NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – Kimberly Kessler, who is serving a life sentence for killing her former co-worker, Joleen Cummings, is asking for her murder conviction to be thrown out.
Kessler’s 224-page motion for a new trial was handwritten on notebook paper.
Kessler claims that there is insufficient evidence to support charges of first-degree murder and grand theft auto.
According to her case summary, Kessler said she was deprived of counsel and falsely accused of being incompetent.
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She also said she was never disruptive nor disrespectful during her trial, despite repeated outbursts captured on camera that led to her being removed from the courtroom, shouting “Jordan Beard is Joleen’s cousin.”
Beard had been part of Kessler’s defense team at one point, but Kessler’s claim that he was related to Cummings is not true.
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Because of the outbursts, she was not permitted in the courtroom for even a single day of her 2021 trial, which ended in her conviction for killing Cummings, whose body has never been found.
Kessler was sentenced to life in prison in January 2022.
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Cummings, who was reported missing in May 2018, was a mother of three who worked with Kessler at a Nassau County hair salon.
Kessler’s case encountered years of delays because she was initially found not competent to stand trial. That decision was later reversed.
In Kessler’s motion to dismiss her conviction, she claims there is a lack of evidence that Cummings is dead and that Cummings should be considered a missing person, not a murder victim.
Kessler argues that enhanced penalties in this case should not be applied since Cummings was a hairdresser and not a law enforcement officer.
She also accuses witnesses of lying and claims she was at a gym in Jacksonville during the time that surveillance video shows her leaving Cummings’ vehicle in a parking lot in Nassau County the night she disappeared.
The state has 60 days to respond to the motion.