Fla. documents obtained in Kessler case
Old Knoch High School classmates of Kimberly Kessler offered information to the law enforcement officers investigating Kessler, a woman from Butler at the center of a mysterious murder case in Jacksonville, Fla.
Through a records request, the Butler Eagle obtained a collection of court discovery documents submitted to the public record Thursday. Kessler, 50, is accused of first-degree pre-meditated murder by the Nassau County sheriff's office. She's being investigated for allegedly kidnapping and killing her hair salon co-worker, Joleen Cummings.
Kessler went missing from Butler County in 2004. Police say she's lived in several states under as many as 18 aliases since leaving Butler.
The new documents include an audio recording of an interview with Tim Barnes, who identifies himself as an ex-boyfriend of Kessler's who said they dated during and after their time at Knoch High School in the early 1980s.
Barnes doesn't paint a docile photo of Kessler.
“She stabbed me in the chest,” Barnes said in the recording. “She bit my dad in the leg.”
Upon being told that Kessler is the main suspect in a homicide, he replied “I'm not surprised.”
Barnes described accompanying Kessler to a graveyard.“She wanted to walk around and look for girls around her age that died,” Barnes said. “That was back in 1991, probably. So she was planning on this.”Kessler, he said, also once shot his cat with a shotgun, killing it.A man named Ray Wyant, who also identified himself to police as a high school classmate of Kessler's, described hearing stories of violence between her and her brother.“She waited for him to fall asleep and she hit him over the mouth with a baseball bat,” Wyant said.Kessler's brother didn't want to talk to investigators about his sister, a sheriff's detective said later in Wyant's interview.The release of discovery documents included more than 100 files of audio clips, images and videos. The Florida State Attorney's office responsible for the case plans to release further documents in the coming weeks. Further details will be reported as they are made available.Kessler was arrested in May of 2018.
