Claudine Jaquier Gifford Missing Person Case

Jan 28, 2026

Jan 28, 2026

Claudine

Jaquier Gifford

43

43

5'4 inches

112 lbs

White

Female

In the summer of 2014, a sense of unease settled over the small community of White Stone, Virginia, with the disappearance of 43-year-old Claudine Jaquier Gifford. On the evening of July 6, Claudine, a woman described by friends as quiet and private, was last seen leaving a local tiki bar at the Windmill Point Marina. She had moved to Virginia in 2013, seeking a hiatus from her 16-year marriage, and was living apart from her husband and teenage daughter who were in Florida. At the time of her disappearance, she was in the company of her boyfriend of about two months, James Todd Kessler. Witnesses at the bar noted that although Claudine had only a few drinks, she was so intoxicated that Kessler had to carry her to his vehicle. This evening would be the last time she was ever seen, sparking a heart-wrenching search and a complex investigation into her whereabouts. The initial accounts of what happened to Claudine came from Kessler, but his stories were inconsistent and raised immediate suspicion. He initially claimed that after they drove less than a mile from the bar, Claudine became angry and wanted to keep drinking, so he stopped the car and let her out, and she walked away. He later altered his story, suggesting that four men had helped her into a silver SUV. Loved ones reported her missing the following day, deeply concerned for her safety, while Kessler appeared unconcerned. The relationship between Claudine and Kessler was described as troubled; friends reported his heavy drinking and possessive behavior, noting that he had called her incessantly during a recent trip she took to Florida to visit family. As investigators delved deeper, they uncovered physical evidence, including bloodstains later confirmed to be Claudine's in Kessler's home and car. Furthermore, cell phone records contradicted Kessler's account, placing Claudine's phone near his family home on the night she vanished, not at the marina where he claimed to have left her. Less than two weeks after Claudine's disappearance, Kessler was involved in an altercation at the same bar and was subsequently arrested on assault charges. While incarcerated for that incident, in March 2015, authorities charged him with the first-degree murder and malicious concealment of a dead body in connection with Claudine's case. The prosecution's theory was that Kessler had beaten and strangled her to death after she told him she was planning to leave and return to Florida. In August 2015, after a six-day trial built on a foundation of circumstantial evidence, a jury found James Todd Kessler guilty of second-degree murder and concealment of a body. He received a sentence of 45 years in prison. The conviction was a rare legal outcome, marking only the fourth time in Virginia's history that a murder conviction had been secured without the victim's body. The case remains a somber story of a woman seeking a new beginning whose life was tragically cut short; despite the conviction of her killer, Claudine Jaquier Gifford's body has never been recovered, leaving her family without a final resting place and the full sense of closure they deserve.

Jul 06, 2014

White Stone

Virginia

White Stone

Lancaster County Sheriff's Office

804-462-5111

06/14/2026