It’s been 35 years since Tiffany Sessions disappeared while taking a walk in southwest Gainesville on Feb. 9, 1989.
The 20-year-old University of Florida is believed to have been abducted and killed by convicted murderer and rapist Paul Rowles, who died of cancer at age 64 in 2013 while serving a 19-year sentence in South Florida for sexual battery and kidnapping. Sessions’ remains, however, have never been found.
“I haven’t given up hope yet,” her mother, Hilary Sessions, 78, said by phone Wednesday. “My quest is to find Tiffany’s remains and give her a Christian burial.”
Rowles, whom Hilary Sessions would only refer to as “the bad guy,” was linked to the case after his death by cold case Detective Kevin Allen in April 2013. Allen acquired a box of Rowels’ personal items, which included a black notebook. Inside the notebook were written references to Linda Fida, whom Rowles was convicted of killing in 1972, and to Elizabeth Foster, a 21-year-old student found dead in 1992 that he was later linked to by DNA evidence in a 1994 child sexual battery case.