Twenty-five years ago, UF student Tiffany Sessions left her apartment for a walk and never returned.
Today, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office will release new information about the case. It will also name a suspect: deceased serial killer Paul Rowles, according to TiffanySessions.com.
The sheriff’s office plans to address “significant developments” and give more details so the public can help move the case forward, it said in a news release.
“Details of the investigation, case photographs, and information regarding the new suspect will be made available ... in the hope that disclosing this information will result in leads from the public that may help solve this case,” according to the release.
Rowles, who died in prison last year, was jailed for at least two murders, a kidnapping and sexual battery.
He was sent to prison for killing and raping a 20-year-old in 1972, life paroled in 1985 and moved to Gainesville in 1988.
Sessions, a blonde 20-year-old UF finance junior wearing red sweatpants and a white sweatshirt, disappeared Feb. 9, 1989.
She told her roommate she was going for her nightly walk from the Casablanca East condominiums down Williston Road at about 6 p.m.
When Sessions wasn’t back by 8 p.m., her roommate called the police.
On Monday, officers were excavating an area near the intersection of SW Williston Road and SW 13th Street behind All Star Sports Bar, where they have reason to believe they may find more clues.
That’s where, in March 1992, police found the buried body of 21-year-old Santa Fe College student Elizabeth Foster. She was one of Rowles’ victims.
An autopsy showed she had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death, according to a warrant affidavit.
While Foster was missing, officers searched many of the same areas — including Bivens Arm Nature Park, Morningside Nature Center and part of Paynes Prairie — they had in 1989, when Sessions disappeared. But at the time, authorities insisted there were no immediate links between the cases.
Cpl. Larry Roberts told the Alligator in 1992 that “‘the only similarity I can see is we have two disappeared young ladies.’”
In 1992, then-Alachua County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Spencer Mann said there was no other evidence that connected the Foster and Sessions cases.
At the site police were excavating Wednesday evening, bright yellow sheriff’s line tape wove in and out of trees on the edge of a wooded area.
Most of the people at the scene had gone back to their homes and offices to prepare for the next day — a day that Sessions’ friends and family members will hopefully return home from with more information as to why their loved one never did.
People who think they may have information about this incident can call the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office at 352-384-3323.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 2/6/2014 under the headline "Police to name suspect in 1989 missing student case"]
Alachua County Sheriff’s Office deputies blocked off areas with caution tape Monday where they’ve been excavating in connection with the cold case of Tiffany Sessions, a UF student who went missing in 1989. More details will be released today.
