New development in Tiffany Sessions cold case
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office is searching a site along County Road 225 in northeast Alachua County after receiving a tip in the disappearance of Tiffany Sessions.
Sessions disappeared on February 9, 1989, while out jogging near her Gainesville apartment. Paul Rowles, a convicted murderer and rapist, has been identified as the lead suspect, but he died in prison. Kevin Allen, ACSO’s cold case investigator, has continued to work on the case.
A witness recently came to the Sheriff’s Office, saying that although they were very young at the time, they remember seeing a red truck along CR225 and a man, who fit the description of Rowles, dragging a woman, who fit the description of Sessions, off the road into the woods, possibly while she was trying to escape. The witness’s memory fit the time frame of Sessions’s disappearance.
The Sheriff’s Office, along with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has been searching and excavating the forested land where the witness remembered seeing the incident. Cadaver dogs have joined the search, and additional excavation has occurred where the dogs alerted. They have not found a body, but they have found some evidence that will be processed. They will also continue to do more work at the site.
Sheriff Sadie Darnell said, “We’re still hopeful. We’re going to follow up, as we do on every case, whenever we have credible information, for as long as it takes… I’m real proud of the hard work that’s being done and the commitment that we’ve made.”
She said the Sessions family has been at the site and that it’s been very difficult for them to think that Tiffany may have almost escaped.
“If anyone, even after all this time, since 1989, anyone who may have some information… they may have brought it forward way back then, they may not have, for whatever reasons, anyone who has some information about this or any other case—Lila Leach, out of Newberry… Jasmine Robinson, out of Archer, we’re still trying to find her, as a missing person, and her newborn… if anyone has any information about any of those cases, or any other case, please come forward with that. You never know how it may help and impact and do good and relieve some family members.”