Sex Offender Admits Killing Girl, Police Say

HOMOSASSA, Fla. — A registered sex offender admitted Friday that he kidnapped and killed a 9-year-old girl who disappeared from her bedroom more than three weeks ago, and he told police where they could find her body, authorities said.

John Evander Couey, 46, had been arrested Thursday and named a “person of interest” in Jessica Lunsford’s disappearance. He confessed to authorities after taking a lie-detector test, Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said.

“At the end of the polygraph, he said, ‘You don’t have to tell me the results. I know what they are,’ ” Dawsy said. “He apologized to the investigators for wasting their time.”

Authorities cordoned off an area near the home of Couey’s half sister, who lived about 150 yards from the home Jessica shared with her father and grandparents. Dawsy would not comment on what investigators were doing in the area, but said it would “take hours.” Police had yet to recover a body.

A sheriff’s spokeswoman who answered the phone at the Lunsford home Friday evening said the family declined to make a comment. Jessica’s father, Mark Lunsford, has said the family did not know Couey.

Jessica, a third-grader, was last seen when she went to bed in her home Feb. 23. She was discovered missing the next morning, with the door unlocked and her stuffed animal gone. The clothes she had laid out for school were still in place, and none of her shoes was missing.

Authorities said Couey left Florida about March 4 after telling relatives that police would be looking for him. He was arrested in Augusta, Ga., on a probation violation for failing to notify officials that he was moving, a requirement for sex offenders. He was awaiting extradition to Florida on Friday.