My Single Mom Life

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Jessica Lunsford, the cute little 9 year old girl pictured here, was kidnapped, raped and murdered 3 years ago, by John Couey who lived just across from her home. Couey admitted that he kept her alive for 4 days before finally killing her, and that is part of the reason that Mark Lunsford is suing the Citrus County Sheriff's office.

The proposed lawsuit, which has not yet been filed, claims that if law enforcement officers had searched the mobile home of John Couey, the registered sex offender convicted of Jessica's rape and murder, instead of just searching the home's yard the night the 9 year-old girl disappeared, she would have been discovered.

Evidence revealed during Couey's trial showed that Jessica was kept alive for as many as four days before being buried alive. Couey was sentenced to death in August for the crimes.

Lunsford claims he is suing not for the money, but to bring about a change in the laws for searching the homes of sex offenders.
The Jessica Lunsford Act was created after her death, that made the monitoring of sex offenders even more strict, so sheriff Jeff Dawsy doesn't believe this is happening. He said he was disappointed and surprised that the intent to file suit was taking place.
Dawsy says the little girl was dead long before they hit the streets looking for her.
But that information directly conflicts with the statement by Couey, who says she was alive and in a closet from 3 to 6 days before killing her. He stated they could hear the searchers calling for her, and she was inside his sisters mobile home, alive.

During the search for Jessica, the mobile home's property and yard were searched several times, there are reports that neighbors told the officers to search inside the home, that something was going on in there, but the officers never searched inside the home.
The intent to sue also states that if the neighbors had been told about Couey's status as a sex offender when he moved in just 2 weeks before her disappearance, she might have been saved.

Lunsford says the sheriff's office wasted valuable time investigating his own father, questioning him about Jessica, instead of searching the home of the sex offender who lived just 100 yards from their front door.

But there are many critics of Lunsford, many calling him a liar and shady, and only suing for his own financial gain.
Lunsford has been given a brand new H2, (Hummer) "living high on the hog", he has a checkered past some are saying, others want to know where all the money raised from the charity rides has gone. They want an audit of all the monies raised and given to Lunsford.
Local radio personality, Bubba the love sponge, has been doing his own investigation into Lunsford.
It has been said that Bubba is about to expose Lunsford, and has had private investigators digging deep into his past and financial records.

Many people are questioning Lunsford's activities.
On the night Jessica was abducted, Lunsford was out partying at a bar with his 18 year old girlfriend. He and Jessica lived with his parents, and they left the door unlocked for him for whenever he came home.
The sheriffs confiscated Lunsford's computer and found some disturbing images on it, yet because his daughter was missing, they halted any investigation into those photographs.

This topic is high on many local Florida forums, a lot of people have some very strong opinions of Mark Lunsford, some calling him a meth head, a junkie, and having some dealings which are shady and possibly illegal.

I don't know where I stand on this.
I am now questioning his finances myself. He went from living with his parents, into a brand new home, driving an H2 that was given to him, and there have been many charity rides to raise money for the Lunsford foundation, but where is the money?
There is no accounting of those monies raised, and what about those pictures on his computer?
What were they of, and why did the police not investigate any further?
This will be an interesting story to follow, and if the suit does go forward, I am hoping that an audit of all the charity monies raised is done before letting this go any further.
I think people deserve to know what happened to that money, and if this suit is really about changing the policy on sex offenders, or if it's just for Lunsford's own gains.