‘We’ve searched for Jennifer pretty much every day for 20 years." Parents of Jennifer Kesse hoping new technology will help find their daughter

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - Not a day goes by that Joyce and Drew Kesse don’t think about their daughter, Jennifer.

It’s been two decades now since the Kesse family has heard from or seen their daughter, Jennifer.

The Kesse’s fighting fearlessly for information that could help find her.

This Saturday marks 20 years since she disappeared, and the start of what has seemed like a never-ending nightmare for the Kesse’s.

“A song on the radio, we can pass a car that looked like Jennifer’s, I mean I can see the back of someone, and be like ”oh!“, you know it catches you and it kind of takes your breath away for that nanosecond, she’s never left our heads,” Jennifer’s mom Joyce said.

Jennifer Kesse was last seen at her apartment on January 23rd, 2006, after talking to her dad on the phone. Shortly after she vanished, her car was found a mile away from her condo in Orlando.

Security footage caught a person parking Jennifer’s car and walking away. However, the poor quality of the video made the man pictured unidentifiable to the police.

Jennifer’s parents, Drew and Joyce, have never given up their desperate search for her. In 2018, they sued the Orlando Police Department and obtained all her case files.

In 20 years, technology has come a long way, and that’s what they’re now focused on.

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The Kesse family IS now relying on AI and DNA, working with an AI firm to study 16,000 pages of case files, and analyzing new surveillance video showing a potential person of interest parking her car and walking away.

“Basically, what AI would do is if it’s able to enhance the picture more, which we have not been able to do, it will do one of two things. Number one will be actually able to see who that person is, and someone will actually recognize that person or see an identifying part on their body,” Drew Kesse said.

“Then we can take that picture and write it against every single picture and every single database in the country and actually in the world, that’s how AI works, and we’ll find that arm, we’ll find that tattoo, we’ll find that ear”.

“FDLE informed us that they are down to just a few people,” Drew Kesse said. “They have been able to just disqualify a lot of the people just through the investigations and interrogations that they have done.”

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The Florida Department of Law Enforcement took over the case from the Orlando police. Drew Kesse said investigators told the family Jennifer’s case is no longer considered cold.

All DNA evidence in the case has been sent back for re-examination using newer technology. Drew Kesse said DNA testing has expanded from 19 markers to 26 markers since the original investigation.

“FDLE had made it at, I think, in July, when they gave a presser, which was that they had found a couple of pieces of DNA that had not been tested,” he said. “So that’s going back through.”

For now, the Kesse’s say they are focusing on the years they did have with Jennifer, proud to call her their daughter.

“We’re lucky. We had 24 years with Jennifer,” Drew said.

“A lot of memories were created in those 24 years. We got to see Jennifer evolve into a beautiful, successful, happy professional, and no one can take that away from us, Joyce added.

The family asks anyone with information about Jennifer’s disappearance to contact authorities. Drew Kesse emphasized that people should only trust information that comes directly from the family or the FDLE.