Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, your host on Pushing Up Lilies. This week, we’re diving into the tragic and chilling case of Joleen Cummings, a beloved mother of three from Nassau County, Florida, who was murdered by her co-worker in a brutal betrayal. What started as a normal shift at a local hair salon ended in a mystery when Joleen never returned home. As investigators dug deeper, they uncovered shocking details about her co-worker, Kimberly Kessler, whose dark past and false identities only added more mystery to this horrific crime. How did no one see the danger lurking in plain sight? And what led to this violent workplace murder? Join me as we unravel the disturbing details of obsession, deception, and murder, and discuss what ultimately led to Kessler’s conviction. This case is a haunting reminder that sometimes, the real danger is closer than we think. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey y'all, we're into another week here and I'll tell you what, the weather in Texas has been amazing. I think it was like 80 something degrees yesterday.
00:42
It's so weird here though, you know, because like in the mornings it'll be chilly and then in the afternoon you're like literally shedding layers. It's a little bit crazy, but we love it. I love Texas.
00:55
I know I complain about the heat, but I don't think you can really beat it. It's like we really don't have very harsh winters and if you can withstand the heat a little bit, you'll be fine. Have a little story for y'all this week about a hairdresser and I know we all love our hairdressers and I have so many amazing friends that are hairdressers.
01:19
This story actually happened in Florida and this is the story of Jolene Rebecca Cummings. I don't know if y'all have heard about her, but she was a 34 year old single mother of three. She worked as a hair stylist at a local salon in Yulee, Florida and then this happened back in May of 2018.
01:46
So Jolene and her daughter's father separated and then Jolene moved to Jacksonville with her daughter and she decided she wanted to go to cosmetology school. We all know how hard this is when you're a single mom and you're trying to go to school and raise a child.
02:06
I know that I was a single mom for years and I actually talked to my kids about it a lot because you know now that I've been a nurse for 30 years and I have a career and I have retirement I like to let them know that it wasn't always that way and I feel like when they were children they never really knew the struggles that I was going through.
02:31
When I divorced my first husband I decided to go to nursing school and so I moved to Gainesville and I worked part-time as a dental assistant at first and then later I waited tables but I started nursing school at North Central Texas College.
02:50
They have associate's degree program in Gainesville, Texas here. Shout out to my old school. I have a lot of friends who went there, and I met a lot of good nursing friends from that experience. I went to school there, and my daughter and I lived in government apartments.
03:08
My water bill was paid for me. My electric bill was paid for me. And I got food stamps. And I would go, I remember, y'all don't know if y'all remember Piggly Wiggly. But I would go to Piggly Wiggly, late at night, right before they closed, and buy my groceries with my food stamps so that no one would see me.
03:32
I didn't want to run into anybody I knew. I thought that would be so embarrassing for someone to see me at the register with my food stamps. I mean, that's not true, and I know that now. It's for people who need help, not necessarily long-term.
03:48
But I didn't plan on using them forever. It wasn't always easy. And I think that that's important for your kids to know that, you know, you have had struggles and that it hasn't always been sunshine and roses and lollipops or whatever it is they say.
04:07
I just want my kids to know that when they do struggle, there will be brighter days. Like, things get better. I guess that's the lesson that I was kind of trying to teach them by letting them know that there were hardships and, you know, moms going to school, we feel guilty, especially if we're single.
04:26
You know, we're not spending enough time with our children. But then in the back of our heads, we're like, hey, I'm doing this for them so they can have a better future so I can provide for them. We're really pulled so many different directions.
04:39
And I know a lot of moms out there are going through that struggle now. And I mean, I'm just here to tell you it does get better. It seems terrible at the time when you're going through it, but it does.
04:51
And so a lot of moms, I mean, just rough when you're trying to go to college. But you know why you're doing it. You know your end goal is to help better the life of your child or even if you don't have children just better your life so that you can do the things you want to do and be happy.
05:08
But basically that's what Jolene did after she split up with her daughter's dad. You know she moved to Jacksonville with this dream of going to cosmetology school. She met Jason Cummings in 2012 and then they got married pretty quickly after they met.
05:27
The newlyweds had two sons in a fairly quick succession. After she finished school Jolene got a job at Tangle's hair salon in Yulee and again this is in Florida. And sometimes it's hard right out of school to find a good job.
05:45
I know that being in the meds ball business I've met a lot of people who are trying to break out into that world, whether it be a statistician or cosmetologist or massage therapist. It's just hard. It's really difficult to start your own business because not only do you get out of school with zero clientele, you also have the expense of rent wherever you're at and then you have the expense of buying all the equipment you need to function,
06:14
which is a lot when you sit down and add it all up. Starting your own business is hard and so anyway, Jolene got this job at Tangles. She had a great career and I know how fun it is like being in the salon biz myself.
06:32
I know like when you have people coming in it's just fun to visit and talk. It's almost like it's not work. She had a great career but unfortunately she started having some marital problems with her husband, Jason, and then the pair decided mutually to separate and then they filed for divorce in 2017.
06:56
On May 13th of 2018, this was Jolene's birthday and Mother's Day. Jolene was going to meet Jason, her ex, and get the kids from him but she didn't show up. She didn't show up at the meeting place and so a missing persons report was filed.
07:18
It was very odd for her to not come and get her children like she was supposed to and you can imagine with it being Mother's Day and her birthday that she would have wanted to spend time with them but when she didn't arrive and stopped answering her phone, Jason knew something was wrong so he filed this missing persons report.
07:38
Now the 34-year-old was last seen leaving work at 5 p.m. the day before so on May 12th again 2018. When she left work that day, she was never seen again. Police believe that she was murdered and that her body was dismembered and disposed of.
08:02
Because again, she's never been seen again. Now that evening on May 12th at around five, she had the task of cleaning the salon before she left. She was with a new employee named Jennifer Seibert. And of course, as investigations go, the police were given Jennifer's address and phone number.
08:27
Because it was presumed that Jennifer had been the last one to see her. Now police also looked into Jolene's former husband, who was going through a contentious divorce settlement with her. So you have to look at the husband, the ex-husband, the future ex-husband.
08:46
You have to always rule that person out. We all know that. News reports stated that Jason was in a bitter argument with Jolene when he showed up unannounced at her house on Chapel Road in Hilliard on May 9th.
09:03
Three days prior, I guess, there was a report that the two had had some form of argument. The incident report claimed that at the time of their argument, he wanted to stay over at her house and Jolene turned him down.
09:18
And so he started kind of slamming things around and causing a bit of a problem. I guess that's probably from somebody that she had talked to about it, is where they got that information. Jason was arrested on May 15th on an outstanding warrant for a probation violation.
09:37
However, he was cleared as a suspect in Jolene's disappearance. But we all know, you know, you always got to question them. When officers contacted Jennifer, she actually refused to be involved with law enforcement.
09:53
And the reason for that was, she said that she had an ex-boyfriend who was a stalker and she didn't want him to find her. So basically, even though she was the last person to see Jolene alive, she did not really answer the police officer's question.
10:12
She was pretty much not very helpful. Now, soon, investigators found Jolene's Beige Ford Expedition. This was on May 15th in the Home Depot parking lot in Yulee. Surveillance footage actually saw, we love cameras.
10:32
Y'all know, I always talk about cameras. Absolutely love cameras. I just think that it's the best idea ever. I love that you can look at them on your phone nowadays. It's just amazing. It's such a great tool.
10:47
But surveillance footage found... Jennifer walking from the parking lot and going into a nearby gas station after parking Jolene's Beige Ford Expedition on May 13th at around 1 17 a.m. Early in the morning the day after Jolene went missing we've got Jennifer parking her car in the parking lot and then walking across the street to a gas station.
11:15
So of course police suspected her and police also learned that Jennifer had not been back to work since Jolene disappeared. You know that was Jennifer's first day at work so you know it wasn't because they were close friends and she was extremely upset like basically she just no showed after that and quit going in.
11:38
Now using luminol police found massive amounts of blood residue on the salon's walls. They found it on the chairs, the cabinets, and the sink. And y'all have all heard of Luminol. It's most well known for its use in forensics to kind of help detect blood at crime scenes.
12:02
Now Luminol shows investigators that blood is in the area, but some household substances like bleat can also cause Luminol to glow a little bit, but it's great for blood detection. Officers found later as they began investigating Jennifer, that the address she provided her employer was fake.
12:26
Now Jennifer was arrested on May 16th while she was sleeping in her Black Kia Soul subcompact crossover SUV at a rest area on Interstate 95 in St. John's County, Florida. And she was charged with grand theft auto at that time.
12:46
Following her arrest, investigators found footage of Jennifer carrying heavy trash bags to a dumpster behind the Tangle's hair salon on May 12th. In addition, they also found video footage of her purchasing cleaning supplies.
13:06
Again, I have to say, I love the video thing. I mean, they caught her on the video at Home Depot. They caught her on the video behind the hair salon, dumping stuff in the dumpster. And now again, we catch her on video footage, purchasing cleaning supplies, gloves, and an electric carving knife from a nearby Walmart.
13:32
And again, I remember how we talked about the storage containers from Walmart, how the murderer bought them there, and then cut up the body, put it in there after it started leaking from garbage bags, and then dumped the body.
13:48
body in the dumpster, lit the dumpster on fire, rinsed out the rubber container, took it back to Walmart. This is weird to think that as we're walking around Walmart, there are actually people there shopping who are not shopping for their family.
14:03
I mean, this lady went in there to get cleaning supplies, gloves, and an electric carving knife because she had every intention of killing. It's so scary to think about it. I mean, how we walk around amongst people who are thinking that way, and you might be standing in line behind them, and they might look like your typical mom or grandma, but you literally don't know.
14:30
After, this is the weird part, after 48 hours in police custody, Jennifer confessed that her actual name was Kimberly Lee Kessler, and that she had been on the run from the FBI for 25 years. Kimberly Lee Kessler was born in Butler, PA in 1968 and Kimberly's mother reported her missing in 2004.
14:57
She stole Jennifer's identity after she saw the name of Jennifer Seibert who died in 1987. And she decided to use that name because that person no longer existed and she thought she could get away with it.
15:16
Now officers found fake documents and ID cards for 18 different aliases which showed she had resided in 33 cities in 14 states since 1986. So I mean she was clearly a criminal. I wouldn't think that she had her cosmetology license.
15:39
It's kind of crazy that a hair salon would hire somebody without doing a little more of a background check. But Kimberly was charged with first degree murder on September 2018 and she was also charged with two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer.
15:59
Now listen to what she did. She allegedly stripped nude and flung feces at police officers. Now I have had feces flung at me before in the hospital emergency room. It is not fun dodging it. But yeah, that'll get you a battery charge if you do that just FYI.
16:21
So her antics inside the jail and in court, including going on a hunger strike, they tried to use all that to help find her mentally incompetent to stand trial. She was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December of 2021.
16:44
And she was charged with second degree murder. She is serving her life sentence at the Lowell Correctional Institution in Marion County, Jolene, I guess, had talked to friends and she knew something was off about Jennifer.
17:01
They had argued and Jolene told Jennifer that she knew she wasn't who she said she was and Jolene intended to expose Jennifer. So Jennifer felt threatened by her and was afraid of being exposed because she was on the run from the FBI.
17:21
But tension came to head at work. Kessler, we were talking about kind of her past, she ran away from home after high school and she was living under assumed names after dating a man in Arizona who robbed banks.
17:36
Now, she skipped town in July of 2004, which was when she was 35. And she told family members that she was heading south to assume an identity that she had gotten from a tombstone. So there's that. Jennifer Seibert, the identity that she assumed, was a 13-year-old girl who had died in a car crash in Germany in 1987.
18:07
And she was buried in a Butler, Pennsylvania cemetery. Kessler used her name when she saw that she was deceased. She got the name off of the tombstone and the cemetery and decided to take on that identity and, quote unquote, go missing.
18:26
Kessler's family reported her missing when they went back. And I still don't understand this, and if the investigation was done correctly, the trash bags carried to the dumpster were collected by a garbage truck.
18:43
But they were unable to be found. So I can't understand, this all came to fruition pretty quickly. I don't know why they couldn't get ahold of the actual bags. I don't know the whole story behind that.
18:57
I'd be curious to find out though. Kessler's phone browser showed that she had searched coworker guilty of murder, missing person body not found. Once Jolene was confirmed missing, the name Jolene Cummings was searched 457 times over a 48 hour period.
19:22
She also searched Jolene Cummings, no body, no crime. So she was looking to see if anybody had seen anything, if Jolene's disappearance and murder had been reported, trying to keep up with the latest.
19:39
Now, Cummings DNA was later found on socks, boots, and scissors. inside Kessler's car, Jolene's blood was also found in Kessler's rented storage unit alongside one of her fingernails inside a bin. Now Jolene Cummings body or remains have never been found.
20:04
That's what I find really sad about a lot of these stories. I mean, you know her body was in that bag that she carried. They saw her on camera struggling. There were big black trash bags she was carrying out of the hair salon.
20:19
There's blood all over the hair salon that they detected with the luminol. I just don't understand 100% why they couldn't locate that body. I would look until I was blue in the face. It would be really, really hard for me to give up.
20:37
I think even as a death investigator, I'd be down at the landfill. y'all because I mean I hate that more than anything to think that that poor girls remains were probably just left in that landfill what really makes me mad is that the criminals don't finally come clean with what they did with it you know it's like you're going to spend the rest of your life in jail just give it up like tell us what happened where's the body I don't know I guess there's no way to force them but still I think that I don't know it's just sad I hate the thought of anybody being dismembered and put in a trash bag but I also hate the fact that she was never found I just thought that story was just really sad I mean not that I want to make y'all sad but true crime you never know you never know if the person you're shopping alongside at Walmart is legit especially if they're buying plastic storage containers now I'm kidding you just don't know it's hard to trust anybody and so yeah really sad story it sounds like parts of the investigation went okay but again I would have been climbing through that landfill until I found that body I wouldn't have thought that there would be a lot of stuff stacked on top of it given the fact that this was kind of discovered pretty quickly I mean they came on to Kessler fairly quickly and were able to look back at the video and see the stuff that she bought at Walmart yeah I have a hard time understanding that one but anyway I still working on the subscription boxes so sorry y'all I have not forgotten they have not been shipped yet I'm starting to get the things that are going to go in them I've had several emails and we are working on a website so that you can order that so I'm super excited about this y'all think you're going to really really love it if you're a true crime enthusiast you are going to absolutely flip when you see the stuff that's in these boxes.
22:44
It's going to be a surprise, we're not really going to tell you. These are going to be boxes that you can order monthly for yourself. You can have them delivered every three months. You can do them every six months.
22:56
You can send them as a gift. I probably do like birthday themed murder gifts. And then also certain holiday themed gifts. Definitely get ready for that because we're going to have a special Christmas holiday serial killer box that you'll absolutely love.
23:18
It'll be a great Christmas gift for anybody that you know who loves true crime. And I know y'all do because you're listening and I appreciate that so, so much. My husband and I started a new mobile beer business called Taps and Tunes.
23:34
I would love for you to look us up. Right now we're on TikTok and Facebook. I'm going to start our Instagram page probably today. But we just did our first event this past weekend. It went very, very well.
23:48
We have another one this weekend here in Denton. So we're super excited to have that business up and going. Of course, I still have the Med Spa. If anybody is interested in a weight loss plan, we are able to do virtual visits so that we could ship weight loss to you.
24:06
I do have a couple of podcast listeners who are on my weight loss program who live in other states. So that's a possibility. If you're looking for somebody that you can trust that has good quality medication that you know works and is proven to work, then we definitely encourage you to reach out to us.
24:26
My website there is www.thefillingstationdenton.com. Our website for the mobile beer truck, which we do lease out for weddings and events, corporate events and open houses, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, neighborhood parties is www.tapsandtunesmobilebeer.com.
24:52
And again, I so much appreciate y'all sharing the podcast with your friends. I've gotten a lot of new listeners and I love it so much. I just can't wait. You don't know how excited I am to launch this subscription box.
25:08
It's something that I just think that y'all are absolutely going to love. I hope you have an amazing week. I hope that everyone treats you right and is nice. I look forward to talking to y'all next week.
25:22
Bye y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
25:38
Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplilies.com for merchandise and past episodes. you