Nearly two decades after a Florida woman vanished from her apartment building without a trace, authorities have announced a new break that could breathe new life into a formerly cold case. 

Jennifer Kesse, 24, vanished from her Orlando condo complex after leaving for work on the morning of Jan. 24, 2006, stumping both state and federal investigators as authorities raced to catch her abductor. 

"About an hour and a half into the workday, I received a call from her work," Drew Kesse, Jennifer’s father, told Fox News Digital. "And they said, ‘Hey, Jennifer had a meeting this morning, it’s not like her to show up. Do you know where she is?’" 

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Kesse immediately tried to reach his daughter – relying on a family rule that they would always answer each other's calls – but her phone went straight to voicemail. 

"I knew something was wrong immediately," Kesse said. 

Kesse and his wife, Joyce, quickly made the two-hour drive from their home in Tampa to Orlando, where they found their daughter’s apartment empty with several outfit choices laid out on the bed. 

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The parents immediately called the Orlando Police Department to report Jennifer missing. 

"They looked around her apartment, shrugged their shoulders and said, ‘She had a fight with her boyfriend probably, she’ll be back,’" Kesse said. "They walked out. And that was Jennifer’s last chance." 

More than a decade later, the family filed a lawsuit against the City of Orlando, OPD and the mayor’s office, citing a botched investigation into Kesse's disappearance and requesting documents pertaining to the search. 

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OPD, the City of Orlando and the mayor's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

The lawsuit resulted in the first successful request for records involving an ongoing case, with the city handing over 16,000 pages of materials involved in the investigation. Drew Kesse compiled a team of 13 members of law enforcement – including former U.S. Secret Service and FBI agents – to continue advancing the search for his daughter. 

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In November 2022, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) took over the case, with any leads into Kesse’s disappearance eventually running cold. 

Until last month, when Kesse received a call from FDLE telling him that investigators had obtained new DNA evidence and, using a list compiled by Kesse’s team, narrowed down their persons of interest.

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"[FDLE] said that they no longer consider Jennifer’s case cold," Kesse said. "It is active. They are on what they need to do and they truly believe that they are getting somewhere."  

FDLE declined Fox News Digital’s request for comment, citing the ongoing investigation. 

Kesse credits the break in the case to his own team of investigators and new technology removing previous roadblocks pertaining to evidence. 

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The team asked NASA to enhance security footage revealing Jennifer’s car was removed from her apartment complex on the day of her disappearance, reemerging three days later at a separate condo parking lot one mile down the road, with the driver’s face obscured by a nearby gate where the vehicle was found. 

"We have film of that [car] being parked," Kesse told Fox News Digital. "A person stays in it for 32 seconds, gets out and walks away."  

Kesse hopes the use of artificial intelligence will lead investigators to identify the person of interest. 

Additionally, two witnesses previously reported seeing Jennifer and a man fighting while in the front seat of her black Chevy Malibu. Records obtained by the family also indicated the hood of Jennifer’s vehicle was covered with dust from ongoing construction at her condo complex and indicated signs of a struggle. 

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"An unidentified person of interest and possible suspect was photographed parking Jennifer Kesse’s vehicle and walking away. The unidentified person was approximately 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-5 and was wearing white clothes similar to a painter or a manual worker," a missing persons flyer from the FDLE says. "Prior to Kesse’s disappearance, she had complained about some construction workers that were working on her apartment complex and were making her uneasy."

For now, the family is anxiously awaiting any new information that could potentially reveal what happened to Jennifer. 

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"I want to know where Jennifer is," Kesse said. "Dead or alive." 

Anyone with information about Jennifer’s disappearance is encouraged to contact FDLE’s Orlando office at (407) 245-0888 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

In light of Jennifer’s disappearance, the Florida House of Representatives unanimously passed "The Jennifer Kesse and Tiffany Sessions Missing Persons Act," fundamentally reforming how missing persons reports are investigated in Florida by requiring law enforcement agencies to enact written policies for handling such cases. 

"Until authorities finally put [Jennifer’s disappearance] together, hopefully very soon, we’ll keep working," Kesse told Fox News Digital. "We keep moving forward with the authorities, hopefully to bring her home someday." 

Fox News Digital's Audrey Conklin contributed to this report. 

Candace Cameron Bure is opening up about the various weight-loss trends taking over Hollywood. 

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Bure – who released a new devotional, "100 Days of Joy and Strength: A Daily Devotional Journey" last week – got candid about the "scary" way certain fads are reshaping people's perspectives on body image in Hollywood and explained how her faith has helped her in her own journey of finding and embracing body positivity. 

"It can be scary, although I feel like this younger generation has already had so much more body positivity that I hope they understand that it's a trend," the "Full House" alum, 49, said. "I think of my daughter, and she just doesn't have the same viewpoint of body image that I did growing up, and especially as a child of the ‘80s and ’90s. It's like mine's all messed up. I am middle-aged, and I still have all of these thoughts as to the perfect body and this and that, and it's troubling."

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"Yet my daughter and her friends and all of that have way less, they don't think about bodies like that," she continued. "So I hope that they do understand that it's a trend. But yeah, it does freak me out. It makes me sad to see everyone suddenly becoming skinny because I think it's very triggering for a lot of people our age that grew up in the ‘80s and ’90s. It was the ‘Kate Moss era’ and you're like, ‘Oh, this is what we have to be attractive.’"

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"But we know that's not true," she added. "And we also know just to apply it back to biblical principles, that God does not love us more or less dependent upon our weight or our body size or our shape. He doesn't love us or value us anymore or less depending on how we look. He's a God of the heart that judges the heart, and it's all about who we are on the inside. And that is where I will continually go back to. No matter how the culture changes in terms of diet and what fad and what body type is in, I know that God loves me for who I am and my heart and doesn't pay attention to the exterior and places no value in it whatsoever."

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With drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro used as a weight-loss solution for many, Bure said it's important to understand the "why" behind people's decisions to use them. 

"I don't say this to just be a broad brush and be neutral when I say that you really do need to do what works for you," she said. "I think the most important part is the ‘why’ are you doing these things? Why do you work out? Why do you eat well? Why do you want weight-loss drugs? Why? And those reasons are very different for all people."

"For me, I have to come down to the ‘Why do I want to take care of myself the way that I do?’ I want to be healthy. I want to enjoy my later years as I age. I want to enjoy them to the fullest. So I want a strong body. I want to lift weights. I want to eat well to nourish my body so that I can have a long life with my children and my grandchildren and my husband and I want to be active. Those are my whys."

"And whether weight-loss drugs are included for you in that journey to be your best, that's up to each individual. And I kind of let that go," she added. "You see so much of Hollywood getting skinny all of a sudden, and there's a little place of jealousy as a woman that it's like, ‘Oh, this is the easy way out.’ And yet I know that's not true for everybody. And I really had to just take a step back and say, ‘Why am I jealous? Why am I feeling this way?’"

Earlier this year, Bure – who has three adult children with husband Valeri Bure – shared how she managed to develop healthy boundaries when it comes to body positivity. 

"I've whipped my body," an emotional Bure told podcast guests Allie Schnacky and daughter, Natasha Bure, during an episode of "The Candace Cameron Bure Podcast." "I've spoken to it so harshly. So mean."

Recounting a dream she once had, Bure said a certain Bible verse – Numbers 22 – allowed her to view her body in a different light.

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"And then God allowed my body to speak back, and my body said back to me, 'Have I not been the body that's carried you all the days of your life? Am I not your legs that allow you to walk? Am I not your arms that allow you to pick up and feed yourself?… Why do you hurt me so badly, and why do you talk to me so badly, and why do you treat me this way? I can lift you up… you have to tell me what to do. I'm following your lead.'"

"And it was like this amazing revelation in my life," she continued. "And the weirdest story out of the Bible, that God spoke to me about how mean I've been to my body. I never saw it that way – it's this beautiful, amazing thing that God gave me." 

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Bure admitted she now has "a whole different perspective of how I think about my body."

The actress later took to social media to share a clip of the episode.

"I was so mean to myself… and looking back it breaks my heart. Learning to speak with kindness to my body has been a journey, and I know I’m not alone in this. To those who relate – I hope you can feel me giving you the biggest virtual hug right now. And I hope you’ll join me in showing ourselves the grace and love we truly deserve," she said.

She said her faith eventually helped her recover. "It was never about the weight for me," she told People in 2016. "It was an emotional issue."

Ahead of her book's release, Bure also opened up to Fox News Digital about her personal journey of growth, shared the unexpected ways God has shown up for her, and explained how her new book will offer guidance and encouragement to those seeking daily fulfillment. 

"I am always amazed because He always shows up, and it's sometimes in unexpected ways," Bure said. "Sometimes it's the way I want Him to show up, and sometimes it's the way I was hoping He wouldn't show up, but He did."

"But what I've learned over the years in knowing Him and knowing His character is that He's always there, literally always there," she added. "So, sometimes, in the scariest moments, when I'm like, ‘God, I need you with me. I need to feel your presence. Bring me through this.’ And sometimes you want the win at the end, He brings you through, and you're like, ‘Yes, I did it.’

"And sometimes you lose, sometimes you fail, but it's in those moments that I've realized, 'God, you were with me. You actually helped push me through, even if it ended up being a failure, even if I don't feel very courageous, and I feel like it just wasn't what I wanted it to be. The fact that I actually did it, I pushed through the fear, I had the courage, or I had the stamina to walk another step, that's because of You.'"