JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A witness interviewed in the case of a missing Nassau County woman told First Coast News that suspect Kimberly Kessler was searching for an un-traceable phone in the months leading up to the woman's disappearance.
Kessler has been charged with premeditated first-degree murder in the case Joleen Cummings, a Nassau County mother of three who went missing back in May 2018. Kessler has pleaded not guilty. Cummings remains were never found.
John Oozoonian, a cell phone store owner from Jacksonville, was mentioned in a list of evidence released in the Kessler trial. He said Kessler approached him about two months before Cummings' disappearance to inquire about an untraceable phone.
"Right off the bat, I thought something was really odd with this girl," Oozoonian told First Coast News. Oozoonian said Kessler was going by the name "Mia" when they met.
"She was looking for a phone that could be untraceable," he recalled, "said it was to keep her ex-husband from tracking her."
Kessler told Oozoonian that her ex-husband was stalking her and tracking her via her cell phone.
When Oozoonian suggested putting Kessler in touch with a family member who worked with the FBI to file a report, he said Kessler refused.
"She didn't want to hear that," he said. "The expression on her face when I mentioned the FBI -- she was like something bothered her."
Oozoonian said Kessler stayed in his shop for about 45 minutes before she finally left.
About 20 minutes later, he said Kessler called him and offered to buy him a drink.
The two then went to Bold City Brewery in Downtown Jacksonville. While at the bar, Oozoonian said a security guard in uniform walked by and Kessler became nervous.
"When that guy walked in front of us at the bar where we were sitting, she looked like she'd seen the devil himself," Oozoonian said, recalling the guard's uniform was similar to a police uniform. "All of sudden she said, 'What is that cop looking at us for?'"
By the end of the meeting, Oozoonian felt that something wasn't right.
"This girl's a nut case," he said. "She was running from the law. No normal person asks these questions running from a man. No, they would have called the law. There's no way. Something's odd with her."
Oozoonian didn't hear from Kessler after their meeting. About two months later, Oozoonian received a call from a friend who told him Kessler was arrested in connection to the disappearance of Cummings.
On May 13, surveillance video showed Kessler leaving Cummings' car in a Nassau County Home Depot parking lot about two miles from Tangles Salon where both women worked.
After leaving the car, the video showed Kessler at a Gate gas station next door to Home Depot. Kessler asked a clerk at the store to call her a cab, according to an audio interview with the clerk.
Ooozoonian said he does not believe Cummings disappeared the night he and Kessler met, but he does believe Kessler has a dark past.
"If you've been on the run for as many years as she's been on the run and using all these fake names ... anytime she sees the law, of course, she's going to run," he said.
Kessler's next pre-trial date is Feb. 28.