Disorder in the Court: The Chaotic Trial and Life Sentence of Kimberly Kessler

During Kimberly Kessler's trial , News4Jax reported that she was incredibly disruptive, to put it mildly. Kessler was charged with the murder of her former coworker Joleen Cummings, and had spent most of the time turning the legal proceedings into a circus. She often accused her former attorney of being related to Joleen, which was not true.

Outside of court, seven "Nassau County corrections deputies have testified about multiple incidents involving human excrement, making vulgar statements, refusing to eat, and acting out when Kessler doesn’t get what she wants." It was a nightmare. What became of the woman who tried to frame herself as too incompetent to stand trial? Here's what we know about Kimberly Kessler now.

Where is Kimberly Kessler now? She is serving her time in a Florida prison.

In January 2022, Kessler was handed a life sentence, which is mandatory in Florida, for a first-degree murder conviction.

Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper told News4Jax that this was a cause for celebration, as they had been dealing with Kessler's unacceptable behavior for four years. "We’re going to celebrate her home going, because her new home, for the rest of her life, until she takes her last breath, is going to be Florida State Prison," said Sheriff Leeper.

And while everyone at the Nassau County Sheriff's Department was undoubtedly overjoyed at the thought of no longer dealing with an erratic Kessler, they still took her health very seriously.

"She has over the past few weeks attempted to take her life and was unsuccessful, but we wanted to keep her safe in our jail so we could get rid of her and put her in the state’s hands and let them deal with her now," he said. The cost for all of this was a whopping $215,000 of taxpayer's money.

Kessler is currently incarcerated at Lowell Correctional Facility in Ocala, Fla. A little over two years later, Kessler was requesting a new trial in the form of a 224-page motion that she had written herself on notebook paper, per News4Jax .

In it, she claims she was not disorderly during her trial, though there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. She also claimed there was insufficient evidence to support the charges lodged against her, and said she was "deprived of counsel and falsely accused of being incompetent."

What happened to Joleen Cummings?

According to The Florida Times-Union , Joleen was last seen on May 12, 2018, at the salon where she worked. Joleen left at around 5 p.m. and was scheduled to meet her then-husband the following day. When she didn't show up, police tried calling her cell phone but it went straight to voicemail. Kessler, her co-worker, was the last person to see Joleen but when investigators attempted to speak with her at the salon on May 14, she didn't show up for work.

The following day, Joleen's abandoned vehicle was found in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Yulee. Surveillance footage revealed that Kessler parked it there a little after 1 a.m. on May 13. Police later found traces of Joleen's blood on the receptionist's desk at the salon, on a pair of scissors, as well as on Kessler's clothing and boots, per News4Jax.

Kessler had also done some questionable searching online. She looked up how to dismember a body and was very thorough when it came to cleaning the salon. Many pointed to those actions when deciding if she was competent to stand trial. Ultimately, she was.