Jessica Lunsford

About Jessica Lunsford

Jessica Marie Lunsford (October 6, 1995 – February 27, 2005) was a nine-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Homosassa, Florida in the early morning of February 24, 2005. Believed held captive over the weekend, she was raped and later murdered by 47-year-old John Couey who was living nearby. The media covered the investigation and trial of her killer extensively. On August 24, 2007 a judge in Inverness, Florida sentenced Couey, a convicted sex offender, to death for kidnapping, raping and murdering Jessica.

Couey alleged in an audio/videotaped confession that he had abducted, raped, and murdered Jessica Lunsford. A judge ruled on June 30, 2006 that Couey's audio/videotaped confession was inadmissible in court because, at the time the confession was recorded, police had not granted Couey's requests for access to a lawyer, thereby rendering the confession invalid and unreliable under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Over Couey's objection, the trial court ruled that all evidence collected after the confession, including the recovery of Lunsford's body, would be allowed in court, as would any incriminating statements allegedly made by Couey to investigators and a jail guard.

Couey entered Lunsford's house through an unlocked door at about three o'clock in the morning, awakened Lunsford, told her "Don't yell or nothing," and told her to follow him out of the house.