Communion Service for Jessie Bardwell

Friends, family and fellow church members from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Pascagoula offered up prayers, hoping for the safe return of one of their own.
Twenty-seven year-old Jessie Bardwell disappeared on Mother’s Day and while she is still missing, her boyfriend is behind bars in Texas charged with murder. News 25’s Gina Tomlinson was at the prayer vigil today.
Friends and family of Jessie Bardwell are hoping for the best, praying for the Pascagoula native’s safe return at a Monday communion service for her at Saint John’s in her hometown. Family friend Kristen Pugh said, “Father Tom led us in some prayers for Jessie, for the responders and investigators searching for her and for her family to give them strength.”
Members of the community also rallied together at a Sunday night candle light vigil for Jessie, who was living in Richardson, Texas with her boyfriend when she went missing on Mother’s Day. Her boyfriend, Jason Lowe, is now charged with murder. While authorities remain tight-lipped on what led them to Lowe’s arrest for murder, Jessie’s brother, Brandon Bardwell, had plenty to say. “If it was up to me, it’d be an eye for an eye. I know a lot of people that are mad and frustrated about things like this probably say that a lot, but that’s what I believe.”
Jessie’s junior high school teacher, Jewel Rowell, was also at Monday’s service. She tells News 25 she is still hoping for Jessie’s safe return and doesn’t usually wish anybody harm but if Lowe is the one responsible for her death, “I would like to hurt the boy. If he did something to Jessie, because Jessie doesn’t deserve it and neither does her family.”
Members of the community tell News 25 this is the Bardwell family’s church and anytime they’d see Jessie here, she’d have a smile on her face. “Those smiles you see on Facebook, that’s what you see whether you see her one time or whether you see her a thousand times, that smile is her,” said Pugh.
As details slowly emerge, an entire community continues to rally, showing they’ll be there for the Bardwell’s every step of the way. “We have the support of a whole town that knows us,” said Brandon.
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