Former Butler resident Kimberly Kessler was found guilty Thursday of the first-degree murder of her coworker, Joleen Cummings, 34, in 2018 in Nassau County, Fla.

The jury brought back the guilty verdict Thursday afternoon, which also concluded that Kessler is guilty of grand theft auto relating to her arrest in 2018. The trial was livestreamed over Youtube by First Coast News.

In the video, Kessler declined to be present to hear the verdict.

A press conference followed the verdict, during which Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said the investigating officers were able to solve the case due to DNA evidence left behind by Cummings.

“It has been a long three-and-a-half years,” Leeper said at the conference. “When we initially got the call of a missing person and started investigating, the things we were finding out to me were just shocking that something like this would happen in our community.”

Read more in Friday's Butler Eagle.