Disappearance of Jennifer Kesse

Jennifer Joyce Kesse was a 24-year-old finance manager who disappeared from her Orlando, Florida, condominium between January 23 and 24, 2006. A graduate of Vivian Gaither High School in Tampa, she earned a finance degree from the University of Central Florida in 2003 and worked at Central Florida Investments Timeshare Company in Ocoee. The weekend before she disappeared, she vacationed with her boyfriend on Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, returning Sunday and driving to work the next morning, January 23, 2006.

Kesse was last confirmed seen leaving work around 6:00 p.m. that day; she called her father around 6:15 p.m. while driving home and spoke with her boyfriend around 10:00 p.m. She normally contacted her boyfriend before work, so it was unusual when he could not reach her the next morning and his call went to voicemail. Her employer contacted her parents when she failed to arrive at work; they found her car missing but her home undisturbed, aside from a wet towel and clothes laid out suggesting she had prepared for work. Friends, family, and police searched by foot, horseback, boat, helicopter, car, and ATV, and investigators concluded Kesse left her condominium complex and was abducted on her way to work.

On January 26, 2006, a tenant near an apartment complex about a mile from Kesse's home recognized her abandoned black 2004 Chevrolet Malibu from news coverage. Hidden cameras there had recorded an unidentified person of interest parking the car and walking away around noon on January 24, but the footage was not found until two days later. The person's face was obscured by fencing and unrecognized by Kesse's family and friends; the FBI could only estimate the person's height at between 5 feet 3 inches and 5 feet 5 inches. Forensic examination of the car found only a latent print and a DNA fiber, and indicated it had been wiped down; valuables were left inside, ruling out robbery, but her cellphone, iPod, keys, purse, briefcase, and outfit were never recovered, and her bank card has not been used since.

Investigators questioned and ruled out Kesse's immediate family, close friends, her ex-boyfriend, and her boyfriend. Non-English-speaking construction workers at her complex, whom Kesse had told relatives harassed her, could not be fully interviewed due to the language barrier; a manager who had sought a relationship with her, which she declined, was ruled out. Investigators and her family have considered, but view as less likely, that she was trafficked. In May 2007, her employer, led by David A. Siegel, offered a $1 million reward contingent on her being found alive; it was never claimed. On May 2, 2008, the Florida House of Representatives unanimously passed the Jennifer Kesse and Tiffany Sessions Missing Persons Act to reform the state's handling of missing-persons cases.

The FBI took over the investigation from the Orlando Police Department on June 10, 2010, at the urging of police chief Val Demings. In 2018, Kesse's parents sued the department for access to its records; the suit was settled in March 2019, granting the family 16,000 pages of documents. In December 2022, the case was transferred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's cold case unit, which planned to reinterview possible suspects and retest evidence. On May 20, 2025, the FDLE said it had identified several persons of interest and no longer considered the case cold. On October 21, 2025, Kesse's father, Drew Kesse, said the FDLE had found untested DNA evidence and had narrowed the list of persons of interest. Kesse remains classified as missing and endangered by multiple agencies, and no arrests have been made.