Tragic girl’s silence changed history
Jessica Lunsford suffered an unimaginable fate but her legacy is protecting other children.
Every morning, Mark Lunsford and his daughter Jessica would both set their alarms for 5am. Mark would get up for his job as a truck driver for a refuse company, while Jessica, nine, would get up for school where she loved seeing her friends and working hard.
The dad and daughter shared their home in Homosassa, Florida, with Mark’s parents and Jessica’s dog, Corky.
Mark had separated from Jessica’s mum when she was just a year old and had been granted full custody. The pair were inseparable. They would sing karaoke together and Jessica would ride on Mark’s motorbike with her arms tightly wrapped around him.
Jessica would call her dad at work just to say she loved him.
On February 24, 2005, Mark turned off his alarm, but Jessica’s kept ringing.
When he went into her bedroom, he was shocked to find that his daughter, who he lovingly called Jessie, was missing.
Her grandmother had tucked her into bed the night before, dressed in a pink top and a pair of white shorts, so where was she?
Mark desperately searched the home and when he realised the front door was unlocked, he screamed her name into the street. Jessica had gone. The little girl was scared of the dark and slept with a nightlight.
She would never have left on her own.
Someone must have taken her. The terrified dad called 911 and the whole neighbourhood turned out to look for her. Jessica’s radiant smile was on missing posters and all across the news.
People turned out to search for the gentle little girl who had dreams of being a singer when she grew up. She loved stuffed toys and the only thing missing with Jessica was a purple stuffed dolphin that Mark had won for her at a county fair. Mark and Jessica’s mum, Angela Bryant, made desperate appeals. ‘I want my daughter home,’ Mark said. ‘If there is anything anybody knows, there are a lot of numbers you can call. Help me find my daughter and bring her home.’ As part of the investigation, officers did routine visits to all known registered sex offenders in the area.
By law, a convicted sex offender is required to notify authorities if they change their address.
They discovered that John Couey, 46, was not living where he’d claimed to be.
Couey had a string of convictions for drugs, burglary, indecent exposure and underage sex offences.
They discovered that he’d moved in with his half-sister in her trailer, which was in sight of Jessica’s home.
Detectives searched the trailer but neglected to look in the wardrobe of Couey’s room.
When they returned 19 days after Jessica vanished, they found a blood stain on his mattress and he became a ‘person of interest.’
By then, Couey had fled on a
bus, but when his face was broadcast on the news, a tip off led to his arrest. At first, Couey denied taking Jessica from her bed, but when he was asked to take a polygraph test, he confessed. What detectives heard was worse than they could ever have imagined. Couey had often seen Jessica playing outside. That night, he’d entered her home at 3am and had taken her, telling her: ‘Don’t yell or nothing.’ Jessica respected her elders, and sadly did as she was told. At the trailer he shared, he raped Jessica before shutting her in his wardrobe for three days without food while he went to work as a truck driver. While everyone was looking for Jessica, she’d been in the wardrobe. Couey told police where they could find her body. On March 19, police went to a
shallow grave near the trailer where Couey was staying.
Under two feet of dirt and leaves, Jessica’s body was found inside two plastic rubbish bags.
Couey had tricked her into getting into two black bags by saying he was going to take her home.
Instead he had buried her alive as she clutched her beloved purple dolphin toy.
Her wrists had been tied together, but she’d managed to poke two fingers through the bag to try and escape.
Jessica had died from suffocation which would have taken several agonising minutes.
‘I’m a sick man,’ Couey said.
The community were devastated and Mark’s world came crashing down.
‘She’s home now,’ he sobbed, but he was haunted by the fact that Jessica had been 200 yards away from her home.
Police had even gone to the trailer while she was still alive.
There had been chances to save her.
In March 2007, Couey was found guilty of murder, kidnapping, burglary and sexual battery.
He was given the death penalty, and three life sentences.
But in 2009, Couey died aged 51 of cancer behind bars. He would never hurt another child again.
The trailer he hurt Jessica in was mysteriously destroyed in a fire.
For Mark, the trauma of losing Jessica would never be over and he became determined to save other children.
Couey had been a sex offender who hadn’t been monitored by police and was consequently allowed to reoffend.
Despite his humble upbringing, Mark became an activist and started campaigning for Florida to introduce tougher laws on tracking sex offenders to prevent them from reoffending. A bill was written that would increase sentences, use electronic tagging for offenders on probation, and enforce a mandatory database.
The Jessica Lunsford Act came into effect in 2005.
Since then, it has influenced similar legislation in 44 other states.
Mark is comforted knowing that good has come from Jessica’s senseless death.
His brave girl who always thought of others before herself.
Tragically she could have been saved Jessica was kidnapped and locked in a cupboard, believing one day she’d be allowed to go home