Joleen Cummings was 34 years old and had three children when she finished her shift at Tangles Hair Salon in Fernandina Beach, Florida, in May 2018. She never came home.
The alarm was raised on Mother’s Day, when she didn’t show up to pick up her children. Her car was abandoned outside a Home Depot. Investigators focused on a coworker who went by the name Jennifer Sybert and was arrested in connection with the vehicle.
That’s when things took an unexpected turn: her real name was Kimberly Kessler. For more than two decades, she had moved between dozens of cities using at least 18 different aliases. Traces of blood were found inside the salon.
In December 2021, a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and vehicle theft after deliberating for less than three hours. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Joleen’s body was never found.
