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The search for Jessica Lunsford
Man in missing girl case is found
"Person of interest," John Couey is found in Georgia. Citrus officers want to talk to him about missing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.
By ABBIE VANSICKLE and JUSTIN GEORGE
Published March 18, 2005
AUGUSTA, Ga. - Law officers on Thursday found John Evander Couey in this east Georgia city, but they remained unsure what role, if any, he played in the disappearance of a 9-year-old Citrus County girl.
"I'm very happy we have him," Citrus Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said. "I'll either make him a suspect or take him out of the mix."
Couey, 46, was arrested and held without bail on charges that he violated probation and failed to tell authorities he left Florida, as is required for registered sex offenders like Couey.
Investigators describe Couey as a "person of interest" in the Jessica Lunsford case because he lived near the girl's home, took off for Georgia after she disappeared and has victimized at least two children in the past, according to court records.
Dawsy announced Couey's name on Wednesday, spawning a national search.
Georgia authorities found him Thursday morning near a Salvation Army shelter in this city on the South Carolina border. Couey was scheduled to board a bus for Tennessee later in the day, authorities said.
Jessica has been missing for three weeks. Her grandmother said she put her to bed the night of Feb. 23 and she was gone in the morning. Authorities and volunteers have searched near her Homosassa home but found no clues.
Couey first came to the attention of detectives when they checked registered sex offenders who lived in Homosassa.
Couey was missing Feb. 28 from his home on Grover Cleveland Boulevard, and detectives learned he had been staying at his half-sister's home, 100 yards from the Lunsfords' home on Sonata Avenue.
Knowing authorities wanted to question him, Couey left for Savannah around March 4 with a bus ticket purchased in someone else's name, Dawsy said. Georgia authorities found him in a Salvation Army shelter Saturday in Savannah, Ga.
They questioned and released him because the only existing warrant on Couey concerned a violation of probation for a misdemeanor drug case, which didn't allow him to be held outside of Citrus County.
On Monday, Citrus detectives told Georgia authorities they wanted time with Couey. By then, Savannah police couldn't find him.
They had better luck Thursday in Augusta, more than 100 miles northwest of Savannah.
Richmond County sheriff's deputies found him near the Salvation Army shelter. Couey told them he had been in Augusta for two days, Richmond Sheriff Ronald Strength said.
"He did not try to hide who he was," Strength said.
Three Citrus detectives drove from Savannah to Augusta to interview Couey. An extradition hearing is scheduled for today.
Couey seemed at ease and had no trouble making conversation at the shelter, people there said. He loaned one man a razor for shaving; another said Couey talked of working as a roofer in Tennessee.
"He didn't look like he was running," said Todd Hoover, 38, who talked with Couey at dinner Wednesday night.
William Ferensic, 43, recognized Couey as the man who sat, feet propped on another seat, at a window booth at the Huddle House early Thursday. Ferensic, a cook at the restaurant, saw Couey and another man joking with waitresses, he said.
Ferensic assumed they came from the shelter. They stayed 45 minutes, downing cups of coffee.
About 11/2 hours later, a shelter worker realized why a name on local TV sounded so familiar: Couey had checked in to the shelter using his real name and photo identification the night before, according to officers.
Couey, a sometime dishwasher, carpenter, laborer or car detailer, has bounced between Savannah and Citrus County since the 1970s, records show.
His first known arrest came in 1977. His second came one year later, in Crystal River, when Couey was 19. He broke into a home, entered a girl's bedroom, placed his hand over her mouth and kissed her, Dawsy said.
The girl, Joyce Revels, told authorities she broke loose and called her mother while Couey escaped out the window, according to a St. Petersburg Times story from January 1978.
There would be more arrests on other charges: burglary, carrying a concealed weapon, larceny and indecent exposure, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Couey was designated a sex offender in 1991 after a conviction for an attempted lewd act on a 14-year-old, Kissimmee police said.
George Kanaris recognized Couey's name on Thursday. The man washed dishes at his restaurant, called Emily's, for two years during the early 1990s.
Kanaris said he fired Couey after he wrote a 14-year-old bus girl a three-page love letter.
Couey sometimes slept in the restaurant's food shed, and he tangled with men much bigger than him. "He was violent, short-tempered," Kanaris said.
Mark Lunsford said he doesn't think Couey abducted his daughter.
"He doesn't fit the description of someone I would think who'd get Jessie out of the house," Lunsford said. "To me, it has to be someone Jessie knew."
The mobile home where Couey was living arrived about two months ago, dropped off on an empty lot. Neighbors said about five men, two women and an infant lived there. Different cars made the place seem like a drive-through. No one was home Thursday.
"Lots of different people," Tony Beccia, 29, said. "They were the only people who didn't talk to anybody. It's a cardinal sin here if you don't wave to anyone."
"They just moved that trailer in here and it's caused nothing but trouble," said Carolyn Harless, 66, another neighbor. "In and out, all the hours of the day and night. They wouldn't even look at you when they pulled in and out."
Times researchers Kitty Bennett and Mary Mellstrom and staff writer Raghuram Vadarevu contributed to this report.
[Last modified March 18, 2005, 00:42:17]
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