Saturday, March 19, 2005 Posted: 10:17 AM EST (1517 GMT)
HOMOSASSA SPRINGS, Florida (CNN) -- Law enforcement officials told CNN Saturday that the remains of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford have been found.
Investigators said they found what they believe to be the remains of the Florida girl's body between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Saturday.
John Evander Couey -- a 46-year-old convicted sex offender -- confessed to kidnapping and killing Jessica after a lie-detector test Friday, Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said.
According to police, Couey told them he buried the girl behind his sister's home.
Jessica has been missing for three weeks from her home in Homosassa, Florida.
Jessica's distraught father said earlier Saturday that his daughter is "home now," but made no reference to the discovery of her remains.
"Everyone heard me say time after time that she would be home," said Mark Lunsford, choking back tears. "Well, she's home now. It's over...She's right here with me."
Lunsford said he wanted to tell all parents to "make sure you get that hug and kiss every day before you leave the house."
On Friday, three weeks after Jessica Lunsford disappeared from her home, authorities said a convicted sex offender who had fled to Georgia confessed to kidnapping and killing her.
As the search for Jessica's body continued under bright lights erected just across the street from her home, police were questioning four people described as associates of Couey, who has a long criminal history.
Dawsy said Couey made the confession after undergoing an FBI-administered polygraph test.
"At the end of the polygraph, he (Couey) says, 'You don't need to tell me the results. I already know what they are,'" Dawsy said.
Couey then asked that investigators come back into the room and "apologized to the investigators for wasting their time," the sheriff said.
"John Couey admitted to abducting Jessica and subsequently taking her life," Dawsy told reporters. "I've got my man ... We are now in a major criminal case."
Law enforcement sources told CNN that Couey said he buried the girl behind his sister's home, located across the street from the Lunsfords, where he had been staying.
Dawsy said Mark Lunsford, and the girl's mother, Angela Bryant, who lives in Ohio, had been notified of the development.
"This is a very tough time, not only for me, it's a very tough time for the family," the sheriff said, his voice cracking.
Bryant, trying to choke back tears, said a police investigator called her with the news of Jessica's death. She planned to travel to Florida Sunday.
"He said that the man that they had been questioning admitted what he had done and he took my daughter's life," she told reporters.
"He will pay, he will pay for hurting those children out there and my daughter. He will pay. He deserves everything he gets coming to him," said Bryant, who said she woke up early Friday "and felt something was wrong."
"I love her. I always have and I always will. ... I'll see her again. I will."
Couey late Friday remained in the custody of authorities in Georgia. Dawsy said he was working with the state's attorney about the extradition process, adding that they have built "a very methodical case."
Sex offender's 'associates' questioned
Citrus County Sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said four people who were "associates" of Couey were taken to police headquarters Friday evening for questioning, following a lookout posted for them. She did not disclose what significance investigators placed on them.
Outside the home where Couey lived, authorities sealed off the area with yellow crime scene tape and sheriff's deputies could be seen combing the area.
Jessica Marie Lunsford was last seen on February 23 when friends dropped her off after going to church and her grandmother tucked her in to bed for the night in the family's home in Homosassa Springs. She was missing the next morning.
The case had puzzled investigators because there was no sign of forced entry. Jessica's room was intact with no signs of a struggle, but a stuffed animal her dad won for her at a state fair was missing. And except for an unlocked front door, the home where she lived with her father and grandparents was undisturbed.
Arrest made in Georgia
A relative told detectives that Couey left Florida February 28 on a bus -- under an assumed name -- for Savannah, where he was interviewed by police Saturday at a shelter. Savannah police had no jurisdiction to hold him, and he eventually made his way to Augusta, more than 100 miles away where he was arrested at a Salvation Army shelter.
Couey has a criminal record spanning more than three decades and 24 arrests. Interviews with Couey began Thursday in Georgia, when authorities spoke with him for almost four hours, and resumed early Friday. He had been arrested on probation violation charges.
Couey was among a number of sex offenders whom police looked for after Jessica was reported missing, authorities said. When they went to the residence where he was mostly recently registered as living, he could not be found, and authorities determined that he was living with his relatives across from the Lunsford home.
Couey was registered in Citrus County as a sex offender, and under state law, a convicted sex offender must register any change of address.
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