ORLANDO, Fla. — Police ended their latest search for Jennifer Kesse on Friday afternoon. The young Orlando woman disappeared in 2006.
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A tip led police to start digging through an Orlando field (see map) Friday morning searching for her remains. About 50 people looked but didn't find anything.
"We have concluded the search of the areas of interest as it related to the Jennifer Kesse Tip. The search yielded negative results," Sgt Barb Jones wrote in a released emailed around 2:40pm.
The field they searched is off Orange Blossom Trail near Oak Ridge Road. It's just a five-minute drive from Kesse's old condo near the Mall at Millenia.
A tip came from an unnamed informant. It must have been big, because police spent the day searching the field in Orlando. But it was a tip that eventually fizzled with time.
Investigators appeared to pull out all stops, from heavy machinery that dug deep into the ground to the simpler hand-sifter that separated tiny particles of sand (images | raw video | more video). In the end, though, they came up with nothing to go on.
"We haven't found anything of any evidentiary value," Sgt. Barb Jones said.
At the onset, there seemed to be much hope. Police received a tip from an informant and it seemed like a legitimate one.
"The information we received was related specifically to the Jennifer Kesse case," Sgt. Jones said.
It brought them to the vast field off Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando. When the search seemed to go dry, officers seemed to try harder, going step by step with machetes to cut tall grass and weeds and their own hands to poke around, but not one piece of evidence, not one clue was found.
At one point, three specially trained search dogs were brought in and they appeared to have found something, but again nothing of value came from the search.
"The Kesses want to know what happened to their daughter. The Orlando police wants to know. So does everyone in the country," Sgt. Jones said.
So the mystery deepens and the questions surrounding the disappearance of Jennifer Kesse seem more raw now than they did when she vanished four years ago. At the time, her disappearance case gripped the community and was high-profile.
"Imagine what heartache is and multiply it by a million," Joyce Kesse, Jennifer's mom, said Friday afternoon.
Jennifer's parents, Drew and Joyce Kesse, have felt the anguish repeat itself with each and every search.
"We're still committed as we continue this fight to give Jennifer the best chance to be found. She deserves that," Joyce said.
Police have poured over more than 1,000 tips to date and ask the public to continue to provide whatever information they have to push the case forward.
A police spokeswoman told Eyewitness News just a couple of emergency response team members will remain on scene overnight.
Kesse was 25 years old when she disappeared from her Mosaic Millenia condo (see map | map from search area to apartment) in Orlando in January 2006. Police later found her car at an apartment complex a mile from her home, Huntington On The Green Apartments. Surveillance video captured someone walking away from the car, but investigators have been unable to identify that person.
Investigators said there have been over 1,000 tips in the case.
Previous Stories: September 9, 2009: SMART Team Reviewing Jennifer Kesse Case August 2, 2009: Volunteers Search For Jennifer Kesse June 30, 2009: Tip In Jennifer Kesse Case Leads To Ground Search June 4, 2009: Detectives Find Possible Link To Jennifer Kesse Case
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