41After the service ends, Jessica and a family friend of hers go to church school in another building at Faith Baptist Church.
00:49Being tutored in math, because, you know, math is hard. It's a tough subject.
00:54But Jessica was a very bright student.
00:56After church school was over, she went home.
00:58Just before her friend left, after dropping her off, Jessica looked at her, did the sign language sign for I love you, and went inside.
01:07It was the evening of February 23rd, 2005.
01:11Jessica got ready for bed, putting on a pink nightgown and white shorts,
01:16and hugging her purple dolphin that her dad won for her at the state fair.
01:21Her grandmother tucked her in as she said her prayers.
01:24It wasn't long before Jessica drifted off to sleep.
01:27Startled awake, with a hand over her mouth, a mysterious man said,
01:32You're going with me. Don't yell or nothing.
01:35Jessica got out of bed, clutching her stuffed dolphin, and walked outside with a strange man.
01:40It was still dark outside, and the moon was high in the sky.
01:43When they reached the trailer with a ladder to a window, the man forced her to climb up and into a room.
01:50She was confused and scared, not knowing what was going to happen.
01:55Soon his motives would be all too clear.
01:57He heard her that night and the following morning.
02:00Then he stuffed her in the closet and turned on the TV to drown out any noise,
02:05telling her to stay quiet while he went to work.
02:07That's what she did, not making a sound.
02:10Jessica, wracked with pain, fear, and confusion, was probably thinking,
02:15Someone please help me.
02:24It was 6 a.m. the morning of February 23rd, 2005.
02:29Mark Lunsford came home to get ready for work.
02:32After spending the night at his girlfriend's house,
02:35He unlocked the door and heard Jessica's alarm going off.
02:38After hearing it for longer than expected,
02:41Mark opens the door to Jessica's room to turn it off and tell her to get ready for school.
02:47But her bed was empty.
02:48Her school clothes hadn't been touched either,
02:51which were sitting in a chair, neatly folded.
02:53He frantically looked all throughout the house,
02:56yelling his daughter's name over and over, but to no avail.
02:59So Mark called the police to report that Jessica was missing.
03:05Jessica Marie Lunsford was born October 6, 1995,
03:12in Gastonia, North Carolina, to Angela Bryant and Mark Lunsford.
03:16The couple split up when Jessica was only a year old.
03:19Angela moved to Ohio, eventually remarrying, and had a son.
03:23Mark and Jessica moved down to Homosassa to take care of his aging parents,
03:29and so Jessica could have adequate child care.
03:31Mark worked as a dump truck driver, and Angela rarely ever visited her daughter.
03:36But Jessica grew up happy and healthy.
03:38She was an excellent student.
03:40She loved riding on the back of her daddy's motorcycle,
03:43playing with her stuffed animals, singing, and attending church.
03:47So when Jessica disappeared, it was highly unlikely that she would take off on her own,
03:52especially at night, because Jessica was afraid of the dark.
03:55And when Mark discovered that the front door was unlocked, his face went pale.
04:06Immediately after making a call to 911 to report Jessica missing,
04:11Mark rode around in his truck, screaming her name, looking high and low to find her.
04:16When police arrived, they started questioning the grandparents and Mark as to where they were when she went missing.
04:23A nationwide alert went out, and flyers were posted everywhere.
04:27Everyone from all over the area searched for Jessie, using scent hounds,
04:31and raised, at first, $25,000 from former Atlanta Braves pitcher Mike Hampton,
04:38who lived in the area and whose son was in the same class as Jessie.
04:42Other people chipped in, and the reward swelled to $115,000.
04:48Dive teams searched nearby lakes, and even people on horseback were out searching for the little girl.
04:54Police set up a command center right in front of the house that little Jessie was in,
04:59only 65 feet away from her home.
05:02Police ran a search for nearby sex offenders in the area.
05:05There were 50!
05:06At one point during the search, officers talked to the people that lived in the trailer just behind the command center was set up,
05:13but no one went in and searched.
05:16On February 27, 2005, the strange man got bored with her and didn't know what else to do,
05:23so he told Jessie that he was going to take her home, but that she couldn't be seen.
05:28He convinced her to get into two trash bags.
05:31He snuck her outside to a two-and-a-half-foot hole dug in the yard right outside of his home.
05:37He placed the bag in the hole and began shoveling dirt and leaves on top of Jessica, burying her alive.
05:49Mark at first was accused, but had an alibi, because he wasn't at home that evening.
05:55Mark and Archie, Mark's father, went down to the police station for questioning.
05:59Both denied ever harming her, and when Archie got up to leave, the cops manhandled him, but he was never arrested.
06:07Eventually, their names were cleared of any wrongdoing, but Mark remained skeptical of the police's conduct.
06:14About two to three weeks later, police were looking at the sex offender database and found someone who was a person of interest.
06:21On March 14th, a search was conducted with the permission of the homeowner of a home only across the street from the Lunsford's house.
06:30They found a blood-stained mattress and blood-stained pillows in the closet.
06:34They had both Jessie's DNA along with their person of interest's DNA as well.
06:39Citrus County Sheriff announced on March 15th that this person has ties to the local area and that he was a registered sex offender.
06:47If he did not come back for an interview within 48 hours, his identity would be released to the public.
06:53That person did not come forward, so they announced that it is John Evander Cooey, age 46.
07:00John Evander Cooey, long-time resident of Homosassa, he is a career criminal and a child sex offender.
07:06He had been arrested 24 times during a 30-year period.
07:10Some of his charges were burglary, carrying a concealed weapon, disorderly intoxication, driving under the influence, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, fraud, insufficient funds, and larceny.
07:23For these charges, he would only receive light sentences and was never monitored.
07:27He had spent time in prison and even his driver's license was suspended for 99 years.
07:33But as his drug addiction to crack cocaine got worse and worse, his crimes escalated into sexually assaulting two young children.
07:41He lived only two miles away, but stayed with his half-sister often.
07:45Police did talk to Cooey's half-sister twice within that first 48 hours during the search for Jessie.
07:51She lied and said he's not here.
07:53They took a look around, but didn't take a good, hard look.
07:57The second visit, she looked openly nervous.
08:00If they would have just looked in the closets, they would have found her alive.
08:04Shortly after disposing of Jessie, Cooey asked his sister for some money for bus fare.
08:10He left and headed up to Georgia.
08:19On March 12, 2005, Cooey was arrested in Georgia at the request of Citrus County Sheriff's Office.
08:26The police questioned him at the time about the disappearance of Jessica.
08:31He denied having anything to do with that little girl, and the only reason why he moved up to Georgia is to find a job.
08:37But he knew of the case because he saw it on TV.
08:41He was released after being questioned.
08:43On March 17, 2005, Cooey was arrested for the murder of Jessica Lunsford.
08:49He was sent down to Citrus County Jail.
08:51On March 18, 2005, Cooey made a detailed confession which was videotaped.
08:56He admitted to kidnapping, raping, and murdering Jessica.
09:01He claimed that he had seen the little girl before and thought she was about five or six.
09:06When he broke in, he came in through an unlocked door, only intending to rob the house.
09:11But when he saw Jessica, he acted on impulse and decided to take her.
09:15He even went into detail as to what he did to her and how he disposed of her and where she was buried.
09:22On March 19, police finally uncovered Jessica.
09:26Everyone was in shock and horror as to what they found.
09:29She was in a state of moderate to severe decomposition, clutching her stuffed dolphin in one hand,
09:36and her two little fingers poked the trash bag or skeletonized.
09:40The coroner ruled that the death would have happened within two to three minutes due to lack of oxygen.
09:47June 30, 2006, the judge ruled that the confession was inadmissible in court
09:52because Cooey repeatedly requested for a lawyer and the police ignored him.
09:57So the confession was invalid and unreliable under the Fifth and Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
10:04But all other evidence after the confession would be admitted,
10:08like Jessica's body and the statements that he made to a jail guard.
10:12Even though he initially confessed to the crime,
10:16Cooey pleads not guilty to first-degree murder,
10:19burglary with assault or battery upon a person,
10:22kidnapping and sexual battery on a child less than 12 years old.
10:27The trial was moved to Miami so they could find an impartial jury.
10:31On March 1, 2007, the trial of John Cooey begins,
10:35and after only a week of testimony and evidence presented on both sides,
10:40on March 7, 2007, John Cooey was found guilty on all counts.
10:45A week after one hour and 15 minutes of deliberation,
10:49the jury recommended Cooey be put to death.
10:52On August 11, 2007, a jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty.
10:58The defense argued that Cooey had suffered from long-time emotional abuse
11:03and had a below-normal IQ.
11:05However, the most credible intelligence test rated Cooey's IQ at 78,
11:11above the standard accepted level of intelligence disability, which is 70.
11:16On August 24, 2007, Cooey was sentenced to death in addition to three consecutive life sentences.
11:23But on September 30, 2009, John Cooey died from cancer before his sentence could be carried out.
11:30He was 51 years old.
11:32After the death of his daughter, Mark Lunsford went on a campaign to pass tougher legislation for sex offenders.
11:45It's called the Jessica Lunsford Act.
11:47Among the key provisions of the law was to classify lewd and lascivious molestation
11:52on a person under the age of 12 as a life felony,
11:56and a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison,
12:00and a lifetime of electronic monitoring of persons 18 years or older
12:05convicted of lewd or lascivious molestation against a victim less than 12 years old.
12:10Trying to pass this act, surprisingly, a lot of states pushed back on trying to pass this bill,
12:16which is surprising.
12:17You would think a law that would protect children would be passed nationwide.
12:21But so far, only 42 out of 50 states have passed it or some form of it.
12:27Mark also filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Citrus County Sheriff's Office.
12:33At first, everyone thought it was out of greed,
12:35but Mark stated in a news conference,
12:38It's not for the money, but for change.
12:40Mark stated that change needs to be made to policies and procedures,
12:45that Cooey had Jesse in that trailer while police were visiting,
12:50and that police dogs indicated Jessica was being held in the direction of the trailer and were ignored,
12:56plus accusing Mark's father, Archie, as their prime suspect when the evidence pointed elsewhere.
13:02The lawsuit was dropped after Mark talked with the sheriff and had a heart-to-heart with him.
13:07The sheriff admits there were botches and apologized,
13:10promising changes will be made when handling missing persons cases.
13:14Oh, and the trailer that John Cooey stayed in, that Jessica died in?
13:19Well, it burned to the ground in a mysterious fire in February of 2009.
13:24Fire chiefs suspect it was arson.
13:26To be honest, I'm not surprised that it took that long before someone would burn it down.
13:32And honestly, I don't think they're going to pursue any further investigation.
13:36I think they're just going to let it go.
13:37But maybe now the ghost of Jessica Marie Lunsford will finally be set free.
13:42I spent a while thinking about this case and what little Jessica went through,
13:53what her dad went through, and it's just heartbreaking.
13:56This is why I firmly believe that sex offenders should be put to death.
13:59There is no reason on this earth why my tax dollars should go to feed and house these nasty people.
14:05Just put them out of our misery.
14:07And anyone wanting to defend them just makes me sick.
14:10And I find it interesting that in Cooey's defense, he's trying to act dumb so he can beat these charges.
14:16Drawing pictures and acting oblivious to what's going on.
14:19He knew what he was doing, and for that, he had to pay the price.
14:22To be honest, him getting cancer is God's way of taking control.
14:26It's more painful to die from cancer than to die by lethal injection.
14:30So his death was fitting.
14:32I know a lot of people give Mark Lunsford shade for that lawsuit against the Citrus County Sheriff.
14:38Even that moron Bubba the Love Sponge ran his mouth about him.
14:42Honestly, I can't stand that guy.
14:43But he knew the state of Florida doesn't have any money, and he wasn't looking for money.
14:48He just wanted something simple.
14:50Change.
14:50Anyways, that is it for this case.
14:53What did you think of it?
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15:08You never know who I will cover next.
15:10Thank you for hanging out with me in the Dark Mystery Lounge.
15:13This is Phoenix, signing out.
15:15Have a good evening, and stay safe.
15:16We'll see you next time.
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