She disappeared 12 years ago. The reward for information just went up

It’s been 12 years since Jennifer Kesse went missing from her Orlando home and still, officials are working to bring her home and are hoping that raising the reward for information and dedicating a detective to her case will help.

The reward for information on the woman who has been missing since Jan. 24, 2006, has increased to up to $15,000. Her missing person poster is now plastered on the side of the bus. A picture of the person of interest, seen in surveillance footage the day of her disappearance, is also featured on the wrap.

Her father, Drew Kesse, who now lives in Bradenton, still holds on to hope that she will be found and spoke during a news conference Wednesday morning to urge the community to cooperate and help officials find his daughter.

“I don’t know what to say or do after 12 years. We sit back and we say, ‘Well, I think we’ve done everything. How can we sit and touch someone’s heart just enough to make the call?’ Maybe this will be it, I don’t know,” Drew Kesse said, pointing to the bus parked behind him. “We’ve tried so many things.”

Three years ago, police released an age-progression photo of Kesse, hoping to drum up a fresh batch of tips. That photo also appears on the bus.

Orlando police Chief John Mina said they never stop searching for missing persons and announced on the anniversary of Kesse’s disappearance that Detective Teresa Sprague would be exclusively working on the case.

“I cannot explain how excited I am to start this process from the beginning,” Sprague said in a video posted to the Orlando Police Facebook page. “Jennifer’s family has not seen her or spoken to her in 12 years. They deserve answers. There’d be nothing more satisfying in my career as a detective than to bring them those answers.”

On the day when the then-24-year-old Kesse went missing, Sprague said, Kesse would have gotten up and left for work just before 8 a.m., but she never made it.

“That morning is where our focus is,” Sprague said.

Her car was found parked a few hours later about a mile from her condo at Mosaic at Millenia on Conroy Road in Orlando.

Someone was caught on surveillance camera walking away from the car, but investigators have not yet been able to identify that person. Sprague emphasized the importance of finding out who that person is and that she wants to talk to them.

“Is there something we missed? It’s certainly possible that there is,” Sprague said in Wednesday’s press conference.

She plans to take a fresh look at the tips and information initially collected in the investigation and, hopefully, collect new ones. There were hundreds received in the investigation, Mina said.

“It is not lost on me after 12 years what an enormous task this will be,” Sprague said.

Orlando police ask that anyone with information call 321-235-5300 and ask to speak with the detective on the case or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS.

Kesse was born in New Jersey and the family moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1988. She moved to Orlando to attend University of Central Florida, according to Bradenton Herald archives.

This story was originally published January 24, 2018 at 11:47 AM with the headline "She disappeared 12 years ago. The reward for information just went up."