NEW INFORMATION RELEASED IN JESSICA LUNSFORD KILLING

wcsh6.com ^ | 4/8/05

[TexKat]

Court documents say it's possible a nine-year-old Florida girl who was abducted and killed may have been alive when officers first questioned the suspect.

HOMOSASSA, Fla. (AP) - John Couey, who is a convicted sex offender, had been staying with his half-sister near the home of Jessica Lunsford. Police went to the half-sister's home twice while looking for the child, and said no suspicions were raised.

Police say that Couey later told them he was hiding in the home during the second interview.

The court documents released Thursday say that the timeline "leaves open the possibility" that Lunsford was alive during each interview. Sheriff Jeff Dawsy has said that Couey was in a "drug haze" during the abduction.

Lunsford was found sexually assaulted and buried near the mobile home.

[blueriver]

So why is a lost girl not just cause to search all the houses on the street? Eventually they found out that he lived there - so why did it take so long. The police dropped the ball on this one.

[Graybeard58]

Buy it or not the police cannot track every offenders every movement.

For finger pointing and fault finding I would like to know how the grand parents slept through the abduction. They lived in a mobile home and they are just not that big. The father was spending the night at his girl friends house.

I have a 10 year old grand daughter and when she sleeps over at my house the bed room is far removed from where my wife and I sleep, good acoustics keep sound from traveling from that bed room to my own, so I have a baby monitor in that room and she knows to scream her little lungs out if she has a problem. The windows are double paned and double locked as are the doors and old gramps has a big gun and is willing to give his own life in her defense.

She is not perfectly protected at all times but I do my part to the utmost. It's still possible for someone to get her at some point but not on my watch.

The ultimate responsibility for protecting our children lies with the ones who love them - Parents and grand parents, not the police.

[blueriver]

How did the police find out that he lived across the street? No one told them. They found out from doing good police work - only problem is they found out too late. All I am saying is they should have used the same information that they used to determine that he lived across the street immediately. Why did they find it out 2 weeks later. Also, they should have look at the people in that house and put 2+2 together. Oh yes not allowed to do profiling I guess - better to let a little girl die then search the house across the street. Just look at the people living in that house and tell me they look like wholesome folks. I just don't see how they could have found out that he was living across the street too late, only explanation is that they dropped the ball.

[Graybeard58]

Blame who you will. I fault the people who were supposed to be proctecting the little girl.

[Katt]

Death is too easy.....

[Katt]

PLEASE---Let me do it----

[cookiedough]

The cops have to have permission to come into a person's house, let alone search it, unless they have a search warrant or the requirements for a warrantless search have been met.

In this case, the cops would have had to have had probable cause to believe that Jessica Lunsford was actually in that house.

I have no idea whether the police asked permission to search the house, but if they did, the owners said no.