Joleen Cummings.Photo: Nassau County Sheriff’s Department
A Florida hairstylist is on trial this week, accused of the 2018 murder of her co-worker, a mother of three who vanished the day before Mother’s Day.
Kimberly Kessler, 53, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 34-year-oldJoleen Cummings, who worked with Kessler at the Tangles Hair Salon in Yulee.
“There is something a little off about her, I can’t put my finger on it,” Cummings wrote about Kessler in one of her final texts to her boss before she disappeared,First Coast Newsreported.
Kessler, Cummings said, was “real mouthy.”
“She’s been real negative,” she wrote. “[I’m] Trying to avoid her.”
Cummings was last seen leaving work around 5 p.m. on May 12, 2018. She was supposed to meet up with her ex-husband in Hilliard about 45 minutes away the next day to pick up her kids, ages 3, 4 and 10, to celebrate Mother’s Day and her birthday. But she never showed up.
Her mother, Anne Johnson, reported her missing on May 14.
Nassau County Sheriff’s Department
Johnson testified Monday that her daughter was never heard from again after her last shift with Kessler on May 12.
“She didn’t even acknowledge her [own] birthday,” she said, News4Jax reported.
Cummings body has never been found. She is presumed dead.
Her beige 2006 Ford Expedition was discovered May 15 in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Yulee, not far from the salon.
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That same day, authorities said, they went to the salon to speak with Kessler, but she didn’t show up to work from that point forward — and the address she had given to her boss was fake.
Investigators later discovered surveillance video from 1:17 a.m. on May 13 that allegedly showed Kessler parking Cummings' SUV.
Kessler was found at a truck stop on May 16 and arrested on the grand theft auto charges.
According to authorities, surveillance video allegedly later showed Kessler hauling trash bags from the salon to the dumpster behind the building, News4Jax reported.
Kessler’s public defender Thomas Townsend told jurors that, “a violent confrontation occurred — that much is not in dispute,” he said, according to FirstCoastNews.
He said Kessler suffered defensive wounds.
“There simply is no evidence of premeditation,” he said, adding that those wounds showed the attack was not premeditated.
At a news conference after Kessler’s arrest, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said, “We are not quite sure yet why all the disguises or if she [Kessler] has been involved in the disappearance of anyone else before, but it seems she is definitely running from something.”
Leeper said, “Kessler is the person who knows where Jolene is and, unfortunately, she has not provided that information,” Leeper said. “We will continue our efforts to search for Joleen wherever we have credible evidence and our prayers are that she will be found.”
source: people.com
