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#famousgraves #truecrime #cemetery #jessicalunsford #cemeteries #cemetery
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Jessica Marie Lunsford (October 6, 1995 - February 27, 2005) was an American nine-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Homosassa, Florida on February 24, 2005, then raped and murdered by 46-year-old John Couey, a known sex offender.
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 her. On September 30, 2009, before the sentences could be carried out, Couey died of natural causes.
Lunsford's murder influenced the legislation in Florida known as "Jessica's Law". It is designed to protect potential victims and reduce a sexual offender's ability to re-offend.
On February 24, 2005, the family of Jessica Lunsford discovered that she was missing from the home she shared with her father and grandparents. Couey later was accused of entering her house through an unlocked door at about 3 a.m. He awoke her, told her "Don't yell or nothing" and told her to follow him out of the house.
In a videotaped and recorded deposition which later was thrown out by his Florida trial court (see below), he admitted to sexually assaulting Lunsford in his bedroom. The admission stated that she was kept in his bed that evening, where he raped her again in the morning.
It further stated that Couey put her in his closet and ordered her to remain there, which she did as he reported for work at "Billy's Truck Lot". Lastly, the admission recounted that three days after he abducted her, Couey bound the child's wrists together with speaker wire, placed her in a garbage bag, placed the bag containing her inside another garbage bag and buried her alive in a shallow grave, where she suffocated to death.
Because Couey had asked for an attorney before being interrogated but was not given one, his trial court threw out this statement as being obtained in violation of Couey's Sixth Amendment right to counsel and right to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment.
On March 18, 2005, police found Lunsford's body at Couey's residence located on West Sparrow Court, under the front porch and buried in a hole approximately 2½ ft deep by 2 ft in diameter (0.8 m deep by 0.6 m dia.), covered with leaves. The body was removed from the ground and transported to the coroner's office. Her body had undergone "moderate" to "severe" decomposition and, according to the publicly released autopsy reports, was skeletonized on two fingers that Lunsford had poked through the bags before suffocating to death. The coroner ruled that death would have happened even in best circumstances within three or five minutes from lack of oxygen.
The trial was moved to Miami after officials were unable to seat an impartial jury in Citrus County where the trial was first scheduled to be held.
On March 7, 2007, Couey was found guilty of all charges in relation to Lunsford's death, including first degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, and sexual battery. The jury deliberated for four hours, tasked with recommending either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, the only two possible sentences available under Florida law.
A week later, after about one hour and 15 minutes of deliberation, a jury recommended Couey be put to death.
On August 11, 2007, a jury overseeing the Lunsford case voted 10-2 that Couey be eligible for the death sentence. Defense for Couey argued that he had suffered from a lifetime of emotional abuse and had a below normal IQ, which would enable him to avoid a death sentence under a 2002 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the execution of mentally handicapped people. However, the most credible intelligence test rates Couey's IQ at 78, slightly above the standard accepted level of mental retardation, which is 70.
On August 24, 2007, Couey was sentenced by Circuit Judge Richard Howard to death, as well as three consecutive life terms for his crimes. In accordance with Florida State Law, the death sentence was automatically appealed. His Florida Department of Corrections number was 063425.
On September 30, 2009 at 11:15 a.m. EST, Couey died at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital after complications from anal cancer, before the sentence of the court could be carried out.
Jessica Lunsford’s grave is in Fountains Memorial park in Homosassa Springs, Florida.