Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What a beautiful picture. Now the Dolly Parton song comes to mind when I hear Jolene. Did that have any impact on your naming her? It was because of that song. Something's not right. Jolene's not answering. Not hearing from Jolene on Mother's Day? On her birthday?
Urgent search for a missing mother in Nassau County. What do you think happened to Jolene?
But she's hanging out with these bad dudes, bad crowd. Sounds like she had trouble kind of with figuring out men. She did. She did. First thought was the boyfriend, you know, had done something.
And this is your opportunity here to clear your name, and you're acting like this jackass. I had nothing to do with you being missing. I love her. I miss her.
At some point, Jolene confides in you some thoughts, some suspicious. It is the actual moment where we perceive we are looking at something more sinister. Who is that figure that walks across in the darkness? You could see them walk around the building just as I did, and then they go ahead and enter the building. No one had any idea how truly unhinged that she was.
When I saw the video, hair on the back of my neck stand up moment. Nestled on the tip of Amelia Island sits North Florida's Fernandina Beach. With its shrimp boats bobbing in the harbor next to oak-shaded streets, both tourists and locals come to savor the island life.
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Chapter 2: What led to the urgent search for missing hairdresser Jolene Cummings?
I would describe Fernandina Beach as a small area that a lot of people come to visit. It's very welcoming.
It's kind of like a hippie beach town. We have a shrimp drop where we have a big lit up shrimp. and they drop it just like they do New Year's at the ball, with the ball.
You have all the pirate ships. There's even Pippi Longstocking's house is down in Old Town.
That house was made famous in the 1988 film, The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking, based on the children's book.
Hello. Come on, Pippi. Our crime rate in Nassau County is very low when you compare it to our surrounding areas.
But on Mother's Day in May of 2018, Jolene Cummings, a single mom of three, never arrives to pick up her children from her ex-husband, Jason Cummings. Evening is now falling over Northern Florida, and Jolene's two young sons are waiting in a grocery store parking lot with their dad.
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Chapter 3: What were the initial theories about Jolene's disappearance?
The minutes tick by, but their mom never arrives to pick them up.
And it was her birthday, and it was Mother's Day weekend. She always wanted to spend that time with her kids.
What were her plans as far as you knew? It would have been the first time that she would have been able to celebrate Mother's Day and her birthday with the boys, and she would be at my house. Why in the world would this mom suddenly disappear on such a big day? Those close to her say that as a young working single mother, Jolene would often feel overwhelmed and take off making time for herself.
Might she have just gone off and done something without telling you? Has Jolene gone off in the past? Oh yes. Have I been able to contact her? Yes. Did you have a feeling? Yeah. Yeah, not hearing from Jolene on Mother's Day? On her birthday? Yes. I had this gut-wrenching feeling all day. And I told my husband, I need to call this in. He said, no, Aunt, wait till tomorrow.
So at 8 o'clock on Monday morning, I called. 8.08 AM, Ann Johnson contacted the Sheriff's Office and reported that her adult daughter, Jolene Cummings, was missing. She stated that no one had heard from Jolene for at least two days. I was named the lead investigator on this case. It was urgent to me from the start.
While it's certainly not uncommon for an adult to go missing or take off for a couple of days, there were some things that really concerned Ms. Johnson about it. Her daughter would have spent Saturday at the Tangles Hair Salon where she had worked for six years. So Tangles is a salon that's right on the edge of Yulee and Fernandina Beach. It's in a shopping center.
There are multiple chairs, multiple stylists working there day in and day out.
Hi, ladies. Hey. Hi. I'm Deborah. I'm Brittany. Brittany, nice to meet you.
I'm Jill.
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Chapter 4: How did investigators first become suspicious of Jolene's ex-husband?
The place that she was living in was my brother-in-law's. It wasn't the best, but she was saving to move. I wanted to go to Jolene's home to find out where she lived and to see if there were any clues there, anything there that might give me an idea of where she might be. Jolene's stepfather gave me access to the home. When I went inside, there were cabinets that were hanging by one hinge.
It appeared as if somebody had actually punched and kicked holes in the wall. This evidence was very worrisome for a person who's gone missing. It's clearly a disturbing and suspicious scene. And there's one person investigators want to talk to, Jolene's ex-husband, Jason Cummings. Anytime someone goes missing, you have a list of people that you probably want to talk to.
Exes are always at the top of that list. Jason and Jolene had somewhat of a rocky relationship. There was an injunction in place between Jolene and her ex-husband, a no violence injunction that said there'd be no violence between the two individuals. Jason was, he made it obvious that there was, it was contentious about custody of kids that the court had not decided yet.
texts between the former couple reveal a volatile relationship with jolene once writing these kids have seen and heard enough and jason responding see you in court jolene and in another text jason writes i hate you and tomorrow you will hate me i promise that they still had an amical relationship they worked together for the love of the children
We wanted to talk to him, see if he knows anything, knows about where she may be or has seen her. I made contact with Jason Cummings via phone. I scheduled him to come in the next morning to do an interview at the sheriff's office. It's now Tuesday, two days since Jolene was last seen, and her ex-husband, Jason Cummings, is sitting in the Nassau County Sheriff's Office with Detective Harrington.
Telling him how Jolene's happy exterior hid a darker side of her personality.
She's angry most of the time, but she's also happy. She's the type of woman that wouldn't let you know. You could see it on her face, but she wouldn't tell you that. When Jason Cummings is answering these questions, he did let police know that it wasn't uncommon for Jolene to sometimes disappear without explanation.
I was like, look, you need to get it together. This right here is the reason why I left her, because she would disappear for a few days.
She started doing her little Houdini acts. I thought she was just seeing somebody else.
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Chapter 5: What disturbing evidence was found at the Tangles Hair Salon?
It's at my cousin's and my dad's.
Where's your phone? Where is it?
Jason G has an answer for why he doesn't have his cell phone, because he's actually been trying to run from police and doesn't want them to ping his phone because of that outstanding parole violation warrant.
I told you, the reason I was on the high, I didn't want to come to jail. Ever since I've had this warrant, I've had my battery taken out of my phone.
I've had nothing to do with this. I need to go to the car.
I told y'all, y'all can call my cousin and my dad, they will tell you where I've been at the past three days.
Jason G. says that he has an alibi for where he was, and not just for the day that Jolene went missing, but the entire weekend. He had stated he was having a barbecue down in North Jacksonville.
I went to sleep. I slept till about 10 or 11. We went back over there and hung out the rest of the day. They stayed there till Sunday. Sunday, I went home Sunday night.
Maybe Jason G does come across as volatile, a little rough around the edges, but Detective Harrington notices that when G talks about Jolene, he's calmer, his voice softens.
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Chapter 6: What role did Kimberly Kessler play in Jolene's case?
Once we observed the surveillance video of the person exiting, we could tell which direction they walked in. The only place that would have probably been open at that time would have been this convenience store. The first camera that I picked the person up on would have been here. And you could see them walk around the building just as I did.
Then they walked down and they actually stopped here for a minute and addressed the clerk that's standing outside on a break. And then they go ahead and enter the building. The video from inside the convenience store is a big break. Who is it that walks in? When I saw that, it was kind of like that hair on the back of my neck stand-up moment because I was like, this is who I'm looking for.
The person who walks through the front door is Jennifer Seibert.
And she's dressed in all black, she's got on combat boots, and she seems really chatty with the attendant while she's there.
I conducted an interview with a store employee who was working there as well. There was a female that came into the store the other night, right here? Yes. She said something about how she was out with a couple of friends drinking. When I tried to go back inside to go back to working, she wanted me to stay around. He said that she was acting as if she was nervous or scared about something.
She asked him to call a taxi cab for her.
We were able to capture video, so as it actually shows the taxi cab pull up, it pulls into a spot just over here in front of the store. You could see her enter the vehicle in the front passenger seat, and you could see the cab pull away. We were able to not only determine who the cab driver was, but interview him.
What do you recall about that person? She was dressed in like a black workout outfit. She had black hair. had it up in a bun on her hood. She didn't appear to have a purse or anything.
What stood out to me and the cab driver was that Jennifer Seibert had stated that she'd been out with friends and didn't have enough money for gas, but yet she had prepaid for the cab ride on a credit card.
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Chapter 7: What shocking details emerged about Kimberly Kessler's past?
I then observed an individual who was laying down in the back of the vehicle get up and slither through the two front seats and drop into the driver's seat. I remember repeatedly stating, do not put the vehicle in drive. She had her driver's license ready. It was Jennifer Seibert.
Once Jennifer got out of the vehicle, I identified myself to her and told her that I was investigating Jolene's disappearance. She reiterated to me that she had no idea where Jolene was at. At that point in time, I asked her, I said, you've never been in her vehicle. You have no reason to drive her vehicle. And she answered no.
I knew that she was lying to me because I had her on surveillance video parking Jolene's vehicle near the Home Depot in Uling.
Chapter 8: How did the trial for Jolene's murder unfold?
Detective Harrington is heading out to a local judge's home. He's got to get an arrest warrant for grand theft auto for Jolene's SUV. But somebody has to keep an eye on Jennifer Seibert to make sure she does not bolt. My captain informed me. He says, I want you to keep her occupied.
You are not to interrogate her. Just talk to her. Where would you shower? at the gym. I'm going to take a break from body pump and just stick with the cycle classes for a while. And the curious thing to me was she never once asked, what is this about? She never once asked, am I free to leave? Are mosquitoes a problem at rest areas? Oh, my goodness.
I just, when a mosquito bites me, it just takes probably almost an entire month for that one mosquito bite to heal.
But it's not mosquito bites on Seibert's face that are getting the attention of detectives. She had claw marks on her face. She had band-aids on her face. It looked like to me that she had been in one hell of a fight. Back at the station, she appears oddly relaxed and in a good mood when she's talking to officers, not the suspect of this intense missing person search.
She was very open, communicative, actually laughing, joking.
Feels hurting yet? No, they feel great. You can put them on tighter if you want.
Whatever you want to do. But nobody could have guessed what would turn up in Seibert's background and just how entangled her past was.
It was bigger than I imagined. It was like flipping a switch.
This is a woman who was reported missing by her own mother decades before this happened in 2004.
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