A search for evidence in the case of a missing Hilliard mom narrows at the Chesser Island Road Landfill in Charlton County, Ga., but yielded no results by day three.
Joleen Cummings, a hair stylist and mother of three was last seen leaving her job at Tangles Hair Salon in Fernandina Beach May 12.
Law enforcement teams from the FBI and the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office are looking for a white bag that was in the possession of lone suspect Kimberly Kessler, according to Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper.
‘This is still challenging,” he said during a press conference from the landfill site Monday afternoon. “It’s kind of like a puzzle, trying to piece it all together.”
The trash is collected and sifted through layer by layer. Once the load is sifted through, the process begins again with a different load.
During a Friday press conference, Leeper said the main focus is to find Cummings’ body and provide closure for her family. None of the leads provided in the case have uncovered any real evidence, he said.
That same day, he outlined what video surveillance revealed about Kessler’s actions in Nassau County after Cummings’ disappearance.
Investigators watched a video of Kessler “Disposing what looked like a white trash bag and emptying the contents of a trash can at one of several dumpsters that were in the general vicinity of the hair salon in Fernandina Beach over that weekend – items that could be important in this case,” he said. “Upon viewing that video, our detectives immediately contacted the management team at Chesser Island Road Landfill and requested a hold on the area where that potential evidence was taken, and that area has remained untouched since then.”
Tracking devices and GPS coordinates indicated where the trash was dumped the same day that Cummings was reported missing, according to Leeper.
“We don’t know what was in that white bag,” Leeper said Monday. “We don’t know what was in there. We’re looking for anything that would give us any information about the disappearance of Joleen Cummings, but we don’t know what that is.”
Kessler has not cooperated with law enforcement officials and she is not giving out any information, Leeper said. She is in custody at the Duval County Jail.
During a press conference in Jacksonville Friday, FBI Jacksonville Special Agent in Charge Charles Spencer announced plans to search for evidence within a cordoned off area of the landfill. The search area is about the size of a football field. It began Saturday with 12-hour shifts that will continue through this Saturday if a breakthrough hasn’t occurred before then.
The goal is to narrow the search area to find “items of evidentiary value,” Spencer said Monday.
Approximately 2,700 tons of trash had already been dumped in the area from a variety of locations before the surveillance video was found and the hold requested, the sheriff said.
“We do not know yet know exactly what items were placed in the dumpsters, but we believe based on what we do know, it is worth our time and effort to try to found out,” Leeper said. “Early on in the investigation, the (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) and FBI Jacksonville offered their full support and resources, and their assistance has been instrumental in getting us to this point.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Charlton County Sheriff’s Office have also joined in the investigation.
“This a very tedious and time-consuming operation and we only get one shot at this,” Leeper said. “There are cadaver dogs that are available to use, but the evidence recovery experts at the FBI have determined it’s unsafe to utilize dogs in landfill searches because of the sharp objects, biohazards and dangerous chemicals that they may come in contact with and they have not been productive in the past.”
Plans include sifting through piles of garbage collected by heavy equipment. Once the pile is combed through, the debris will be removed and another pile searched until the process is complete, according to Leeper.
“We’re not sure if any evidence will be found at this landfill site, since Kessler could have gone anywhere during the several days in the last time Joleen was seen and the time Kessler was found in St. Johns County,” he said. “We continue to pray for some sort of resolution as to find Joleen, but we are also proceeding with developing a strong criminal case as well. We want to attempt to recover every bit of evidence we can find to provide her family with answers and confirmation that we’ve done all we can do up to this point to find those answers.”
During the media’s question and answer time, Leeper declined to elaborate on the investigation into Kessler’s background.
A question arose as to whether a person can be convicted for murder without a recovered body as evidence.
“We have successfully tried murder cases without bodies before and, under the law in Florida, we can do that,” State Attorney Melissa Nelson said.
Kessler continues to attempt to gain media attention. Originally held in the Nassau County Jail, Kessler went on a hunger strike after reading a news article about the NCSO’s investigation into the aliases she had used and the places she had lived.
“She didn’t eat for a week,” Leeper said. “She thought we were trying to poison her. Her attorney requested that she be transferred somewhere else. The state attorney’s office didn’t object to that, and so we transferred her to Jacksonville and she began eating there.”