Jurors in Jessica Lunsford Trial Won't Hear 'I Buried Her Alive'

July 11, 2006 — -- Jurors in Florida will decide whether a convicted sex offender is guilty of a 10-year-old girl's kidnapping and brutal rape and murder, but they will not hear arguably the prosecution's strongest evidence -- his alleged confession.

Jury selection begins today in the trial of John Couey, who is accused of capital murder, burglary with battery, kidnapping and sexual battery in the 2005 slaying of Jessica Lunsford.

If he's found guilty, that same jury will also decide whether he should live or die.

Police say Couey, 47, admitted abducting Jessica, raping her, and later burying her behind his house. Jurors, however, will not hear the alleged confession -- more than 100 pages' worth of testimony recorded on tape that contain Couey's account of how he allegedly lured Jessica and what he did to her.

Couey's attorneys argued -- and Citrus County Circuit Judge Ric Howard agreed -- that the conditions under which Couey had confessed violated his constitutional rights. Specifically, he was denied the right to counsel by interrogating officers who continued to question him after he mentioned the need for a lawyer.

It is on tape that Couey confessed to kidnapping, raping and killing Jessica, calling himself sick and "stupid" during the two-hour interview in March 2005. But, Howard noted in his ruling, in one exchange with the detectives, Couey invoked his right to counsel "no less than eight times in 46 seconds."

Couey's confession led police to the girl's body, which was found just after midnight the morning of March 19, 2005. Dental records helped identify it as Jessica. She was wrapped in trash bags, hands tied, with a stuffed dolphin toy between her arms. Medical examiners determined that she had been suffocated.

Couey's defense attorney argued that the discovery of Jessica's body should not be allowed in court because he told the detectives in the interview where he had buried the girl. The judge agreed with prosecutors, however, that investigators would have found her body without the confession.

A Search With a Sad End

Jessica was a third-grader at Homosassa Elementary School. Known as a sweet, quiet girl, her hobbies included singing karaoke and playing with her dog, Corky.

On Feb. 24, 2005 she spent the evening at church and gave her father, Mark, a customary hug good night before going to bed. Her family woke up the next morning and found she was missing from her bed.

For weeks after she went missing, there were no solid leads on the case.

She was another missing-child case, with news of her search all over the newspapers and TV airwaves.

Florida police parked outside her home as her father and grandparents frantically searched for a lost little girl.

Jessica was closer than they thought, tucked away in a closet across the street.

When authorities ran a search for sex offenders living in her area, they discovered that a man named John Couey wasn't living at his stated address.

Instead, he was living in his sister's three-bedroom trailer, across the street from the house where Jessica lived with her father and grandparents.

Couey was considered a "person of interest" in Jessica's disappearance because he was a sex offender who lived next door.

Police ultimately tracked him down in Savannah, Ga. That gave police enough reason enough to keep him in custody. As a convicted sex offender, Couey had broken the law by leaving Florida without notifying authorities.

He had served five years in prison for a 1991 conviction on lewd and lascivious conduct. In a confession in that case, he admitted to luring a young girl in Kissimmee, Fla., with an offer to play "hide-and-go-seek" and subsequently masturbated in front of her. The medical officer who arrived at the scene reported that Couey had kissed the little girl on the neck before exposing himself.

However, this conviction will not be a factor in this trial. Prosecutors have said they will not present testimony about the 1991 case.

A Confession That Doesn't Count

On March 18, 2005, an interrogation and graphic confession cracked the case for investigators.

Officers said Couey told them that on the night of Jessica's disappearance, he came home from a party high on crack and drank beer and whiskey. Around 3 a.m., he said, he broke into Jessica's house and went into her bedroom.

Jessica, disoriented and mistaking Couey for someone else, obeyed him when he told her to leave the house. She walked out of the house without a struggle, a stuffed toy dolphin in hand. Couey took Jessica up to his bedroom through a ladder.

According to police, Couey admitted to taking Jessica's clothes off, then fondling and having sexual intercourse with her. When he was done, Couey said, he was going to let her go free. Then he panicked and hid her in a closet for three days instead, feeding her eggs, grits and hamburgers.

Jessica obeyed all of Couey's commands without protest -- leaving the house, taking her clothes off, and hiding quietly in the closet, singing to herself. If she was, in fact, in Couey's closet, not one of the four adults living in his trailer came to her rescue. At least two have testified they had no idea she was there.

Jessica knew her family was looking for her. Couey said he let her look out the window at a police car that was searching for her.

But Jessica apparently never attempted to escape, Couey allegedly told investigators. She sat quietly in the closet, playing with Couey's cat and not even leaving to use the bathroom.

"She had several chances to take off but never did," Couey said in his statement. "I left the room, you know. … She just sat there."

He said he had sexual contact with her again. After nightfall one day, without knocking her unconscious and without any struggle from Jessica, Couey tied her hands with speaker cord, wrapped her in garbage bags, and buried her alive. Couey said she didn't ask him to stop or beg for her life.

"I dug a hole and put her in it, buried her," Couey said on tape. "I pushed. … I put her in plastic baggies. She was alive. I buried her alive."

Couey buried the dolphin with her.

"I let her keep it," he said. "She wanted to take it with her."

In later alleged confessions he admitted to pouring bleach on his bed -- part of the crime scene -- to "try and clean it up." Even though his confession is inadmissible in court, Couey's appears remorseful but cannot explain his actions.

"I'm a sick person. … I don't even know why I did it to her," he said. "I just snapped and did it. … I don't know why. … I'm as sick man."

"I didn't want to go to prison but. … I deserve it. Deserve to just die," Couey said.

Couey also admitted to having sexual contact with his young female nieces, incidents that had never before been reported to authorities.

A Trial, a Hope for Justice

Without Couey's confession, prosecutors will have to rely on physical evidence and expert testimony to get a guilty verdict.

"It's very damaging to lose a confession, especially one that's as detailed as that one," Larry Sandeford, a Florida defense attorney and former prosecutor said to ABC News. "When you don't have a confession and you have to tie it all together, it's definitely harder to get a conviction."

The physical evidence in the case appears to be strong, but not airtight. A lab report determined that stains on a mattress from Couey's middle bedroom consisted of semen and blood that matched Jessica. Sweepings of Couey's bedroom turned up hair head samples that consistently matched Jessica's.

At the same time, no trace of Couey -- not even fingerprints --were found in Jessica's residence. A Caucasian head hair found on Jessica's bra did not belong to her or to Couey.

As in most cases, Sandeford says, the defense can raise a number of questions to introduce a reasonable doubt about Couey's guilt.

Does the prosecution have enough good evidence? Could it have been wrongly interpreted? Did investigators decide it was Couey from the start and gear the investigation to that assumption? Did they pin it on him without looking at anyone else? Couey's confession, however, is consistent with Jessica's burial in his backyard.

Jessica's autopsy showed that she was alive when she was wrapped in garbage bags.

Medical examiner Stephen Cogswell said in a deposition that he believed Jessica "was most likely alive" at the time she was buried. The autopsy also found injuries to her vaginal area.

'I'm So Sorry'

In an effort to find an impartial jury, selection is taking place in Tavares, Fla., 67 miles from Jessica's home.

When jurors are chosen, they'll be taken to a courtroom in Inverness -- just minutes from the crime scene -- for the trial.

In his alleged confession, Couey was asked what he would say if he could speak to Jessica.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. … I wish you were alive, and you could walk to your parents," he said.

Jessica's parents, meanwhile, have very different wishes for him.

"You just have to have faith in the system. You have to believe in the state attorney's office, and you just have to believe that justice will be served," her father said to The Associated Press.

"I want to see the person who murdered my daughter be found guilty and be given the death penalty."