30 years later, Tiffany Sessions remains missing

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – It's been 30 years since Tiffany Sessions disappeared in Gainesville.

The family of Sessions is holding out hope that they will learn the truth of what happened to her.

Five years ago, her family members spoke with News4Jax. 

In February 1989, the University of Florida junior went for her routine hourlong jog in Gainesville. She was never seen again.

"She was the life of the party, a lot of fun, very outgoing, very social," Sessions' brother, Jason Sessions, said. "It wouldn't surprise me if somebody stopped at the side of the road if she was walking by, for her to approach the vehicle and speak with them."

"Until we find the answers, we can't really have peace with it, either," Jason Sessions said. "So you live forever searching for those answers and trying to bring comfort to the family

and what we are missing."

Five years ago, Alachua County detectives named Paul Rowles the prime suspect responsible for the disappearance of the 20-year-old college student.

Rowles died in prison six years ago while doing time for kidnapping and sexual battery.

Rowles was in Gainesville working as a pizza delivery man and for a construction company at the same time Sessions and another woman, whose body was discovered, lived there.

Jason Sessions said he has no doubt Rowles hurt his sister.

"We received reports over the years of Tiffany getting into a red car, and certainly Rowles was driving a red Bronco, so that matches up pretty clearly," he said.

The site where investigators recently searched is where the body of another victim was found in 1992.

Rowles' first victim was a woman from Miami whom he was convicted of killing in 1972, but he was released from prison nine years later.

"If you look at his previous victims, his first victim in the '70s was kind of a spitting image of my sister," Jason Sessions said.

Many wonder how Rowles could have gotten out of prison after just nine years when he was sentenced to life.

The Florida Parole Commission in 1985 ruled to release him and have him undergo psychiatric counseling and register as a sex offender.

That apparently didn't happen until after his Duval County convictions in 1994, after he is believed to have kidnapped and murdered Tiffany Sessions.

Rowles lived in Arlington in the 1990s, not far from Jacksonville University. That's why the Sessions family and police are asking for people living in Jacksonville as well as Gainesville to tell the police if they have any information about Rowles or Tiffany Sessions.

The Alachua County Sheriff's Department sent out the following tweet: 

If you have any information about this case, you're asked to contact Alachua County sheriff's Detective Kevin Allen at (352) 384-3323.