Known Incest Freak Buries Young Girl Alive In Front of Cops

Known Incest Freak Buries Young Girl Alive In Front of Cops

Early Life and Family Background

Jessica Marie Lunsford, also known as Jesse, was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, on October 6th, 1995. She was the fourth child of Mark Lunsford and the first child of Angela Bryant. Mark had been previously married and had three children from that marriage. We found a source saying that Mark had custody of some of those children after the divorce; however, we do not see them mentioned throughout the story of Jesse’s childhood, so it’s unclear if she was the only child in her home.

Jesse’s parents were married at the time of her birth, but they had already had a hard go of things. Her mother had suffered over half a dozen miscarriages before doctors discovered that she had an RH incompatibility. She got vaccinated for RH incompatibility, which is currently standard practice in most places in the U.S. for birthing parents with the negative blood type. After getting vaccinated, she went on to have a healthy pregnancy with Jesse.

However, by the time Jesse’s first birthday rolled around, the couple were already calling it quits. According to Mark, Angela wanted out. He hired a lawyer and got full custody of his daughter—something that didn’t happen very often in the 90s. Angela went on to remarry and start a new family in Ohio, and Mark embarked on a journey as a single parent.

With only a 10th-grade education, Mark was doing his best to provide for his family and be the best father he could be. In Jesse’s younger years, he worked at a wood waste processing plant in North Carolina. He brought Jesse to work with him, where she learned to drive large machines at a very young age. She spent her days playing in piles of wood chips and watching her father work hard.

After a few years, Mark’s parents moved to Florida to retire, and Mark saw an opportunity to be close to his family for both himself and his daughter. He moved to Florida where his parents, Archie and Ruth, were living, and their lives became intertwined on a regular basis. They all lived in the same trailer on Sonata Avenue in Homosassa, Florida. Jesse spent a lot of time with her grandparents as Mark was working as a dump truck driver and often worked very long shifts while she was growing up in Florida.

Jesse was a happy and vibrant child. She loved to sing and had big plans, often unable to decide if she should be a doctor, a fashion designer, or an Olympic swimmer when she grew up. She was active within her church community and was always smiling. On the weekends, Mark would take Jesse out to eat and sing karaoke. Her favorite artists to sing along with were Pink and Shania Twain.

The Disappearance

In the fall of 2004, Jesse started the third grade and turned 9 years old shortly after. February 23rd, 2005, was just a regular day for Jesse. She went to school, ran errands with her grandparents, and went to a church function with her family friend, Shannon Armstrong. Her youth group was preparing for a competition where children would recite verses.

After the youth group meeting, Jesse and Shannon spent more time together, as Shannon often tutored Jesse. That night, they were working on sign language. Shannon dropped Jesse off at her home around 9:00 p.m. and watched until she walked through the door. The last thing Jesse did before walking into her house was turn back to Shannon and sign, “I love you.”

Mark had not returned home from work when Jesse arrived home. He was just finishing up a 15-hour shift at work and made it home 15 to 30 minutes after Jesse. He relaxed on the couch watching TV while Jesse jumped on the couch next to him. He left again shortly before 10:00 p.m. to go spend the night at his girlfriend’s house.

With her clothes picked out for the next day and her treasured purple dolphin stuffed animal, Jesse got ready for bed. Ruth tucked Jesse in at 10:00 p.m. just as she did every night, and headed to bed herself.

The Perpetrator: John Couey’s Background

Just 65 yards away from where Jesse was falling asleep in her bed, another family was still wide awake. John Couey was staying with his sister and her boyfriend in their shared trailer. Also in the trailer was John’s niece, her husband, and their 2-year-old son. John’s niece was in the middle of a very high-risk pregnancy and spent most of her time on the couch or in bed.

John was 49 at the time of our story and had endured horrific violence from a very young age. He was born prematurely to a 16-year-old mother named Irene, who had no interest in caring for him. John’s father, Johnny W. Couey, was referred to as a violent alcoholic. Irene gave birth shortly after John’s father pushed her from a moving vehicle. Family and friends would later recall that his mother never attempted to support his head when he was a newborn. When corrected by people around her, she would simply laugh about the way his head was lolling around. She also didn’t feed him properly, often giving him bottles of sugar water instead of milk or formula.

John and his sister, Dorothy, lived with their mother and stepfather, Bobby Lindsay, until John was about five or six years old. For the entire time, John was the target of extreme violence at the hands of his stepfather, and his body was constantly covered in fresh bruises. When John was about three years old, there was an occasion where he wet his bed. When Bobby found out, he tied him up. John’s mother found him and untied him, but Bobby retaliated by slamming John’s head in the door repeatedly. Experts think this could have caused permanent brain damage.

On another occasion when John wet the bed, Bobby hung him from the door handle by his pajamas. When he finally let him down, he threw him in the air, letting his small body slam to the floor. He then kicked him so hard he was pushed under the bed, hitting his head on the frame in the process. His mother crawled under the bed with him to protect him from any further injury. On yet another occasion around the age of seven, Bobby held John’s head underwater in a swimming pool. He told onlookers that he needed to “teach him a lesson.”

At around seven or eight years old, John and his sister Dorothy went to live with his Aunt Jean. When he arrived at her house, John had very few language skills and could barely speak whatsoever. Jean spent hours and hours helping him develop his speech skills. John was very small for his age and was also born with deformed ears that would later prove to make him a target for bullies at school. It was noted that he was often bullied and beaten up by other children. John would never strike back; instead, he would just cower until his cousins could come and save him.

Both John and his sister were placed in a special education program when their Aunt Jean enrolled them in school. Even with this extra support, John continued to fall behind his peers. It was noted that his aunt tried on several occasions to get John into specialized programming but was repeatedly turned down. Jean also ensured that John got corrective surgery to fix the ear abnormality and hopefully help cut down on the bullying that he experienced.

It was later discovered that John and his sister were being abused while he lived with his aunt, both by their uncle and maternal grandfather. John witnessed several of the attacks on his sister and reported that he felt helpless to stop them.

The first recorded event of problematic behavior started when John was just 10 years old. That day, he tried to undress his cousin while she napped on the couch. His cousin said after that, she was not afraid of John and, as she put it, understood that he had stunted mental development and was like a small child inside. After this incident, John went to live with a different aunt who quickly had him placed at a boys’ ranch.

It is unclear what John experienced between ages 10 and 19. It appears that he started self-medicating with drugs and alcohol at a very young age. John’s first run-in with the law occurred at the age of 19 on a night he was drunk. He broke into a young girl’s home through her window. He attempted to abduct her, but she managed to escape and alert her mother. He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

During his time, he underwent several assessments and tests that showed he had an IQ of only 79. He told the evaluators that he had undergone several assessments early in life that diagnosed him with a mental illness, but no services or assistance came from that. There is also no official record of a diagnosis prior to the age of 19.

John was released after two years for good behavior and returned to his mother’s home under the supervision of a parole officer. However, shortly after coming home to stay with them, John made another attempt to assault a child. This time, he crawled into bed with his 5-year-old stepsister. Her older sister woke up and caught him in the act. Irene later said she fully believed that he would have violated his sister if he had not been stopped.

Irene turned him into his parole officer the next day. Instead of arresting him for assault and attempted violation, his parole officer just ordered him to leave his mother’s house. He didn’t even file a report. As he left, his mother told him to consider her dead from here on out. This was the last straw; he didn’t have a mother to return to anymore.

John would go on to marry a woman and have a daughter; however, the rocky marriage lasted only a few years. It ended when his wife discovered that he had abused his own daughter. Once again, no official report was made, and he was just told to leave. A year later, he assaulted a 5-year-old who lived a few doors down. This time, he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He told officers that prison would not help him and that he needed help, but once again, he was released after two years.

Upon release, John was supposed to attend a treatment program; however, his file was misplaced by his parole officer, and he never showed up for treatment. It wasn’t long before police lost track of him altogether. In total, John had been arrested 23 times before his path crossed with Jesse.

The Abduction and Initial Investigation

This brings us back to 2005, where John was not living at the address his parole officer had on record. Instead, he was living with his sister Dorothy in her three-bedroom trailer. John had the middle bedroom between his sister and his niece. It’s important to note that at this time, there was an active warrant out for his arrest. Police had also visited the home John was living in two weeks prior to the incident we are about to describe, but they did not arrest John.

Now, in the wee morning hours of February 24th, John—drunk and high on crack—left his sister’s trailer and walked the 65 yards to Jesse’s trailer. It appeared that John cut their screen door and used the opening to reach inside and open the locked door. John claimed that his intention was just to burglarize the home. He claimed that after he entered the home, he saw Jesse and his impulses took over, so he changed his plan.

In his own words, John woke Jesse, telling her that he was going to take her to see her father. It appeared that Jesse trusted John and was not afraid. She asked if she could take the purple dolphin her father had won for her at a fair a few weeks prior. John said yes to help keep the girl calm, and they walked out of the house together.

John took her back to his room, possibly entering through a ladder propped against his window instead of the front door. John then proceeded to assault Jesse several times over the next several hours. John would later say that he had a vague recollection of cooking her a hamburger before his other housemates woke up. He also said that he made her go to the bathroom in the closet because he didn’t want anyone else to see her.

At 5:45 a.m., Mark returned home from his girlfriend’s house to prepare for work. He heard Jesse’s alarm going off, but originally thought nothing of it and went to his room and got dressed. When he came out of his room, her alarm was still going off. He decided he better go see why Jesse wasn’t getting up for school. Of course, when Mark opened her door, he found her bed empty and her school clothes still folded on the chair.

At first, he thought she might have crawled into bed with his parents, so he went into their room, but Jesse wasn’t there. He quickly woke up his parents and told them that Jesse was gone. Now, Jesse was afraid of the dark, so Mark, Ruth, and Archie were sure something terrible must have happened because Jesse wouldn’t have snuck off on her own.

The police arrived shortly after Mark called to report that his daughter was missing. By then, Ruth had noticed an L-shaped cut in their screen door. This cut was approximately 6 inches by 6 inches and located right next to the door handle.

One asset that the Lunsford family had to assist police was a full set of Jesse’s fingerprints. She had gone to the mall on a day that they were running a child protection ID program where she was photographed and fingerprinted. The prints were placed on a card along with her general description. This allowed police to have an accurate comparison for her fingerprints even before she was found.

Officers arrived quickly and began their search of the Lunsford home and thoroughly vacuumed the entire trailer for evidence. Ruth told the officers that there was absolutely nothing out of place except the cut in the screen door. One source said that Mark drove up and down the road surrounding their house that morning, calling Jesse’s name out the open car window.

It wasn’t long before officers took Mark and Archie into custody to question them. The Citrus County Sheriff’s Office interrogated Mark and Archie, sure that one of them had been the perpetrator. It seemed that they leaned particularly hard on Archie, as he was the one home with Jesse that night. At one point, Archie, an elderly man, attempted to leave and was manhandled and pushed into the wall by officers. They told him that they had DNA evidence linking Archie to her disappearance. This obviously was not true. They even said that Archie had committed similar crimes in the past. This also was not true.

The only shred of truth that may have come along with this statement was actually linked to Mark, not Archie. When police seized Mark’s laptop to look for evidence, they found something else: Mark’s computer had CSA material on it, and police were able to tell that the last time it had been accessed was the night that Jesse went missing. Mark was never charged with any crime in relation to this discovery, and it’s unclear how the material made its way onto his laptop.

That first day, as they held Mark in their custody, police went back and searched all the locations he had visited on his truck route the day before. Of course, that didn’t turn up any leads. Finally, after holding Mark for two days, police were forced to release him.

Meanwhile, a national alert had been issued for the missing girl, and community members poured in to help search. There were helicopters, search and rescue dogs, officers on horseback, people on four-wheelers, and a team of divers that were combing nearby bodies of water. Police were unable to issue an Amber Alert, as part of the requirements for an Amber Alert are knowing what vehicle the child might be in. With absolutely no leads, that wasn’t an option.

However, Jesse’s story was featured on America’s Most Wanted, a very popular true crime TV show in the 90s and 2000s starring John Walsh, whose own son was the namesake for Code Adam. The U.S. Postal Service also assisted by delivering over 100,000 flyers for the missing child.

The Citrus County Sheriff’s Office set up their command center directly outside of Mark’s house. This would later be criticized by Jesse’s family and other members of the public. Standard protocol is to set up the command center at least a quarter-mile away, if not a full mile. The problem with setting up so close to the crime scene is that it contaminates the evidence. Mark would later say that all the search and rescue dogs would start tracking Jesse’s scent in their home, follow it right back to the command center, and then lose the trail.

The command center was set up directly between Jesse’s home and John’s home. As hundreds of community members frantically searched for Jesse, she was locked in John’s closet just yards away from her house. Now, in the closet, John had left a TV displaying the news coverage of Jesse’s disappearance. That’s horrifying—can you imagine watching the news coverage of your own abduction while you’re powerless to escape?

Mark would later criticize police for claiming they were doing a door-to-door search in the area but never doing it. However, most records show that police did circulate through the neighborhood on that first day, asking neighbors if they had seen anything. Police knocked on the door to John’s trailer. His sister spoke to police, saying that they didn’t have any information about the missing girl. Now keep in mind, at this point, police didn’t even know that John lived at that address, as his parole officer completely lost track of him. The officer described the trailer John lived in as being full of addicts and drug users.

After not coming up with any leads with Jesse’s family, they moved on to the next most likely group of people: folks on the registry. In February of 2005, there were 208 registered offenders in Citrus County; 50 of them lived within the towns immediately surrounding Jesse’s home. As police began checking in on all the offenders in the area, they discovered that John was not living where he was supposed to be.

It wasn’t long before they connected John back to his sister’s house. In fact, John was at his sister’s house when police stopped by for the second time. When police knocked on the door, John stepped out back while his sister spoke to police and denied that John lived with them at that time. Police did a quick walk-through of the home, but didn’t see anything suspicious. Unfortunately, they didn’t check in John’s closet. If they had, they would have found Jesse, who was still waiting to be rescued.

Police noted that upon the second visit, the adults in the house seemed openly nervous and shaken. This visit from the police spooked John, and it seems that he began to fear that the police would discover that he had taken the girl. He knew he had to cover his tracks somehow, so John began digging a hole behind the trailer—easily within sight of the command center set up to lead the search for Jesse.

The Murder and Capture

After three days in captivity, under the cover of darkness, John told Jesse he was going to bring her home, once again promising to bring her back to her dad. John had her climb out his window and down the ladder. He then told her he would carry her back across the street if she would climb into a trash bag with her hands tied in front of her, holding her purple dolphin.

Jesse climbed into the trash bag and sat down. John tied the bag tightly over her head and then put another trash bag over the first, tying it underneath Jesse. He then put her in the hole and buried her. Medical examiners would later say that the seal from the two trash bags would have quickly restricted Jesse’s ability to breathe. They estimated that she would have lost consciousness within 90 seconds and was dead in no more than five minutes.

John may have thought that his problem was solved once Jesse was out of his house; however, the feverish search for the little girl continued. Shortly after Jesse’s disappearance, John’s niece and her family moved out of the trailer they had all been sharing. At this point, John’s sister claimed to give John $200 for a bus ticket to leave town. Instead, John decided to stay inside his niece’s home. She bought him a bus ticket in her name, as an ID is required to purchase a bus ticket. Then he stayed in their home while the family went to Disney World for a few days. When she returned, she drove him to the bus station, and he left Florida and went to Savannah, Georgia.

It’s unclear why John’s family went through so much trouble to help get him across state lines, but one could assume that they knew he needed to get out of town. Now, whether that was because he was about to be in trouble for failing to register a change of address as an offender, or because they knew about Jesse, we may never know.

At the time John was in Georgia, a nationwide arrest warrant had been issued for him. Technically, the arrest warrant was for his failure to report his change of address; however, it was made public that he was a person of interest in the Jessica Lunsford disappearance. Thankfully, John was recognized by someone in Savannah.

On March 12th, officers with the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office went to Savannah to speak to him. The first time officers spoke to John, they made it clear he was not under arrest, although some sources indicate that he was taken in on a warrant for weed possession. John denied knowing anything about Jesse other than what he had seen on the news. He told officers he’d been living with his niece for the three weeks prior, and with his sister before that. However, the address he gave for his sister was his last known address, not the trailer near Jesse’s house.

Some sources say that John was initially interviewed and released twice within the first 24 to 48 hours that the police were in Savannah. What we know is that on the 14th, officers wanted to speak to John one more time; however, he didn’t seem to be in Savannah anymore. A few days later, John was located in Augusta, Georgia, by a worker in the Salvation Army shelter he was staying in. The worker allegedly recognized his picture from the news. It should be noted that we have seen some sources say that this happened in Savannah, while others say it was Augusta.

When police located him again in Augusta on March 17th, they asked John if he’d be willing to take a polygraph test. John initially agreed, then changed his mind and asked for a lawyer. However, the police did not stop their interrogation as they should have. Instead, they kept pushing John until he agreed to do the polygraph test. One source said he requested a lawyer eight times, and police still kept pushing.

When John finished the polygraph test, he said something to the effect of, “I don’t need you to tell me the result. I already know what they say.” He then confessed to the abduction and assault of Jesse, as well as burying Jesse alive. In his confession, he told police where they could find her body.

Discovery and Forensics

It didn’t take long for the next steps to be set into motion. John was arrested, and the officers who had been interrogating him reported back to their department in Florida so that they could go investigate the trailer immediately.

When officers got to the trailer, they seized a bloodstained mattress from John’s room, several pillows, and some of John’s clothes off the floor. Eventually, the investigators even seized the walls right out of the closet as evidence. Police also found the shovel John used to bury Jesse, which still had fresh dirt on the blade. Most importantly, they found where Jesse was buried—less than 100 yards from her own front door.

Jesse was found inside two trash bags. Her body was in a state of medium decomposition. Inside, she was clutching the purple dolphin her father had won for her. This dolphin would go on to be an important piece of emotional evidence in the trial; however, the original dolphin was saturated with fluid from her decomposition. Because of this, the dolphin seen in court photos was an exact replica that the prosecution submitted into evidence.

The only part of Jesse’s body that was not decomposing were two of her fingers that were outside of the trash bags. It appeared that Jesse put up a struggle to breathe or escape at some point, either before or after she went into the ground. Those two fingers were partially mummified from their exposure to the environment outside the bag.

It was determined that Jesse died of suffocation. During her autopsy, it was found that Jesse had injuries to her privates that proved she had been assaulted by John. These injuries were unhealed and would have happened within the last six hours before her death. The medical examiner was unsure how many times Jesse had been assaulted during her three-day capture. Other than that injury, her body did not show any other signs of harm; she had no bruises, broken bones, cuts, or abrasions.

In addition, there was no sign of food in her digestive tract. It showed that it had been between 12 hours and three days since she had been fed. While this means it is possible she wasn’t fed anything, her fingerprints would also be found on a pizza box, so they could not conclude she was intentionally starved during her captivity. Jesse also had evidence of cocaine on her body. It was clear she did not ingest it, but was around people who were using it. Even that level of exposure would have affected a 9-year-old girl.

By the time Jesse was found, she had been missing for 22 days. Most people had given up hope that she would be found alive. When Mark was told that her body was found, his stoic response was relief that she was finally brought home.

On March 26th, 2005, a public memorial service was held for Jesse in Florida. Over 1,000 mourners showed up to stand with the Lunsfords and honor the happy little girl. Another memorial was held in Ohio, where her mother lived, with over 300 attendees.

Legal Aftermath and Jessica’s Law

John was officially booked into the Citrus County Jail one week after being discovered in Augusta, Georgia. On April 1st, 2005, a grand jury charged John with first-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, and sexual battery. He pled not guilty and was sent back to the county jail and held without bail.

Police went on to charge the rest of the adults in the house as well. John’s half-sister, her husband, and her daughter were all charged with obstruction of justice for lying to the police. The other adult living in the house was not present when police were there, but he was arrested and charged with failure to pay child support. These charges would all eventually be dropped; it seems likely that this was in exchange for their testimonies.

While John sat in jail waiting for a trial that wouldn’t come for two years, Mark was not content to just sit and wait. It doesn’t take a genius to look at John’s criminal history and know that so much more could have been done. Mark decided he could not stand by while repeat child-victim offenders continued to get their sentences pled down. He could not stand by while more offenders fell through the cracks and were given the space to reoffend.

Mark began the movement to get the Jessica Lunsford Act passed in as many states as possible. This is also known as Jesse’s Law or Jessica’s Law. These titles are used by the media to describe legislation proposed in any state that is modeled after the initial act that Mark proposed in Florida.

Mark’s proposed changes included the following: all offenders found guilty of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under 12 would have a minimum sentence of 25 years in jail; all child-victim offenders would be tracked after they were charged and after being released from prison; after being released, they would be on probation for life. This law made it mandatory for schools to do background checks on every employee, from a janitor to a principal. The public must be notified when an offender moves to the area. In addition, a conviction of sexual battery would carry a minimum sentence of life in prison without parole.

The first state to adopt Jessica’s Law was Florida, just over two months after her disappearance. It was signed into law by then-Governor Jeb Bush on May 2nd, 2005. But Mark was not done. With over 600,000 registered offenders in the country at the time, Mark knew there were more children who needed protecting.

Mark quit his job and went on the road full-time. He traveled from state to state giving presentations and speaking to politicians. He pushed states to adopt harsher punishments and more stringent monitoring. After Florida, he moved on to Pennsylvania and Kentucky. In each state that he went to, he was always met with resistance initially.

Now, most U.S.-based listeners of the show probably live in a state where some form of Jessica’s Law was adopted before 2010, so for many of you, this may feel very commonplace. Currently, 42 states have adopted some version of the Jessica Lunsford Act. So if these restrictions feel normal, you may be wondering why any state would be resistant to these ideas.

The biggest thing that legislators, lawyers, prosecutors, and judges pushed back at was the minimum sentence of 25 years. Many prosecutors do not favor minimum sentences. When a crime comes with a minimum sentence, prosecutors lose a major bargaining chip. We have covered numerous cases where a sentence was negotiated down in exchange for a confession.

Mark had many supporters and even teamed up with the organization Stop Child Predators. He was often escorted by his motorcycle club from one location to another. As he began branching out further and further, Mark developed a solid group of donors and supporters. Eventually, his supporters purchased Sylvester Stallone’s former tour bus to help Mark travel more comfortably.

Mark made his plea for change any place that he could. He spoke at the Justice Department’s Victims Week in Washington, D.C.; however, he wasn’t just showing up at state houses to talk to politicians. Mark went to speak at car dealerships, schools, community centers, businesses, and even private homes. He even went onto the popular Miami Ink reality show to get a new tattoo in honor of Jesse and to help spread the word even further.

Some states were harder to persuade than others. During one of his first visits to Utah, Mark essentially got stood up by the people who invited him to come speak. At a later date, he returned and was greeted at the airport by legislators who were ready to make big changes. In Mark’s documentary, Jesse’s Dad, which you can watch on YouTube, you can see that after Mark arrived, he felt like he had been tricked again.

Utah’s proposed bill included the option to plead down to as little as three years if the judge found it to be “in the interest of justice.” We assume this means that a negotiation can be made if it helps either put that person behind bars or catch another criminal. Mark was told by Utah politicians that it was just a political reality that such big changes would be made to his original proposal.

Upon further reading and explanation, Mark learned that there are varying levels of minimum sentences—for example, 15 to life for an attempted assault of a child under 13. This would encourage the offender to plead guilty and get 15 years instead of taking the chance on a trial where they’re found not guilty. The law ended up passing unanimously as the 34th state to adopt a version of Jesse’s Law.

Mark also decided to file a lawsuit against the Citrus County Sheriff’s Department for what he considered to be a grave mishandling of his daughter’s case. Not only was the crime scene severely contaminated by the location of the command center, they also walked into John’s room while Jesse was still alive in the closet and didn’t find her. They didn’t notice that their neighbor was digging a grave just three days after she went missing. They violated John’s constitutional rights to a lawyer, causing his confession to be thrown out, and according to Mark, the list goes on.

When locals heard that Mark was going to sue the department, there was an enormous outrage. Even Mark’s mother felt it wasn’t a helpful step in their healing. He was criticized for not asking for changes to be made in the department. Mark argued that he had attempted to have those conversations; however, every time he came with examples of things that had been bungled in the investigation, he was met with the same mantra: that this was a textbook investigation, and the department didn’t do anything wrong.

Finally, after really making it public how badly the department messed up, and after the sheriff had no choice but to face the music, Mark and Sheriff Jeff Dawsy sat down together without any media and had a private conversation. Mark agreed to drop the suit against the department, and Sheriff Dawsy agreed to make the necessary changes.

Finding the appropriate venue to hold John’s trial proved to be very difficult due to the public nature of Jesse’s story. It proved to be impossible to find an impartial jury. In fact, they searched for over 20 weeks. They were not able to find a single juror in

County who could say they were impartial in the case. Everyone had heard about Jesse and had been exposed to the news outlets talking about John’s confession and the media coverage as her body was found by his trailer. Ultimately, upon the request of the defense, the trial was moved. They decided the trial would be held in Miami, Florida. Miami is about 300 miles away from Homosassa, where Jesse had been killed. This location was able to supply a less biased jury.

On June 30th, 2006, the case against John Couey hit a major speed bump when John’s request to have his confession thrown out was approved by the judge. This was, of course, due to the unethical police work that elicited the confession after he had requested an attorney more than half a dozen times. This suddenly shifted the burden of proof for the prosecution in a major way. Without the confession, any evidence found because of the confession was also inadmissible. The prosecution and the whole police force that investigated the case now had to prove that all the evidence they were using to convict would have been found eventually without the confession.

The prosecution was able to argue that because of the close proximity to Jesse’s home, the burial site would have been found eventually, especially as the investigators had already named John as a person of interest. In addition, while John was in jail awaiting his trial, he didn’t exactly maintain his innocence. He confessed to several inmates and guards. In many of those instances, he spoke about regretting killing her, as he just wasn’t that kind of person—or so he said—or that he panicked when he realized the police were narrowing in on him. He also admitted to one person that he had been watching Jesse from his window for several days before he took her.

Even without the confession, the actual physical evidence was extremely damning. After police seized John’s mattress, they tested several stains. Jesse’s blood and John’s DNA were found on the mattress together. The prosecution held up the actual mattress in the courtroom to show the extent of the blood stains. They also found Jesse’s fingerprints inside the closet and on a pizza box taken from his room. Due to the full set of fingerprints the Lunsfords had on file, these could have been found and matched even without finding Jesse’s body.

The Trial and Verdict

The only defense that John’s team seemed to be arguing was that John was so mentally handicapped from his years of childhood trauma and violence that he deserved the jury’s sympathy. Now, earlier in the episode, we told you about the extreme trauma that John suffered in his early years. The defense was attempting to claim that John shouldn’t be eligible for the death penalty because he had such a severe intellectual disability.

John’s team called many witnesses to the stand to try to persuade the jury that John was really functioning at a childlike level. They argued that he couldn’t control his impulses due to brain damage and didn’t have the functional life skills to be expected to take care of himself. It even seemed that the defense was trying to play up this through John’s behavior in the courtroom. John sat at the table next to his lawyers coloring in coloring books like a child throughout most of the trial.

The prosecution pushed back. They pointed out that the defendant’s IQ score of 64 was a major outlier compared to the other tests he had taken in the past. Due to John’s status in special education as a child and his previous convictions, John had undergone six different IQ tests. The highest score he had received over the years was a score of 89. It is important to note that the laws against executing people with intellectual disabilities note that the threshold for this is an IQ below 70.

The judge determined that with all of the data compiled, John had a working IQ of 78. In addition, one expert pointed out that someone could fake a lower IQ score, but it was impossible to fake a higher IQ score. In addition, many of John’s friends, co-workers, and supervisors were called to testify about John’s ability to work. He was presented by the people closest to him as hardworking and capable. He held many responsibilities that would have been much too complex for a person with a diagnosable intellectual disability to maintain.

In addition, several of the factors surrounding Jesse’s abduction and death showed pre-planning on John’s part, not the impulsive behavior of someone who didn’t understand the consequences. For example, he had dug the hole he buried Jesse in before convincing her to climb into the bags.

At the end of John’s trial, Victim Impact statements were read. Two letters were read by Jesse’s guidance counselor and third-grade teacher. They talked of the children in the community who were now terrified to sleep alone in the wake of Jessica’s murder, with many of them sleeping in their parents’ beds. For these children, their sense of security had been stolen by John.

“I hope you hear her cries as you try to sleep at night. I hope you see the tears run down her face when she asked you to go home. I hope you spend the rest of your life in fear of death. You will never hurt another child again.”

“Judge Howard, speaking for myself, for my community, and the nation, I plead with you to accept the recommendation of the jury for death as presented to you by the jury 10 to 2, and a vote of 12 for four guilty verdicts, and to remember the words of a wise old Black man in A Time to Kill: ‘It’s just too heavy, Your Honor. It’s too heavy for mercy.'”

On Wednesday, March 7th, 2007, John Couey was found guilty on all counts. The jury came back with a 10 to 2 recommendation that he be sentenced to death. In August of the same year, a judge chose to honor this recommendation, and John was sentenced to death.

John Couey’s Death and Mark Lunsford’s Reaction

However, John would not make it to the date of his execution. He died of natural causes on September 30th, 2009, at 51 years old. John had been sick with anal cancer for some time, and he succumbed to his illness.

Mark reported that he was relieved to hear that John had finally died. He felt that this simplified everything. The state no longer had to spend $55,000 a year to house John, and Mark and his family didn’t have to spend the next 10 to 15 years wondering what would happen. They wouldn’t have to listen to appeals submitted for the next decade to change his sentence. When asked if Mark forgave John, he did not even hesitate before he said no. So it didn’t feel like this marked the end of his advocacy, as John was only one of 600,000 registered offenders in our country.

Interviewer: “With me here is Mark Lunsford, the father of Jessica Lunsford. Mark, I’ve known you for quite a few years. Um, for the first time, I could say I had a genuine smile from you today. What was your reaction?”

Mark Lunsford: “Well, you know, it was kind of… it was a big surprise, most definitely. I got a call from the prison system. They wanted to let me know that—that John Couey was found dead in his cell, and the autopsy hadn’t been done yet, but they would let me know as soon as it was. And it was just, you know, it was a little overwhelming. It made my day very exciting. You know, I don’t know if ‘exciting’ is the right word, maybe… I was just really pumped. I got on my bike, took off, and, uh, thought things through. And, uh, I realized that, okay, John Couey’s dead. So what? There’s still 600,000 more—600,000 more sex offenders in the country, in the United States. There’s over 4 million people in the State of Florida trading child pornography. But thank God to our governor and the programs that we have available to us in the state, 77 of those guys were caught. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, you know, he’s not a burden to the state anymore, and he’s not something that I have to think about anymore.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, and so you’re not thinking about him anymore, but it seems like it is a relief for you, though. It is a burden off your shoulders.”

Mark Lunsford: “Well, I think it would be to any family who… whoever caused them some kind of grief like this, for them to die before their actual sentencing date. Yeah, I’m… yeah, most definitely, it does take a lot off of you. I mean, because now you no longer have to think about, um, you know, his efforts for his next appeal, or anything like that. Not that I had any doubt in the Florida system—I know, I believe they would have killed him. But there is that process called the process of appeals. I heard that he had an appeal and he was asking for a life sentence instead of the death penalty. I guess he got his answer, didn’t he? I like that. I really like that.”

Interviewer: “And I know your parents, I talked to them a little while ago. They mentioned to me that they were praying that they would be able to be around to see his sentence carried out, because the average stay in Florida on death row is 12 and a half years. That’s a long time away. How do you feel about him dying in this way from cancer rather than actually being put to death by the state?”

Mark Lunsford: “Prayer answered. And you know, that’s what they prayed for, and he died. And you know, uh, his cause of death isn’t sad at all for him. Probably it would be if it was someone else to die that way, but not for him. Um, but I’m just glad it’s over. I mean, you know, he’s no longer a burden to this state. He’s no longer anything that my family and I have to think about—whether or not what’s going to happen to him in 12 to 15 years. I think it’s like $55,000 a year that it costs the state to have him there. Hey, we don’t have to pay that no more! So, you know, it’s okay with me that he’s dead. It’s okay with me whether it be today or 12 and a half years, as long as it happens. And you know, that’s not justice, though. That doesn’t have anything to do with justice.”

Interviewer: “You mentioned to me earlier that, um, no matter how he died, how much pain he was in with cancer, it really didn’t compare—it won’t compare—to what sexual offenders and predators put their victims through, whether they, you know, die or survive. Which one has it the worst?”

Mark Lunsford: “You know, there’s no comparison to what those children and some adult women have to go through, and what they do—what it does to their lives if they survive. Some of these people can be fighters and some of them can’t. And so, you know, there’s no comparison to how anybody who would commit a crime like that, if he dies, how he dies does not compare to his victims.”

Interviewer: “Did you ever wish that you would have been able to sit down and actually talk to the man face-to-face?”

Mark Lunsford: “No. No, I could think of better things to do. The system will never allow you to let that happen, but, uh, like I said, dude, it ended a lot of things. A lot of thoughts for me about him. Those thoughts are, I don’t have to think that stuff anymore.”

Interviewer: “I know in a lot of his letters—one of his last few letters that he sent out from prison—ironically, he never had a visitor in jail, but he sent out a few letters and always mentioned God and wrote Bible verses. What do you think about that, and now that he’s died?”

Mark Lunsford: “Well, I mean, you know, is there forgiveness? Not from me, you know. But he didn’t come to me; he went to God, you know? And I can’t speak for God, but I can tell you that I’ve been told that God says if you hurt one of His kids, you’d be better off with a rope tied around your neck with a rock and thrown in the deepest sea, compared to what He’s going to do to you. So, uh, maybe… maybe while John was laying there dying, maybe his feet were getting hot, and then his ass caught on fire, and then his head bursted into flames.”

Interviewer: “What’s next for you, Mark? I know earlier you mentioned, you know—this will be the last question for you—what’s next for you? You mentioned the other sex offenders that are here in the country, the hundreds of thousands of them. Are you going to continue your fight?”

Mark Lunsford: “Yeah, I do. I try to show as much support in Washington and on a state level to the U.S. Marshals and to local law enforcement who work with the U.S. Marshals on these sting operations to go out and apprehend the absconded sex offenders. You know, they’re short-funded. So constantly, advocates like myself, Ed Smart, Surviving Parents Coalition, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children—we’re all in support of being real hard on federal legislators up in D.C. because they are not funding things the way they should be. I know President Obama made a statement during his campaign that he was in support, but you know, where’s the funding for these things?”

Interviewer: “Mark Lunsford, thank you very much and enjoy your time.”

Mark Lunsford: “Thank you.”

Closure for the Family

In 2009, the trailer that Jesse had been kept in during her abduction burned to the ground. The location of the murder that rocked the community was finally gone.

On February 24th, 2005, the Lunsford family changed forever. Nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was missing. Like a page from a drama, grandmother Ruth Lunsford felt helpless.

“I used to sit there and look out that window and I’d say, ‘Come on, Jesse, walk through them woods.’ It was more wooded than it is now, and I’d think, ‘Come on, walk through them woods.’ It was a time that you’d want to forget.”

But Ruth decided it was something they would always have to face.

“I had stacks of newspapers and I thought, ‘This isn’t no good. We got to do something else.'”

Ruth decided that every horrible headline, every word describing this family’s heartache, would go into a scrapbook.

“It’s not an easy thing to do because, um, this is my granddaughter and we were very, very close.”

So from the first headline she was missing, Ruth cut it up and tenderly placed it into a three-ring binder. Four of them, for every year. Years like 2005 filled its binder, going from the search for Jesse, Jesse‘s home now, to finding her killer.

“And you realize that if they hadn’t found him, that we would have been the culprits.”

To finally being able to put her granddaughter to rest.

“When they lifted the balloons up, you know, all these balloons were together. And once Mark looked up there and he said, ‘There’s one going off all by itself—that’s Jesse.'”

This was at the trial. 2007 was full too, with the trial of the killer. So that’s all about the prosecution itself and John Couey’s eventual sentencing to death.

“You were thinking, ‘Well, this is it. This is the end.’ But it wasn’t the end. It just kept going and going and going.”

2009 had just started when there was some good news outside Ruth’s bedroom window: the trailer where Couey lived and murdered Jessica was burned to the ground.

“And I’m standing in there and saying, ‘What took you so long, Lord?'”

And a little over halfway through, really only a few pages into this year’s book, Ruth put one final page in: Jesse’s killer dies. Ruth would have put a different headline.

“I don’t know, maybe I would write ‘Hallelujah’ on there or something.”

October 1st, 2009, is the last day Ruth wants to put into her scrapbooks.

“Now that it’s all over with, he’s not here no more. Maybe this really is the end.”

No storybook ending. Jessica will never come through those woods, but it’s a part of life that the Lunsfords can finally close the book on.

Ongoing Advocacy and Systemic Challenges

Over the years, Mark took steps to become more of a professional advocate for children. However, as anyone who does advocacy work for children can tell you, that kind of work can certainly take its toll. In his documentary, there are several occasions where Mark seemed to be increasingly anxious and struggling with intrusive thoughts. Ultimately, the stress of work would be too much for him, and he broke up with his girlfriend as a result.

In the documentary, there is talk about a problem Mark’s son ran into right in the middle of all of Mark’s advocacy work to make sure offenders are locked up. His 18-year-old son, Josh, was charged with unlawful sexual conduct of a minor. At age 17, Josh had been dating his girlfriend, who was only 14 at the time. When he turned 18, he was turned into the police. The report was that he put his hands in his girlfriend’s pants when they were kissing. It is unclear who made this report, but it’s rumored that it was an adult who was trying to retaliate against Mark after he had filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s department. Josh ended up pleading down to a lesser crime and served 10 days in jail.

Mark’s work also took on a much more concrete existence as he and his team opened Jesse’s Place, a child advocacy center in Lecanto, Florida. During his time as an advocate, Mark was exposed to just how broken our system is for children who aren’t in stable, loving homes. The center provides forensic interviews, medical exams, and therapy. It became a youth-centered resource for neglected children and those who were victims of abuse.

Mark stressed that our system in America is simply not built for children. The system relies on children going to an adult for help; then that adult needs to actually help them. The center gives children a place where they can go for help without needing a referral from an adult.

As of the date of this recording, Jesse’s Place is still operating. They are still holding fundraising events to continue their important work. On their website, it says:

“When a child receives services at Jesse’s Place, it is with the purpose of alleviating the painful events in their life and beginning their journey to recovery, which allows them to feel like a child again.”

We’d like to end with a quote from Mark that he said after John was sentenced to death. Mark was talking about why his work would not stop even after sentencing. He said:

“Justice was served for this little girl, but what about the rest of them? What about the ones who survive? Killing a child is the worst, but who has it the worst: the child that dies or the child that survives?”