Jennifer Kesse

Somewhere in the hours between the night of Monday, January 23, 2006, and the morning of Tuesday, January 24, Jennifer Kesse vanished from her new condominium in Orlando, Florida.

The last time anyone heard from her was a phone call with her boyfriend on Monday night. They said goodnight. Everything seemed normal.

On Tuesday morning, she didn’t show up for work. That had never happened before.

Two days later, her car was found in the parking lot of an apartment complex about a mile from her home. And a surveillance camera had caught someone parking it there. The figure’s face was hidden behind a fence post.

Nearly two decades later, the identity of that person — and the fate of Jennifer Kesse — remain unknown.

Jennifer

Jennifer Kesse was twenty-four years old. She had grown up in New Jersey and moved to Florida, where she earned a finance degree from the University of Central Florida. She was smart, ambitious and well-liked, and she had landed a good job as a finance manager at a timeshare company in Ocoee, west of Orlando.

She had recently bought her first home, a condominium in a complex in Orlando, which was still partly under construction. She was proud of it. Her family said she had complained that some of the construction workers at the complex made her uncomfortable, catcalling her and making comments when she walked by.

She had recently returned from a trip with her boyfriend. On the evening of Monday, January 23, she talked to him on the phone, as she did most nights. Then she went to bed.

Tuesday

When Jennifer didn’t show up at work on Tuesday morning, her co-workers called her parents, Drew and Joyce Kesse, in Tampa. They couldn’t reach her either. They drove to Orlando.

At her condo, they found signs that Jennifer had gotten up and gotten ready for work that morning. She had showered. Her towel was damp. Clothes she had laid out the night before were gone. But Jennifer was gone too, along with her purse, her keys, her phone and her car — a 2004 Chevrolet Malibu.

There was no sign of a struggle.

The Car

On January 26, a resident of an apartment complex about a mile from Jennifer’s condo noticed a car that had been parked in the lot for several days. It was Jennifer’s Malibu.

Investigators found that the complex had surveillance cameras. When they reviewed the footage, they saw the car being driven into the lot and parked at around noon — hours after Jennifer had failed to arrive at work. A person got out of the car, lingered for a short time, and then walked away.

The person’s face and much of their body were obscured by a fence in the camera’s view. The FBI estimated that the person was between about five feet three and five feet five inches tall. NASA experts tried to enhance the footage. No one who knew Jennifer recognized the person.

Investigators later released the video to the public, hoping someone would. No one has ever come forward with a confirmed identification.

The Investigation

The Orlando Police Department led the investigation for years. At first, some officers suggested Jennifer might have left on her own. Her family never believed that. Over time, investigators interviewed hundreds of people, including the construction workers at her condo complex — many of whom were difficult to interview because they had moved on, or because of language barriers. Her ex-boyfriend and her current boyfriend were both cleared. A manager at her workplace who had shown interest in her was interviewed and ruled out.

Her employer offered a reward of up to a million dollars for her safe return. It went unclaimed.

The FBI joined the case. In 2018, her parents, frustrated with the pace of the investigation, sued the Orlando police for access to the case files. In 2019, the suit was settled, and the family received thousands of pages of records.

In late 2022, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s cold case unit took over the case.

Not Cold Anymore

In 2025, the case took a turn. The FDLE said publicly that the case was no longer considered cold, and that investigators had identified several persons of interest. Later that year, Jennifer’s father, Drew Kesse, said that previously untested evidence had been examined and had yielded DNA, and that the list of suspects had narrowed.

As of this writing, no arrests have been made, and authorities have not publicly named anyone. But for the first time in many years, Jennifer’s family has said they feel hopeful.

The Law

Out of their grief, Jennifer’s parents helped create something lasting. In 2008, the Florida legislature passed the Jennifer Kesse and Tiffany Sessions Missing Persons Act, which reformed how Florida handles missing-persons investigations, including making it easier for families to report missing adults and get investigations started quickly.

Drew and Joyce Kesse have also spent years helping other families of missing people navigate the system.