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Sheriff: Suspect says he killed girl

John Evander Couey admits taking Jessica Lunsford, authorities say. Her grandfather says the family is waiting to find her body.

By JUSTIN GEORGE and ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published March 19, 2005

	Jessica Marie Lunsford, 9, disappeared from Homosassa after going to bed Feb. 23.
	[Times photos: Stephen J. Coddington]
	Citrus County sheriff's deputies comfort Mark Lunsford, second from the left, the father of Jessica Lunsford, in Homosassa on Friday.
	Kristy Kirkland, Jessica's cousin, grieves in Homosassa Friday. Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy announced earlier that a suspect admitted abducting and killing the girl.
	After his polygraph exam in Georgia on Friday, sex offender John Evander Couey, 46, admitted taking Jessica, authorities say. He is being held on unrelated charges.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - John Evander Couey was cooperative as investigators questioned him Friday morning, and what he told them caused little alarm.

America's Most Wanted reported that he was cleared as a "person of interest" in the Jessica Lunsford case. Two Citrus detectives, in Augusta working the case, broke for lunch.

But the calm abruptly ended once the FBI gave Couey a polygraph exam.

"You don't have to tell me the results," the convicted sex offender told the examiner. "I know what they are."

Hours later, Citrus Sheriff Jeff Dawsy choked up as he addressed reporters.

"John Couey admitted to taking Jessica and subsequently taking her life," Dawsy said.

Couey, 46, remained behind bars in Augusta Friday night, held on unrelated charges. Authorities are expected to bring him back to Citrus soon.

Friday night, investigators removed items from the mobile home where Couey lived in Homosassa. They also searched the yard.

Like Carlie Brucia and Elizabeth Smart before her, 9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford got national attention when she disappeared. Her grandparents last saw her on Feb. 23 after they tucked her in at the Homosassa mobile home they all shared with Jessica's father, Mark.

Her father couldn't find her the next morning.

Horses and bloodhounds combed the woods, helicopters buzzed the sky and hundreds of law officers and volunteer searchers turned up nothing for weeks. Then the focus shifted to Couey, a registered sex offender who twice had attacked children before.

Couey lived within eyeshot of Jessica's Homosassa home, despite having registered his address elsewhere with authorities. Couey left for Savannah, Ga., around March 4, using a bus ticket he bought under someone else's name.

His confession hit hard in Homosassa, a community in south Citrus County.

"He admitted killing her, but they haven't found her body," said Archie Lunsford, Jessica's paternal grandfather. "Until we find out for sure, we can't say anything.

"Our strength's in the Lord."

About 20 people trickled to an area outside the Lunsford home on Sonata Avenue after the news broke. Police tape roped off most of the area surrounding Couey's home and a crime scene investigation truck moved in. Some people held candles as night fell.

"It made me sick to my stomach. She was very innocent," said Betty Smith, who lives a block away. Jessica might still be alive, she said, if neighbors had realized a sex offender like Couey was in their midst.

Jamie Gamble, 20, clutched a small teddy bear that was meant for the Lunsfords. She was among the hundreds of volunteers who searched for Jessica.

"It feels like we lost one of our own children," Gamble said through tears.

"I believe in an eye for an eye," she said regarding Couey.

The sudden break in the case would have been difficult to predict just hours before in Augusta. The mood at the Augusta Law Enforcement Center late Friday morning was anything but tense.

Just after 10 a.m., Magistrate John Baxter arrived at the massive brown building that doubles as the Richmond County Sheriff's Office and the county's jail to speak with Couey.

In a room in the jail, Couey spoke with the judge and signed papers waiving extradition. He was cooperative and cordial, said Maj. Ken Autry.

About 11 a.m., Richmond Sheriff Ronald Strength announced that Couey waived extradition. After the news conference, reporters were buzzing about a posting on the America's Most Wanted Web site. It reported that investigators ruled Couey out as a suspect.

But inside the building, Citrus detectives said the Web site was wrong: Couey was still being questioned and remained a "person of interest."

Detectives Scott Grace and Gary Atchison, along with an FBI agent, spent much of Thursday night and Friday morning questioning Couey. The two detectives left for lunch about 11:15 p.m. They returned about 12:30 p.m., both walking at a normal pace toward the criminal investigations offices.

But before the day was out, investigators say Couey dropped his bombshell.

Couey had been picked up by Richmond sheriff's deputies Thursday morning about 9:30 a.m. as he walked near a Salvation Army shelter downtown.

Couey spent Wednesday night in the part of the shelter reserved for transient people in search of a bed for the night. Clean-shaven, he wore a hat and carried a small black tote bag, several people there said. He chatted with other men in line for the shelter's 5:30 p.m. dinner, they said. He seemed relaxed and told the men he needed work.

He planned to take a bus to Tennessee the next day to get a job as a roofer.

Instead, he was arrested after a shelter employee heard his name on television reports and called authorities Thursday morning, officials said.

Citrus investigators arrived in Augusta that afternoon to question him.

Couey first came to the attention of detectives when they checked registered sex offenders who lived in Homosassa. He was missing from his home on Grover Cleveland Boulevard.

After at first denying it, Couey's half sister told detectives that he had been staying with her, 100 yards from the Lunsfords' home on Sonata Avenue. The Lunsfords' living room window faced the gray and red mobile home at 6647 Snowbird Court.

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 March 12 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 far from Citrus County. On Monday, Citrus detectives told Georgia authorities they wanted time with Couey. By then, Savannah police couldn't find him.

Couey's criminal record is extensive and includes burglaries and indecent exposure. At 19, he broke into a girl's bedroom, placed a hand over her mouth and kissed her. In 1991, he was designated a sexual offender after a conviction for an attempted lewd act on a 14-year-old, Kissimmee police said.

Couey's half sister, Dorothy Dixon, gave landlord Bob Ickstadt another name when she approached him about renting the mobile home near the Lunsfords in December, said Becky Ickstadt, Bob's wife.

Couey was the spokesman for the family, which seemed poor and was pooling their resources together. He was a reference on the lease. He wrote down that he was a mason.

"He was a very polite, articulate man," Becky Ickstadt said.

In February, Dixon told the Ickstadts they were leaving for Tennessee.

The landlords brought another couple to see the home two days after Jessica's disappearance. "It was a nightmare," Becky Ickstadt said. "The place was a wreck. Mattresses on the floor with no sheets and no box springs. There were beer cans everywhere. There was fast food everywhere."

Tacked to a wall was a drug rehabilitation form with John Couey's name on it.

The night after Jessica disappeared, Bob Ickstadt talked to his wife.

"I got a bad feeling about that family," he said.

Times staff writer Raghuram Vadareveu contributed to this report.

[Last modified March 19, 2005, 01:02:12]