Where Are You Jacob?

Summary

20/20: "Where Are You Jacob?" (July 18, 2026)

Episode Overview

This gripping episode of ABC News' 20/20 investigates the heartbreaking abduction of Jacob Wetterling, an 11-year-old boy from rural Minnesota who vanished in 1989. The episode meticulously retraces the day of Jacob's disappearance, the decades-long investigation, the ripple effects on his family and community, and the eventual resolution brought by new forensic advances, the dedication of investigators, and the efforts of civilian allies. Through interviews with Jacob’s family, law enforcement, survivors, and determined citizen investigators, the story unfolds as both a haunting true crime account and a testament to resilience, collective action, and hope.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Night of the Abduction: Recounting October 22, 1989 ([00:42]-[16:07])

• Aaron Larson, Jacob's best friend, recalls their carefree bike ride interrupted by a masked man with a gun demanding their ages and ordering them to lay on the ground. He lets Aaron and Jacob's brother Trevor run away, then disappears with Jacob.

  "My first reaction was, I think I let out a laugh almost because I thought this must be a joke. Then it became real. Somebody took Jacob." - Aaron Larson [00:42]

• Patty Wetterling (Jacob's mother) and others describe the disbelief and chaos that followed. The community and law enforcement mobilize quickly for a widespread search, struggling with the thought that something so horrific could happen in their safe small town.

• Law enforcement takes immediate action, interviewing traumatized children and swiftly starting massive search operations. Tire tracks and footprints at the scene suggest an abductor with a vehicle.

2. The Impact on the Wetterling Family and Community ([16:36]-[32:24])

• The Wetterlings struggle with excruciating uncertainty. Patty shares her pain at seeing Jacob’s empty photo frame among her other children’s school pictures [15:21].

• The abduction shatters a sense of safety:

  "This man has put us behind locked doors and made us restrict our children's every movement. ... You couldn't be outside, you locked your doors, you kept track of your kids differently." - Patty Wetterling [24:07]

• Community Response: The town forms search parties, floods the area with reward posters, and reaches out to the national media, believing public attention will help bring Jacob home.

3. Similar Cases and a Pattern Emerges ([33:17]-[37:39])

• Investigators discover a chillingly similar abduction: In January 1989, 12-year-old Jared Scheierl in nearby Cold Spring survived a kidnapping and sexual assault where the abductor used nearly the same language as in Jacob’s case.

  "He told me to run as fast as I could to the woods or else he'd shoot." - Trevor Wetterling [20:23]
  "He claimed to know who I was, and if the authorities would ever come close to finding him, he would find me first and kill me." - Jared Scheierl [35:02]

• A string of unsolved assaults emerges in Paynesville, MN—another small town—along with a consistent description of the perpetrator: a masked man with a low, gravelly voice.

4. The Toll of Hopelessness and Perseverance ([38:04]-[47:07])

• Years pass with no resolution. The Wetterlings keep the porch light on as a symbol of hope for Jacob’s return and, in time, Patty becomes an advocate for missing children nationwide.

  "I refused to let the man who took Jacob take away anything more. You can't have my marriage. You can't have my kids. You can't have the world of innocence and believing in dreams..." - Patty Wetterling [85:03]

• False suspicions fall on neighbor Dan Rassier, whose home was near the abduction site, and who endured aggressive law enforcement scrutiny and public suspicion for years before eventually being cleared.

5. Civilian Advocacy and Renewed Investigation ([47:07]-[62:42])

• Joy Baker, a determined blogger, uncovers crucial links between the Wetterling case and previous attacks in Paynesville, reigniting public and investigative interest.

  "I found this story about these five cases of young teenage boys who had been followed, assaulted. ... Also very similar language. ... Like when they had been caught, he'd say, don't turn around or I'll blow your head off." - Joy Baker [50:26]

• DNA advances and a cold-case FBI team review the physical evidence—tire tracks, fiber, and eventually, biological traces from earlier assaults—leading them to re-examine an early suspect: Danny Heinrich.

6. Breakthrough and Justice ([62:42]-[81:06])

• DNA MATCH: Evidence links Danny Heinrich to the abduction and sexual assault of Jared Scheierl ([66:08]-[66:32]). However, the statute of limitations prevents a criminal charge for the earlier attack.

• In searching Heinrich’s home, investigators find child pornography and logs of Wetterling news coverage, but nothing directly linking him to Jacob.

• To secure answers, a plea deal is brokered: Heinrich confesses in exchange for revealing Jacob’s remains ([75:10]-[76:21]).

  “Do you want justice or do you want answers? It’s like, I want Jacob.” - Patty Wetterling [75:10]

7. The Tragic Truth and Its Consequences ([76:21]-[85:03])

• Heinrich’s confession lays out the harrowing final moments of Jacob’s life. Jacob was abducted, assaulted, and, when Heinrich saw police nearby, murdered and buried in Paynesville.

  "Jacob said he wanted to go home and started to cry." - Investigator [79:10] "Why did he have to kill him? Why two shots? It was just too much, too much." - Patty Wetterling [79:39]

• Heinrich is sentenced to 20 years on child pornography charges; while the statute of limitations prevents prosecution for several sexual assaults, civil litigation provides Jared and others with a degree of recognition and closure ([82:33]-[83:10]).

8. Jacob’s Enduring Legacy ([83:27]-end)

• Patty Wetterling channels her pain into advocacy, contributing to the implementation of sex offender registries and national discussions about child safety.

  "When I go out on the road and they show up because Jacob meant something to them ... he changed the world. It wasn't me, but it was the spirit of who this kid was and what he believed in. And it’s still shining." - Patty Wetterling [83:46]

• Friends and community remember Jacob's spirit as a catalyst for protecting children and fostering hope, refusing to surrender to fear.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Aaron Larson (on disbelief at the abduction):
  "This can't be real. And then once he said, 'I have a gun.' That fear level went from 0 to 1000 in probably 2 seconds." [09:43]

• Patty Wetterling (on the aftermath):
  “You take it down. But it was so hard because I had three of the kids school pictures on the wall and then there's this blank frame. It was just one of those heart wrenching moments.” [15:21]

• Jared Scheierl (on surviving and seeking justice):
  "There’s so many others. And who am I to sit there and say, woe is me?" [82:13]

• Patty Wetterling (on hope and action):
  "I refused to let the man who took Jacob take away anything more. ... You can't have the world of innocence and believing in dreams and going after your full potential." [85:03]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Jacob's abduction, night in St. Joseph: [00:42]-[16:07]
• Immediate aftermath, searching, media involvement: [24:27]-[32:24]
• Connection to Cold Spring abduction: [33:35]-[36:56]
• Discovery of earlier related Paynesville attacks: [50:15]-[54:44]
• Focus on suspect Dan Rassier, then shift to Danny Heinrich: [41:03]-[56:45]
• DNA break and search of Heinrich’s home: [66:08]-[69:51]
• Heinrich’s confession, resolution of Jacob’s case: [75:10]-[81:06]
• Patty’s activism, Jacob’s legacy: [83:27]-[85:03]

---

Conclusion

"Where Are You Jacob?" is a masterful blend of intimate storytelling, painstaking investigation, and a reflection on the resilience of both a family and community in the face of unimaginable tragedy. The episode goes beyond recounting a crime—it explores how grief can transform into advocacy, how community and technology can aid justice, and how a single child’s legacy can change the world.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This show is sponsored by Murder in the Heartland, a podcast from I D. Murder in the Heartland explores real crimes across small town America. Towns that might look a lot like your own. Every week, uncover shocking stories of murder and betrayal. From a suspicious hunting accident to a college student who disappears after her shift at the local bar. Hear from investigators, witnesses and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case. If you're interested in true crime with a small town twist, you might love this podcast. Listen to Murder in the Heartland wherever you get your podcasts.

[Aaron Larson]

That evening, the weather was perfect. It was one of those nights where the moon wasn't out and there's no stars. So we left probably close to around 8:30. I was actually on the scooter and then they're on their bikes. We weren't in a big hurry. We were just kind of cruising down the road. You couldn't see anything unless it was in our little circle of light from our little flashlights. A man came out from the left hand side. There's a little gravel driveway that leads back to a farm. And it's one of those like kind of ingrained where it comes out and he says stop and turn off your flashlights. And I have a gun. He told us to look at him and asked us how old we were. And so at the time, Trevor was 10 and myself and Jacob were both 11. I still remember my first reaction was, I think I let out a laugh almost because I thought this must be a joke. Then it became real. Somebody took Jacob.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

Growing up in St. Joseph, Minnesota was like growing up in classic small town America. Nobody locked their doors at night. Kids were able to run and play.

[Aaron Larson]

St. Joseph, Minnesota is known as St. Joe. You have a lot of the lakes that people enjoy.

[Friend/Neighbor]

It's a rural community, so there's lots of farmers and farm businesses in the area.

[Patty Wetterling]

Jerry was a chiropractor. He liked the feel of the small town, especially when you're building a practice.

[Interviewer]

What was life like for you at that time? When you think back to the 80s,

[Friend/Neighbor]

it was kind of nuts. Kids were in different sports, dance. It was just a really wild time.

[Patty Wetterling]

You can see four kids. It was pretty busy.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it looks like it.

[Patty Wetterling]

But they were fun.

[Interviewer]

Look at those, like stair steps too, with their ages.

[Patty Wetterling]

In 1989, Amy was 13, Jacob was 11, Trevor was 10 and Carmen was 8 years old. We bought this house in the woods. It just felt very peaceful here.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

I grew up right next door to the Wetterlings. All of the siblings in the Wetterling family had A very close, close relationship.

[Patty Wetterling]

I was a stay at home mom. We just played. It was fun. Trevor, you gotta get down low so it'll.

[Reporter]

Okay, wait.

[Patty Wetterling]

We gotta go down.

[Friend/Neighbor]

I think the favorite video is when Jacob portrayed me reading the newspaper.

[Patty Wetterling]

Daddy, I hit a ball and it accidentally broke my bones. That's okay. We will buy a new.

[Friend/Neighbor]

And then Trevor comes back up again and says, dad, I forgot to tape the game. And Jacob goes, what? You forgot to tape the game?

[Patty Wetterling]

I'm so angry. You're drowning for two weeks.

[Friend/Neighbor]

That's pretty funny.

[Patty Wetterling]

This is Jacob.

[Interviewer]

He looks so much like you.

[Patty Wetterling]

Yeah. Wow, he's cutie.

[Interviewer]

And what does this say about him?

[Patty Wetterling]

He loved playing hockey. And one year he decided to be goalie. But he was really good. He had a really good balance. If he stopped it, it was a great save. If it went in, that was a great shot.

[Interviewer]

What made him special to you?

[Patty Wetterling]

He just had a really good spirit.

[Friend/Neighbor]

Sweet. Innocent. Very real. A light. Light up a room.

[Aaron Larson]

I am Aaron Larson. Jacob Wetterling was my best friend. They were kind of the family that was willing to try anything.

[Interviewer]

It looked like you had it just really kind of all laid out very nicely with your family.

[Patty Wetterling]

We were happy. Everybody was busy. Well, you can see busy in this calendar.

[Interviewer]

And this is 1989.

[Patty Wetterling]

1989. This is January. I mean, every month this one is jammed. Yeah, this was school. Back to school. So you've got everything going on. And then this is October.

[Interviewer]

Now this is the month that you'll never forget. October 1980.

[Patty Wetterling]

October 22nd. Pretty much everything stops. It goes to nothing. It just stopped.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

October 22, 1989, is a very vivid date in my memory. It was a Sunday. We didn't have school the next day for some reason,

[Friend/Neighbor]

Jacob and I went fishing at a nearby lake. He had been practicing for a hockey tryout and he was just crazily having trouble staying on his skates. It was just really bugging him. So I suggested we go fishing. We had a really nice time fishing and. And came back around noontime.

[Patty Wetterling]

We all met in here to watch the Vikings game. Fumble penalty.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Marker down. And Joey Browner runs it in. But let's wait.

[Friend/Neighbor]

That particular night, we were invited to a dinner party.

[Interviewer]

You were going out to dinner with friends and the kids were going to stay here.

[Patty Wetterling]

And we asked Jacob if he minded babysitting. Amy was staying at a friend's house. We were just going to be gone a little bit. And he was in sixth grade. He said, sure, no problem. Can Aaron come over?

[Aaron Larson]

I remember being super excited because we actually get to hang out and we don't have school. The next day we left.

[Patty Wetterling]

We got to our friend's house, called home to give them the number. This is pre cell phone. You have to remember. They asked if they could ride their bikes to the store and rent a video. I initially said no. It was starting to get dark.

[Aaron Larson]

Being little boys, you kind of come up with not take no for that first answer.

[Patty Wetterling]

They've ridden to the store a million times, but not at night.

[Friend/Neighbor]

Where we lived in a kind of a little cul de sac wooded area to the town is a straight road, but cars can go fairly fast on that road. I was just concerned that they would be visible.

[Patty Wetterling]

Trevor said, well, let me talk to dad.

[Friend/Neighbor]

He had it all figured out. He said that Jacob was wearing my reflective running vest. Aaron had a white sweatshirt on and Trevor was carrying the flashlight.

[Interviewer]

They had everything taken care of.

[Friend/Neighbor]

So, okay, go and then come right home.

[Patty Wetterling]

But then they called a third time. These are responsible children. And they said, Carmen doesn't want to go with, is it okay if Rochelle comes over to babysit?

[Narrator/Local Resident]

So then I went over to the Wetterling house.

[Patty Wetterling]

As a parent, we were in direct contact with them and everything felt fine.

[Interviewer]

Like you'd done everything right that you could possibly do, right.

[Patty Wetterling]

And it's a 5 minute, 10 minute max bike ride. It's not far, it's a mile.

[Reporter]

Jacob Wetterling, his younger brother Trevor and Jacob's best friend Aaron take their bikes and scooter to go to the local Tom Thumb to rent a movie.

[Aaron Larson]

We went into Tom Thumb, the convenience store and we got the Naked Gun, the movie. And I remember also getting Blow Pops, just some suckers. And then we just headed back the same way we came down.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

They were just like getting really close within a half mile of their house. And all of a sudden this guy stepped out of the shadows and said, stop, I have a gun.

[Interviewer]

A guy wearing a mask took your son.

[Patty Wetterling]

Who would take a.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

It seemed like they weren't gone very long at all when all of the sudden Trevor rushed into the house, followed pretty closely by Aaron. And they were frantic, kind of screaming, Rochelle, Rachelle, someone took Jacob. There's a man with a gun and he's got Jacob.

[Aaron Larson]

My 11 year old mind at the time, I thought, this can't be real. And then once he said, I have a gun. That fear level went from 0 to 1000 in probably 2 seconds. We both got told the run. I caught up to Trevor and we looked back and Jacob wasn't there to

[Narrator/Commentator]

have a man jump up and abduct an 11 year old boy. It was inconceivable.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

I ended up calling my dad. He just came right over.

[Interviewer]

You both are having your dinner, then you get a phone call that I suspect you'll never forget.

[Patty Wetterling]

So he answered the phone and it was Rochelle's dad.

[Friend/Neighbor]

He asked for me and says the boys went to the Tom Thumb and a guy wearing a mask took Jacob.

[Interviewer]

A guy wearing a mask took your son. You're worried about him getting hit by a car and he gets snatched by somebody.

[Patty Wetterling]

What are you thinking?

[Friend/Neighbor]

I'm not thinking, I'm just.

[Patty Wetterling]

He changed. Jerry came back to the table and grabbed my arm and said, we gotta go. And I said, you know what happened? Aren't those boys back yet? And he said, two of em are. Somebody took Jacob. It's like what? It was unimaginable. I grabbed my purse and we left.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

911emergency at my neighbors, the Jerry Wetterling family.

[Patty Wetterling]

That's where you're coming from.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Some of their boys went down to Tom Thumb to pick up a movie and on their way back, someone stopped them. And we believe that they have one of the boys. Okay, were they picked up in a vehicle? Just a second, I'll ask the boys. Was there a vehicle there or was he walking? They couldn't. They didn't see a vehicle. Okay, did they see the individual at all? Yes, they did. Did you see the individual at all? He had a mask on.

[Aaron Larson]

He had like a nylon stocking over his face where you couldn't see, you know, any of the eyes or any of his features. Maybe that's why the voice stands out to me more. It was a very gruff, gravelly voice.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

How old is the individual that has not returned? How old is David?

[Jared Schirold]

11.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Okay, Jacob is Jacob, right? And he's 11. Jacob Wetterling, the other dispatch right now is dispatching the squad to where you're at right now. Okay.

[Bruce Baktolda (Deputy)]

I'm Bruce Baktolda and I was the first officer on the scene. I was a brand new deputy at the time. I get a call from dispatch that it sounded like a boy had been abducted. And in my mind that can't be true. But I activated my lights and siren and drove pretty quickly this way.

[Interviewer]

It must have been the longest ride of your life.

[Patty Wetterling]

It was. Who would take a child? That's all I kept. Who would do this? It was about a 20 minute drive or so trying to figure it out. We had no idea what we were walking into.

[Narrator/Commentator]

It's One of those things that you just can't even fathom could actually happen in small town Minnesota.

[Bruce Baktolda (Deputy)]

Have to drive past the abduction site to get to the wetterling home. And it's in this location where we're standing now.

[Interviewer]

You're all riding your bike and your scooter from this way, and you get to this area. What happens?

[Aaron Larson]

All of a sudden, a man came out from this area over here. He said, stop, I have a gun. And told us to turn off our flashlights. It's basically where all your fears and everything gets real very fast.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

He ordered them to put their bikes down in the ditch and then to lay down, face down, each one of them.

[Interviewer]

And this is the spot, Aaron, as far as you know?

[Aaron Larson]

Yeah, like right in here. So we were laying with our heads facing that way, like on our stomachs. And then he started with Trevor at first and he told him to run as fast as he could into the woods. And then he told me to get up and run as fast as I can, don't look back, or else I would shoot.

[Bruce Baktolda (Deputy)]

Trevor and Aaron ran off to the woods back here. And then they ran from the corner of the woods here diagonally across the field where a gap in the trees is. That's where the wetterling house in the neighborhood is.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

When Aaron finally caught up to Trevor and they were brave enough to look back, they just didn't see Jacob. He was gone.

[Aaron Larson]

Nobody was there. Then it was a matter of how fast can we get to somebody to help us because we had no idea what's going on. And where's Jacob? Where's Jacob?

[Interviewer]

You make your way back home and you hear from the other boys.

[Patty Wetterling]

Trevor said, this man. There was a man with a gun. And he told us to get off our bikes and lie down in the ditcher. He'd shoot.

[Interviewer]

Do you have any recollection of what was going through your mind that night?

[Aaron Larson]

Fear. Just frantic fear, I guess I would say it.

[Patty Wetterling]

The detectives were asking for all kinds of personal. They might have taken Trevor's hockey jacket because they both played for the same league. This was his hockey jacket.

[Interviewer]

And he was wearing this.

[Patty Wetterling]

He was wearing this when he was kidnapped. Then they asked for a picture of Jacob.

[Interviewer]

This the photo that you gave.

[Patty Wetterling]

This was the yellow sweater photo. This was heartbreaking. You take it down. But it was so hard because I had three of the kids school pictures on the wall and then there's this blank frame. It was just one of those heart wrenching moments.

[Friend/Neighbor]

That first night was just a lot of chaos.

[Patty Wetterling]

You know, the sheriff was concerned that maybe he's tied to a tree or something. He can't break free. We're gonna find him.

[Interviewer]

Law enforcement are searching and searching the abduction site. Then key pieces of evidence and a witness emerge.

[Dan Rassier]

A car turns around in the evening really fast and it takes off.

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[Patty Wetterling]

Today, October 12th I am 5ft tall.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

My whole name is Jacob Irvin Werlein.

[Patty Wetterling]

My favorite food is steak. My favorite color is blue. Best friend is Aaron Larson, his sixth grade teacher. She had videotaped all of the kids and had them tell a little bit about yourself. What I want to be when I grow up as a football player. It was him. Just his face and sharing all of his favorites.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

My favorite game is Clue. My favorite thing to do most is

[Patty Wetterling]

watch football and that video was taken 10 days before he was abducted. I remember the night before he was kind of crabby because he felt like he was a bad skater. So he was a Little bit sensitive. And sometime that evening he asked, he felt really bad. I'm sorry I was so crabby. You want to play a game? And I said, no, thank you. I appreciate you wanting to play. I was in the midst of putting things away, which is a heartbreaker. That's one of my worst mom moments. I wish I could take it back.

[Interviewer]

Police want to get a recorded statement from Jacob's 10 year old brother Trevor, who was with Jacob when he was taken.

[Patty Wetterling]

It was a really quiet, solemn drive down that road. Now what was an ugly road. The bikes were still there the following morning and it was traumatic. I could just feel Trevor stiffen. And then we went to the St. Joe Police Station.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

This is a taped interview. Today's date is October 23, 1989. The time right now is 0909 hours. Can you tell us how old you are, please?

[Patty Wetterling]

I'm 10 years old.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

While you guys are riding your bikes, did some guy confront you?

[Investigator]

No.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Some guy stop, make you guys stop riding your bikes?

[Patty Wetterling]

Oh yeah.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Can you tell us what this person initially said when you guys were riding by him?

[Patty Wetterling]

He said, stop, I have a gun. Turn off the flashlight, go in the ditch, face the other way. And he asked us all our ages. My heart just broke. He's a 10 year old kid who witnesses this horrific thing. His brother was stolen, he hadn't slept. And the fear, the sheer terror of that night.

[Reporter]

This is a child who's traumatized. I can't imagine as a parent what that had to have been like.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Where was his gun?

[Patty Wetterling]

Yeah, the gun was here.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Okay, what happened then?

[Patty Wetterling]

He told me to run as fast as I could to the woods. Right when he told me to run and grab Jacob.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Where the abduction occurred was at the end of a driveway where the rassier family resided.

[Reporter]

34 year old Dan Rassier lived on a farm with his parents. His parents were out of the country when Jacob was abducted.

[Dan Rassier]

My name is Dan rassier and in 1989 I was a band teacher. The night Jacob was taken, I was home alone working on this collection, getting it up to date between 9 o' clock and 9:30. The dog is barking because the dog is noticing a car coming down the hill. It was like a blue, maybe a darker blue, but smaller car and turned around very quickly and it was gone. Shortly after that I went to bed. I woke up when Smokey was barking, looked outside and a whole bunch of people were up by the wood pile with flashlights.

[Bruce Baktolda (Deputy)]

When I interviewed Trevor and Aaron, they said they didn't see a car. So Then we thought, well, we need to do a ground search. We first searched where the bicycles were found and started working our way through this little bit of a wooded area.

[Reporter]

Dan Rassier told police that he had seen a dark vehicle come into his property, circle around and leave.

[Bruce Baktolda (Deputy)]

Talking to Dan, we thought, well, maybe there was a car about in this area. We saw some tire tracks and then we saw some adult side footprints and smaller ones, like child sized footprints. They weren't going straight forward like this. They were to the side and almost like they were shuffling together. It didn't look like someone had just gone for a walk. It looked like somebody was pulling this kid along. And so that caused us to think that maybe these were Jacob's footprints and the abductor's footprints. The car would have stopped here. So as they're coming down the road on their scooter and bicycles, they would have never saw that there was a car here.

[Interviewer]

They found Jacob's footprint down here.

[Patty Wetterling]

Yeah, it was way down by that second pole.

[Interviewer]

And the irony is it is such a peaceful, beautiful spot.

[Patty Wetterling]

It's like God's country, you know, it is.

[Reporter]

One of the biggest concerns with an interstate nearby in a vehicle, he could have just taken off. Jacob could be literally anywhere.

[Friend/Neighbor]

I just had the sense that this guy took Jacob and took off. In my mind, he's halfway to Las Vegas or Chicago. He's got him, he's going somewhere.

[Patty Wetterling]

My gut feeling was just the opposite. It's like he's so close, but we can't reach him. This man has put us behind locked doors and made us restrict our children's every movement. You couldn't be outside, you locked your doors, you kept track of your kids differently.

[Interviewer]

With the community and parents on edge, the hunt for Jacob Wetterling quickly becomes one of the biggest search missions in Minnesota history.

[Patty Wetterling]

What can you tell us about the situation?

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

In the days following Jacob's abduction, there was massive searches.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Looking for any sign of Jacob or his kidnapping.

[Investigator]

The ground search was divided into sectors,

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

beginning with an intensive check of the

[Patty Wetterling]

36 square mile St. Joseph Township.

[Investigator]

It was a big area.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We checked all the fields, the swamps, like I said, in the abandoned buildings.

[Investigator]

Sheriff came up with horses.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

You're all volunteers, right? How come you came up Just for the sake of helping to find the little fella.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

In the days following the abduction, law enforcement conducted a neighborhood canvas.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We've covered everything that we can with the helicopter.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

I remember the helicopter sound.

[Patty Wetterling]

I still have PTSD over helicopter.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Hundreds of law enforcement officers involved. A task force was formed with multiple agencies and multiple investigators.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

And I would come up with nothing.

[Patty Wetterling]

It was massive. There were resources I didn't know about. Ham radio operators, there's a small pilots association and they were taking a little private planes.

[Jared Schirold]

It doesn't make any difference what the costs are.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We're just determined to do whatever is necessary. Got to do an absolute thorough search out there.

[Patty Wetterling]

The governor called and offered up the national guard.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Okay, move out.

[Patty Wetterling]

Which was really, really huge because they searched, ground searched about 30 miles worth of land.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

He's wondering what all the army guys are doing out here.

[Investigator]

We went and met Patty and Jerry almost immediately. What we promised them is that we would do everything, everything in our power to find Jacob. You have to be patient. And she said, I can't be patient. This is my child. And we both understood.

[Aaron Larson]

There was just people all the time, like at their house, people are bringing

[Patty Wetterling]

food, there's a hose right down there.

[Aaron Larson]

The media coming and going with the huge satellite trucks.

[Friend/Neighbor]

What you're doing right now is a very, very integral part of that. So we really appreciate you being here.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

They felt that if the story got out there would be more people knowing about it, more people looking for him, that that would be their best chance of finding where he was.

[Patty Wetterling]

A friend of ours said, you know, you need to call the media.

[Friend/Neighbor]

He had seen the program on 2020, approximately six weeks before Jacob's abduction.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

2020 with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters.

[Friend/Neighbor]

How getting the word out quickly was important in recovering that particular child.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

In desperation, Jeremiah's parents turned to the media doing seven to eight interviews a day.

[Narrator/Commentator]

It wasn't too long before it started making national news.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

From ABC, this is World News Tonight. Last week an 11 year old boy named Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped from the streets of St. Joseph, Minnesota.

[Reporter]

I was reported for local television news in Minneapolis. Who works at the discount as a mom, I was scared to death. Any parent in America could relate to 11 year old boy being taken. It just didn't happen back then.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

I remember being at the Minnesota Vikings when they had Jacob's missing poster.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Not just the Vikings are part of this football game, but it's a whole area and this is a big, big thing. And everyone is a part of trying to find Jacob Wetterle.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

I just thought, well this is it. If they get Jacob on this particular broadcast for the Minnesota Vikings, they will absolutely find him.

[Interviewer]

How hard was that for you to see his picture out there as a missing child? You're Jacob.

[Patty Wetterling]

It's devastating at the beginning. There's no way your brain can really take all this in. It's crazy.

[Reporter]

In the early days of the investigation, Jacob's father was the main person dealing with the media. But I remember after Jerry Wetterling appeared on A Current Affair, people didn't think he reacted right.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Tonight, our David Lee Miller reports on that terrible crime that has brought terror to the country's heartland.

[Friend/Neighbor]

It was total shock, total disbelief.

[Patty Wetterling]

People started turning in Jerry as a suspect. And it's like they didn't like the way he looked on tv. He wasn't sad enough. He didn't cry. He wasn't angry. If it were me, I would respond this way. It was ridiculous.

[Friend/Neighbor]

I wasn't meeting their needs for what I should be as a searching dad.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Thank you, papa.

[Patty Wetterling]

He finally one day just said, they don't want to hear from me. They need to hear from you. So that was my call to step up. Jacob's all alone. It's just not fair. It's just wrong.

[Interviewer]

How tough was that on the marriage?

[Friend/Neighbor]

Very tough. Marriage is tough. On a good day. Your partner can be your support when you're going through a tough thing. But this is the thing we're both experiencing in real time together. So it was hard for us to really be there for each other in the way that we needed to be.

[Interviewer]

You began to write letters.

[Patty Wetterling]

I did.

[Interviewer]

To Jacob. Why?

[Patty Wetterling]

It was my way of just connecting to him. If he came home tomorrow, I wanted him to know exactly what we had tried, everything that we tried. Because I kept thinking he was wondering, why did it take so long? Dear Jacob, my heart hurts as days pass by without you. I wrestle over the details again and again. Who could have done this? Where are you, Jacob?

[Interviewer]

Little do the Wetterlings know that just miles away, investigators may have a link to Jacob's disappearance.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Investigators became aware of a similar abduction that had occurred.

[Narrator/Commentator]

There were so many similarities. They thought this could be our guy.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

This quiet Minnesota town, population under 3,000, has not been the same since Jacob Wetterling was abducted. A massive search has failed to turn up any trace of Jacob or his kidnapper.

[Patty Wetterling]

That guy could be anywhere and he could come, someone else could come and take you.

[Interviewer]

Are you terrified that there's somebody out there who's going to try to snatch you or somebody else?

[Aaron Larson]

Yeah, I would say I was traumatized. I slept on my parents floor for how many months and we didn't know who had Jacob. That person still out there, obviously. And so there's always that fear of the what if?

[Narrator/Local Resident]

In my mind, the man that took Jacob was always lurking around the corner.

[Narrator/Commentator]

After Jacob Wetterling, everything changed almost immediately. How people parent their kids.

[Patty Wetterling]

I even asked the sheriff one time, I was like, are our other kids safe? There were times when I just wanted to keep them all inside. But I spent a lot of my own energy trying to nudge them into being okay with the world again.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

The people of St. Joseph have rallied on Jacob's behalf, putting up posters, raising reward money and calling attention to his plight.

[Patty Wetterling]

There were white ribbons everywhere and they wrote on them, you know, Jacob's hope.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

At a church service, Jacob's classmates and family sang, Listen, listen,

[Interviewer]

can you hear the sound?

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

One of his favorite songs. It has become an anthem of hope.

[Narrator/Commentator]

There was no evidence that Jacob was not alive. And that was the one thing Patty and the Wetterling family had to cling to.

[Friend/Neighbor]

From that first night on, we kept leaving our porch light on all the time. It was just a way to say, we're not stopping. You gotta get home, Jake.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

The FBI says it is the best lead they've had in nearly two months. For the first time, agents believe there is a connection between Jacob's abduction and another abduction earlier this year.

[Reporter]

Just nine months earlier, a 12 year old boy in Cold Springs, which is just about 10 miles from St. Joseph, was abducted as well.

[Jared Schirold]

My name is Jared Shiro. On January 13, 1989, I was 12 years old and I was walking home from a skating event with my friends and we all stopped at a local cafe.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

They ordered some milkshakes and french fries. Jared just lived really close, so he decided he was just going to walk home.

[Jared Schirold]

It was about 9 o' clock at night and a car had approached me from the front.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

A man asked if he knew where the Kramers lived and Jared tried to help him with directions.

[Jared Schirold]

As I was kind of walking towards the car, he got out of the vehicle, got close enough to me, grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to get the in the car. He had a gun and he wasn't afraid to.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

The abductor drove Jared to a remote site outside of Cold Spring, Minnesota and assaulted him.

[Jared Schirold]

The perpetrator took my pants and my. My underwear and he left me half naked inside of a snowmobile suit after the incident was done. Then he got back in his car and dropped me on the outside of Cold Spring and told me to run. Don't look back or you'd shoot.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

The statement match language used at the Wetter Lane abduction.

[Patty Wetterling]

He grabbed Jacob and then he told me to run as fast as I could into the woods or else he'd Shoot. He said almost the same words.

[Friend/Neighbor]

I was just thinking that these cases are pretty similar.

[Patty Wetterling]

I was really concerned that it could be the same person.

[Interviewer]

Were you thinking that there's a serial kidnapper on the loose?

[Patty Wetterling]

Possibly.

[Reporter]

So many things about that crime were similar to what happened to Jacob. The main difference is the man let Jared go home.

[Jared Schirold]

He claimed to know who I was, and if the authorities would ever come close to finding him, he would find me first and kill me the following. Days, weeks, months. There wasn't much sleep. It was complete chaos. I slept on my parents bedroom floor, I think for the first few months.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Jared and his parents reported this right away, and they met with police and gave a very detailed police report.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We believe the vehicle was a blue vehicle, blue interior. He described some sort of a police scanner or a handheld scanner in the front seat of the vehicle.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Jared described his abductor as wearing a baseball cap, camouflage clothing.

[Jared Schirold]

I think it put him around 40s. He had a little raspy voice. He's kind of husky in build.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Today, the FBI released this composite, a sketch of the Cold Spring abductor. It was drawn after investigators noticed the similarities between the abduction and Jacobs. The abductor was a white man in his 40s or 50s. He had a deep, raspy voice, and he told the boy he had a gun.

[Aaron Larson]

The characteristic that I remember of like our event is the voice when Jared

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Shire was abducted and sexually assaulted. That was very, very rare. You fast forward to when Jacob Wetterling was abducted. A stranger abduction in Minnesota on a gravel road, probability that they were both related. Absolutely.

[Interviewer]

Police were looking for a child predator based on something you had said. What led them to think that when

[Aaron Larson]

he was coming out of the road there, he initially had reached over and had touched me. So I think that obviously led them to think that that was what his main goal was. On the sexual predator side of things.

[Narrator/Commentator]

Police always thought there were so many similarities between Jared's abduction and Jacob's abduction. They thought, okay, this could be our guy. But as each anniversary went by year after year, and then nothing would happen. You do start to think this case is never going to be solved.

[Aaron Larson]

Every year we would get together, like on the 22nd of October, we've reached another year of we haven't found him. Like, we still don't know where he is.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

His presence is still real and heartfelt, but this graduation is still a somber one for classmates of Jacob Wetterling.

[Aaron Larson]

A lot of people value a lot of things more because you realize, I mean, everything's not going to be here forever. I think Patty and Jerry would talk about they kind of lived vicariously like through my our graduating class. But it's also, I'm sure it was a sad thing because they wish Jacob was there doing it with us.

[Interviewer]

Years go by and then you hear the police are looking at somebody who's right down the street.

[Patty Wetterling]

They wired me, you would never have harmed Jason.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

I only feel that. But I could have saved them.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

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[Narrator/Local Resident]

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[Narrator/Commentator]

It's an unsolved mystery.

[Interviewer]

Weeks go by, months go by involving

[Narrator/Commentator]

this young all American boy.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

No news, no leads.

[Narrator/Commentator]

No one knew why.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Year after year after year after year.

[Narrator/Commentator]

And nobody really knew exactly how.

[Interviewer]

All law enforcement really knew was that young Jacob Wetterling vanished on a moonless Minnesota night, leaving behind a footprint as the only clue to follow.

[Narrator/Commentator]

When a story like that lingers, you just figure it's never going to be solved.

[Patty Wetterling]

Where are you, Jacob?

[Dan Rassier]

So it's 2004 and it's late January and I get a call.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

We invited Dan Rassier into the Stearns County Sheriff's office and went over the information we had with him.

[Reporter]

Dan Rassier lived in a house that was at the end of the driveway where Jacob was abducted. Dan Rassier saw himself as being a good citizen. He was a teacher, someone who cooperated with police.

[Dan Rassier]

I was completely thinking I was going to help with something. It starts off kind of just, you know, well, what can I do? And I remember him saying, well, that car that you saw, it's been accounted it for.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

The car theory was that someone pulled into the Rassier farm driveway and was waiting There and abducted Jacob Wetterling and left.

[Dan Rassier]

I went, well, great, you've got your guy. No, no, we've. We found the driver of the car and he is innocent. He did not do this.

[Friend/Neighbor]

That's when the investigation seemed to really turn towards Dan Rassier as being the abductor.

[Interviewer]

It had been 15 years since Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped right at the top of this driveway. And now the man living on this sprawling farm across from the abduction site is the focus of the investigation.

[Narrator/Commentator]

And if you just want look at a thing like this from a common sense perspective, it's got to be somebody you're thinking that knows the area, somebody who's comfortable in the area.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

We were pretty, I don't know, forceful is the word, but we were pretty somewhat aggressive with him, maybe more than normal, just to see if we could get a different reaction out of him. And I don't think he liked that. I know he didn't like it.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

I want you to tell me where

[Investigator/Interviewer]

you put Jacob so I can go

[Jared Schirold]

out and find him.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We'll be done. Why?

[Investigator/Interviewer]

You could be a person that's a

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

psychopath killer, or you could be someone that nicest guy in the world, or

[Investigator/Interviewer]

you could be someone in between.

[Dan Rassier]

Basically he's saying you took Jacob on and on, that kind of thing. How'd you do it? You knew they were coming by, you grabbed them.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

For instance, I said, did you take Jacob Wertling? And instead of just saying no, which most people would be upset that you can, he put his hand up and he said, did I take Jacob Werderling? Just kind of cocky remarks.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

He would never eliminate himself. He always kind of teased you with it might be me type of comments.

[Dan Rassier]

If I did something like that, I would have to be nuts. And I'm trying to explain to him, but he's just so. He's so gone that I remember the interview just going, not good, not good. And so on the way out, Pam Jensen says to me, well, you took that pretty well. I go, well, it's a joke. The whole thing is a joke. And then I left.

[Interviewer]

That must have been mind boggling to think that police are looking at somebody who's right down the street. Were you suspicious?

[Patty Wetterling]

For years I was curious about him.

[Interviewer]

You were so determined to do anything to find your son that you were even willing to wear a wire.

[Patty Wetterling]

I did wear a wire. I'd do anything. I just wanted to meet the man and have him look me in the eye and say he didn't do it. And so they did. They Wired me.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

So we put a wire on her, and we knew where Brassier went to the gym. So we had her bump into him.

[Patty Wetterling]

You dance? I need to talk to you. We just sat in that lobby area, and I asked a lot of questions. You know, Jacob was last seen on your property. Do you think Jacob could have been on your property? I needed you to look me in the eye and say you had nothing to do with Jacob's disappearance.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

I had nothing to do with this.

[Patty Wetterling]

You would never have harmed Jacob.

[Dan Rassier]

I only feel that if I would

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

have been more alert, he saw hindsight, I could have stopped him. I could have saved him.

[Interviewer]

Do you remember that conversation?

[Dan Rassier]

Yes. We sat down for maybe 45 minutes. I told her my side of the story. She wanted to get all the questions answered. Did you do this, Dan?

[Patty Wetterling]

Thank you, Dan. Well, let's talk again.

[Dan Rassier]

Okay.

[Patty Wetterling]

Thank you. I told the FBI, As I said, tearing off the microphone, he's either innocent or a psychopath. He's really good at covering up. Or he didn't do it.

[Reporter]

In 2010, police did a two day, pretty massive search of the Rassier farm.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Through time, we put together all the information we had, and we presented that information to a judge, and the judge felt there was sufficient probable cause to look on the farm.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

I'm standing in front of a cornfield on the edge of the Razier family farm.

[Friend/Neighbor]

This was a big deal when they did the dig at the Rassier residence.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Neighbors have been watching, too. It's kind of scary.

[Narrator/Commentator]

They did a pretty extensive search, even digging up some of his property, which clearly he was not happy with.

[Reporter]

The massive dig turned up a lot of dirt, but no evidence. But it left Dan Rassier in the public eye as the guy who took Jacob. And it was holding the secret of where Jacob was.

[Interviewer]

Rassier was known publicly as a person of interest in the Wetterling case.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

It wasn't like we stopped everything and started working on Dan Rassier. That's not the case at all. We worked every lead we could think of.

[Reporter]

Dan Rassier was not involved in Jacob Wetterling's abduction at all. But it would be years before he would be cleared by investigators.

[Interviewer]

But if Dan didn't do it, who did? That's when a blogger begins doing a little digging of her own. What are you thinking?

[Patty Wetterling]

I just thought, oh, this is big. This is.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

This has got to be the answer. This is really big.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Tonight in Missouri, Shawn Hornbeck is back home. A California kidnapping case has come to an astonishing end. Three missing women found alive together. A decade later.

[Interviewer]

Two decades go by, no sign of your son, yet you still hold on to hope.

[Patty Wetterling]

I did. This is what kept me going.

[Interviewer]

These are clippings of stories of other children who made it back.

[Patty Wetterling]

I would do anything to protect my children and all of these children.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

Over the years, we watched Patti turn into an activist.

[Patty Wetterling]

I was working with the national center for Missing and Exploited Children and doing law enforcement trainings all over the country. People need to be educated about the dangers of those who violate children.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

Because of Jacob's case and Patty, the sex offender registration law was passed.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Today, America warns, if you dare to prey on our children, the law will follow you wherever you go.

[Narrator/Commentator]

She got very involved in trying to keep this from happening to other families. It wasn't just about Jacob. It was about all children.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

The Waterlink case is immense. It is so emotional, it is deep, and it was, for me, all consuming. I'm Joy Baker, and starting in 2010, I wrote a blog about the Jacob Butterling case.

[Interviewer]

You started a real investigation?

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Yeah. I went to the local library, looked up all the old newspaper articles from that time period, and I just started to lay it out.

[Interviewer]

Over the next few years, Joy gained a following online. But the Wetterlings weren't aware of her until a chance encounter in 2013. It was nearly 25 years since you had lost Jacob. You meet a blogger.

[Patty Wetterling]

Yes. I was speaking at an event and this woman came and introduced herself and said she'd been blogging about Jacob.

[Friend/Neighbor]

Patty is mildly freaking out about this person. And I just go to the block and I'm reading and saying, wow, this is good stuff.

[Patty Wetterling]

We called her, I think, the next day, and we had like a least a two hour conversation of who are you and where do you hope to go?

[Interviewer]

Then a turning point in Joy's research. She stumbles across a 1987 newspaper article from the nearby town of Painesville.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

I found this story about these five cases of young teenage boys who had been followed, assaulted. Also very similar language. Like when they had been caught, he'd say, don't turn around or I'll blow your head off.

[Interviewer]

And it was similar to the language that the boys who were with Jacob had reported.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Jacob and Jared.

[Reporter]

Paynesville is a small town about 30 miles from where Jacob was abducted and just past where Jared Scheierel was abducted in Cold Spring.

[Jared Schirold]

For many years, I lived in fear, watching over my shoulder. Joy contacted me. She asked me if I was the Jared associated with the Wetterling investigation.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

I shared his story on my blog, and people were commenting that same Thing happened to my brother or my nephew or my son.

[Jared Schirold]

Being a male victim of a sexual assault, I've learned that there's a lot more male victims out there than the world lets on to.

[Reporter]

Sexual assaults on young boys is something you rarely heard about.

[Interviewer]

Chris Berthelsen, who grew up in Painesville, told me about a string of frightening incidents that he and his friends had there back in the 80s. Some of the incidents were reported to authorities back then.

[Chris Berthelsen]

Early in 1987, two friends of mine had been molested. One, a masked man, grabbed him, groped him. And then another friend of mine had been molested near his home.

[Interviewer]

Was there a feeling that there was some guy out there who was preying on boys?

[Chris Berthelsen]

It was the talk of everybody, at least of us boys. It just became kind of a culture to watch out for this guy. All of a sudden, it's not safe to ride your bike.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

A time of fear, a lot of fear.

[Interviewer]

Then in May of 1987, Chris had his own run in with that man. He takes me back to the spot.

[Chris Berthelsen]

My friend and I were riding our bikes around this corner, and the guy came flying out from behind the spruce trees in the door, in total darkness, clotheslined my friend off the bike. And he stopped on the bike and I stopped, and my friend yelled, you already got me. And the guy took off running and I took off on my bike to call the police. My friend, he said, I got his hat. In their scuffle, he grabbed his hat. We always kind of knew there were these pieces that, that were unanswered.

[Reporter]

Although Paynesville police did follow up and investigate the cases of the boys in that town, nobody was ever arrested.

[Chris Berthelsen]

One of the consistent things with all of my friends was that he had a low, gravelly voice, a mumbly voice.

[Interviewer]

More than two decades later, this string of incidents in Painesville may now shed new light on Jacob Wetterling's case.

[Aaron Larson]

This is what happened to me. This is what happened to Jacob. This could be the information that we've been looking for for all these years.

[Interviewer]

This looks very much like small town America.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Very much quaint homes. There's a river that runs through, through it. It couldn't be more hometown America.

[Reporter]

When Joy came across the incidents in Painesville, I think a light went off in her head that these have to be connected to Jacob's case.

[Interviewer]

When you began looking into this case and you started to discover that there had been incidents of boys being either assaulted, molested here in Painesville, what areas did you, you find that were significant?

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

A lot of them happened right here, right downtown, where kids were at their local hangout spot, the local pizza place.

[Interviewer]

You're convinced that these incidents here in Painesville were no doubt connected to what happened to Jacob and that perpetrator was probably the same person?

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

I really, really felt that Painesville was the answer.

[Reporter]

Law enforcement, in fact, did talk to some of those Paynesville boys after Jacob's abduction.

[Investigator]

When we found out about the Paynesville incidents, we thought they were connected. We thought maybe the same person kidnapped

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Jared and Jacob in January of 1990. The Paynesville Police chief had contacted the task force and indicated that Danny Heinrich might be considered a suspect in the Wetterling case. Heinrich was in his mid-20s at the time. He was a lifelong resident of Paynesville and was a member of the Minnesota National Guard.

[Patty Wetterling]

Danny Heinrich was one of the names who'd come up early. No prior arrest for sexual assault. No prior anything against children. Couldn't hold a job for long. He had a troubled childhood.

[Investigator]

The physical description was nearly identical in all of the Painsville incidents. It was very similar to the Cold Spring abduction as well as Jacob Wetterling's abduction. Gravelly, raspy, static filled voice was a specific description of the offender.

[Interviewer]

And investigators did take a close look at Heinrich. After Jared Schirl's kidnapping, one of the

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

officers in Paynesville suggested that they look at Danny Heinrich as a suspect. Because Heinrich wore camouflage clothing and he drove a car similar to the car described by Jared Shiro.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

They put him in a lineup. It was just a picture lineup. So Jared picked two people that somewhat resembled the guy that had taken him, but that was as good as he could do.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

One of those was Heinrich. And words somewhat resembled in the precision of legal language isn't that he picked

[Interviewer]

him out with no other evidence. Heinrich is never charged.

[Reporter]

After Jacob's abduction, Heinrich's name surfaced again

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

when he was interviewed. Heinrich denied knowing where he was on the day of the abduction of Jacob.

[Interviewer]

Heinrich denies any involvement. So authorities take a different tact. They search the home he's living in,

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

they take his tennis shoes, they vacuumed his car, and they kept those fibers from the back of his car.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

They obtained his tires from his vehicle.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

One of the items tested was Jared Scheierel's snowmobile suit. And it was determined that trace evidence on Jared's snowmobile suit may have originated from the seat materials in a mercury towpath. That fiber could have come from the seat of any mercury topaz manufactured around that time. Not specific to Heinrich's mercury topaz.

[Investigator]

If a laboratory examiner can testify that that tire impression belonged to that tire, that's evidence. If a laboratory examiner says that tire impression is consistent with that tire, that's not evidence. Same thing with shoe impressions, same thing with hairs and fibers. It's strong indications for an investigator to pursue it. It's not evidence.

[Interviewer]

Investigators bring Heinrich in.

[Investigator]

We started talking to him and before

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

long he said, I want a lawyer.

[Investigator]

And of course, once they say that, according to the rules, we cannot answer any further questions.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

They did not have enough physical evidence to charge him, therefore they had to release him.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Through the years of investigating, Danny Hendrick always was one of our suspects. After different leads, we then decided that we'd go approach and see if we could talk to him and we would knock on the door. The first time he shut the door on me. A couple years later we came back, same story. I knocked on the door. He says, I got an attorney, I'm not talking to you. End of the story. Did we think that was suspicious? Sure, but could we do anything about it? No.

[Reporter]

My station, wcco, actually talked with Danny Heinrich and he denied any involvement in Jacob's case.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We talked with the suspect in his car.

[Interviewer]

Do you have any information about the abduction of Jacob?

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

No information whatsoever. That's the approved.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Every day I'm getting all these tips and leads from Paynesville residents and I'm sending them all to Stearns County. But at some point I just felt like a bother.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Joy may have discovered some additional information, but the fact that young boys were being either chased, stalked or groved in Painesville was not new to us. We just couldn't share the law enforcement file what we had with her.

[Jared Schirold]

Any victim of crime has a right to go in and see their case files. So I took advantage of that.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

Jared meets with Captain Jensen and he calls me and he is on fire. And he just said, joy, there's more to this story. There's a head cat that may have DNA on it. And so we thought, wow, what did we just discover here?

[Interviewer]

Were you losing faith in law enforcement at this point?

[Patty Wetterling]

I was frustrated. I wanted the team back fresh.

[Investigator]

Look, we got a big break in the case.

[Jared Schirold]

They said, we got your guy.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

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[Narrator/Local Resident]

Today, law enforcement is launching a new effort to find Wetterling by placing six billboards around the area where he went missing.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

Jacob had been missing for 25 years. There was a little publicity about this new billboard campaign. And so that, to me, that kind of like, sparked an idea. I'm Chris Newberry. I'm the producer and director of the documentary Echoes in the the Search for Jacob Wetterling. I'm a Minnesotan, and I thought, well, no one's really done an intimate look at the Jacob story. And the Wetterlings were open to this idea. I wanted to sort of see inside their lives and film in their space.

[Patty Wetterling]

Those are all videos. And the shelf over there. And then there's the other room. This was Jacob's room, actually. Jake and Trevor had bunk beds in here. Nobody really sleeps down here anymore with just the single beds.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

That's kind of a poignant moment.

[Interviewer]

And this is the Wetterling room. This is a lot of evidence.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

It's a lot of evidence.

[Interviewer]

It's been close to 25 years since Jacob's kidnapping. And now an FBI team that's highly trained in child abductions is about to conduct a review of the entire Wetterling case.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

My name is Chris Bokers. I am a retired FBI special agent, and I was a member of the child abduction rapid deployment team that did a cold case review of the investigation in October 1989. I was familiar with the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. Case was impactful to me to the point that I decided that I wanted to get into law enforcement to hopefully someday make a positive impact on this investigation.

[Investigator]

This whole row right here is Jacob Wetterling. I think it by far dwarfs any other case that we have for sheer volume of evidence. In 2014, we needed to take a step back and have a review of the whole case itself.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

In doing the cold case review, Danny Heinrich was a very good suspect early in the investigation. There was some very compelling information there.

[Interviewer]

Such as?

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Such as that some tires had been taken from from his car. And these tires correspond in design and measurements to the tire impressions that were taken from the gravel at the Rassier residence where the abduction had occurred. We also found that his shoes corresponded in design to the foot impressions that were taken from the scene.

[Interviewer]

That's pretty, pretty stunning stuff.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

It was really good evidence. But because there's no nicks, cuts that are individual to these shoes or these

[Interviewer]

tires, you can't say it's exact.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

We can't say it's exact.

[Prosecutor]

One might think that based on the substantial evidence that law enforcement had gathered against Danny Heinrich, wasn't that enough? But as a prosecutor, you have to evaluate a case not based on probable cause, that, that it's likely, but proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And looking at the evidence they had at the time, it wasn't even close.

[Patty Wetterling]

When they started reviewing the case, they looked at Jared's case, too.

[Investigator]

This would be clothing related to the abduction of the Cold Spring Boy.

[Jared Schirold]

My thought all throughout my life was, if we can find my perpetrator, then we'll find Jacob's perpetrator.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

I first met Jared during that early period of our production. I admired Jared a ton. His bravery to come forward and tell his story.

[Jared Schirold]

Twenty some years later, here I am, that scared little boy again. Because we still don't know who this person is, and we still don't know where he's at.

[Prosecutor]

When Jared Shirol was assaulted, DNA was not regularly used in criminal cases.

[Investigator]

Over the course of time in the investigation, we had continued to repeatedly submit the items from the Cold Spring Boys abduction for DNA analysis. And it was only finally, in 2012, that we were able to come up with an unknown male DNA that was left on the clothing.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Dennis Kern located a hair that had been saved on a slide at the FBI lab that was identified as Danny Heinrich.

[Investigator]

We got a big break in the case. The hairs provided a DNA match to the previously unknown DNA that was collected from the Cold Spring Boys abduction. And that match was Danny Heinrich.

[Prosecutor]

And so the they were able to conclusively show that Danny Heinrich was the person who kidnapped and assaulted Jared Scheierl.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Once we had a DNA match for the Cold Spring investigation, we sought a search warrant to go back to Heinrich's residence, where he now lived in Annandale, Minnesota.

[Interviewer]

In that search warrant, law enforcement allege Heinrich's involvement in eight Paynesville incidents. The baseball cap is tested for DNA, and though 80% of the population was excluded, Danny Heinrich's DNA was not in that search warrant.

[Investigator]

We were looking for human remains or any trophies that might have been kept.

[Patty Wetterling]

They were going to do search warrant on this suspect, Danny Heinrich. That was scary. Would they find anything?

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Today's date is 7:28, 2015.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

The time is 8:36am Presently with Pam Jensen, Stearns County Sheriffs, I'm Ken McDonald, Minnesota, BCA.

[Reporter]

After the DNA hit that showed Danny Heinrich was connected to Jared Shirol's case, authorities conducted a search of Heinrich Hendrick's home in Annandale, Minnesota.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

While other investigators were executing the search warrant, Captain Jensen and myself sat outside at the patio table was Danny Heinrich.

[Reporter]

He had no idea he was being recorded.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

You know, when we do a lot of these search warrants, we like to see what we have on Internet. You're gonna find some things in the house that look pretty damn damning to me. Well, you know, if you're worried about, like pornography, a lot of people got pornography in their house. You're a single guy. I'm not going to lie to you. I do.

[Interviewer]

Tell us what you found when you got in.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

The house itself was very neat. He had two cats. But the house was well kept and organized.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

There is no human or anything remains on this property. I guarantee you 100%. As far as I know before I bought the place, who knows what's in the root cellar underneath that I wouldn't know anything about, you know?

[Jared Schirold]

Right.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Nothing pertaining to Jacob. Literally. There's nothing here or ever has done. Of course, we're trying to get a little information without making him upset with us. I asked him about Paynesville. I have never touched anybody, period. That's the God's truth. I'll admit I got got some damning in that house, but I never touched anybody.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Very quickly within the search, investigators were finding binders that contained child erotica, child pornography.

[Investigator]

We found numerous bins of child sized clothing. We found wigs and handcuffs. We recovered 922vhs. A lot of the VHS tapes were of children's programming where you had children actors on the shows.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

When we went through the tapes, investigators found hours of him at playgrounds, hours of him watching boys go by on their bikes. Very inappropriate.

[Interviewer]

The search yields no evidence directly linking Heinrich to Jared Jacob or any of the Paynesville incidents. But there was something else found that troubled investigators.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

He had tapes of news clippings from the Wetterling investigation.

[Interviewer]

The Wetterling investigation. So he was obviously concerned about the Wetterling case.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Correct.

[Interviewer]

This very well could be Jacob Wetterling's abductor. What are you thinking?

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

A lot of it is thinking in your head, what do we now need to do so that we do this properly?

[Investigator]

So we worked with the U.S. attorney's office to formulate a Nexus to get federal charges for child pornography. Federal charges would carry more weight with more potential prison time, which might help elicit some confession in a Wetterling case.

[Interviewer]

About three months after they searched Heinrich's home, investigators contact the Wetterlings to share their findings.

[Friend/Neighbor]

Patti and I were called down to the law enforcement center.

[Patty Wetterling]

You could just feel an electric energy in the room.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

We had made a PowerPoint which talked about the Paynesville incidents, the DNA match with Jared's case.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

And then we also went over some of the. The tire and shoe impressions with overlays.

[Patty Wetterling]

They had Danny's shoes and then they had the imprint on the driveway and they just. It was like a slow moving movie where they put one on top of the other. And visually it was a match visually. And they did the same thing with the tire. And they matched and they matched exactly. It was chilling. That whole presentation was absolutely chilling.

[Jared Schirold]

I was brought into a briefing room at the bca, the FBI, Stearns county, everybody's in the room. And it starts out with Jared. We got some good news and we got some bad news. We got your guy. I said, what's the bad news?

[Patty Wetterling]

They couldn't charge him in Jared's abduction because statute of limitations had run out.

[Jared Schirold]

We can't try them. So you just take a deep breath. You're taking it in. It's in disbelief. I help you get to this point that there's statutes of limitations on any types of cases like this.

[Patty Wetterling]

They warned us to not reveal to anybody what was going on because they wanted him arrested.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

Got a call from Patty and she said, I don't think we're going to be able to film that thing tomorrow. There's something really big happening. And she said, you should turn on your tv.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Good afternoon. Last night, FBI special agents working with the bca, the Stearns County Sheriff's office and local police arrested Daniel James Heinrich.

[Narrator/Commentator]

26 years roughly after the abduction, Danny Heinrich is arrested on child pornography charges.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

We consider him to be a person

[Podcast Host]

of interest in the Wetterling abduction.

[Narrator/Commentator]

It was really the first major development in the case, really since the day it happened.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

Everybody in media wanted to know what was the Wetterling's reaction to this huge news. And so they scheduled this press conference. They let me come into their home while they were preparing for that.

[Patty Wetterling]

It brings back a lot of anxiety, a lot of beginning stuff. And I can't live in the dark all the time.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

The emotions were, you know, high.

[Patty Wetterling]

I know what I want to say. It's just how you say it is hard.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

I Think the clock says 12:13.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

So.

[Patty Wetterling]

All right, this is my big idea.

[Friend/Neighbor]

That's it.

[Patty Wetterling]

I said this is my big idea. I don't know if it was a good one or not, but, you know, whatever. I hate this long driveway.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

I love you.

[Patty Wetterling]

Love you too.

[Narrator/Commentator]

We do see Patty and Jerry Wetterling coming down their driveway. You can see they still have the porch light on all the time.

[Patty Wetterling]

Missing kids come home after long periods of time. And I will still, always, always hope until we have our answers.

[Bruce Baktolda (Deputy)]

Thank you.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

After Danny Heinrich was arrested, Patti asked me to help write the book. And so we were really focusing on that.

[Patty Wetterling]

We didn't know where Jacob was, so we just kept writing.

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

We had no idea what the ending was going to be.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

The months are ticking by after the arrest. And it was sort of this new.

[Interviewer]

You don't know if he's dead or alive.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Correct.

[Patty Wetterling]

Oh, my goodness.

[Interviewer]

This is.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

It just took the wind out of

[Friend/Neighbor]

everybody's like, finally we found it.

[Interviewer]

Nearly a year after Heinrich's arrest, he's ready to make a deal.

[Patty Wetterling]

Do you want justice or do you want answers? It's like, I want Jacob.

[Prosecutor]

Danny Heinrich would plead guilty to one count of child pornography in federal court and receive a 20 year sentence if he was able to show us remains or provide a credible confession.

[Patty Wetterling]

He would either tell where Jacob was and what happened or give some convincing evidence. And I was really troubled by that word. It's like, who does he have to convince? He's already convinced all of you. He has to convince me. Her agreeing to this would give us the keys to unlock the door to finally find Jacob Waterwayne.

[Interviewer]

Where is Jacob now? Danny Heinrich, the suspect in the boy's kidnapping, has led law enforcement to this quiet stretch of farmland in Paynesville. Would they finally be able to bring Jacob home?

[Prosecutor]

We walk through that narrow strip of woods with him and eventually planted a few flags to show where the remains could have been.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

When investigation began at the scene, they found a piece of red material that was sticking out above ground.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Ended up being Jacob's hockey jacket.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Everybody just took a deep breath and just took the wind out of everybody's

[Patty Wetterling]

like, oh, I cannot describe in words what it was like to all Son just feel like, oh my goodness.

[Interviewer]

I mean, this is it.

[Patty Wetterling]

We get this call saying that they had found Jacob's jacket. Your blood runs cold. It's like everything inside is screaming no.

[Friend/Neighbor]

And we're driving up. It's a peaceful farm. We see the sheriff and Captain Penn Jensen and they just come up and give us a hug and Raise tears.

[Investigator]

Why did you walk away?

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Well, it's been a while since I thought about this case. And when we found it was very surreal, we realized that there was no more Jacob hope.

[Patty Wetterling]

It was incredibly sad, but at the same moment, there was something peaceful. Jacob was at peace.

[Interviewer]

Jerry, for you,

[Friend/Neighbor]

words couldn't do anything at that point. Finally, finally, we finally, Jerry and I,

[Patty Wetterling]

you know, he drove to some little neighborhood on a side street and pulled over and said, we have to call. We gotta call the kids. And that was the worst call in my life.

[Interviewer]

After obtaining Heinrich's confession, law enforcement then share the painful details with the Wetterlings.

[Patty Wetterling]

The sheriff would tell us what they found out, what Danny said happened that night.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

Heinrich said that he was in the St Joseph area that Sunday night and he saw the three boys going towards a convenience store. And he drove to the dirt driveway and he waited for them. He said that he walked Jacob back to his car and he handcuffed Jacob and that Jacob asked, what did I do wrong?

[Friend/Neighbor]

He did nothing wrong.

[Patty Wetterling]

You know, we're all sobbing and it's like, stop, Sheriff, can you not hear us? You know, stop.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

He drove Jacob to the edge of Paynesville and got him out of the car and assaulted him.

[Narrator/Local Resident]

Jacob said he was cold and that just. That really stuck with me.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

They didn't have any clothes on. As a parent, it's just heartbreaking.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Jacob said that he wanted to go home and started to cry.

[Aaron Larson]

Just wants. Just wants to go home and, like, was doing everything he asked him to do and just wanted to go home. And like, I can't imagine, like, the fear just let him go home.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

And that's when he took out a gun that he had in his pocket. And he fired once and Jacob didn't fall down and he pulled the trigger again.

[Patty Wetterling]

Why did he have to kill him? Why two shots? It was just too much, Too much.

[Prosecutor]

He went home for some period of time, came back and took Jacob and took his remains and buried them.

[Investigator/Interviewer]

Approximately a year later, he went back to the scene and he noticed a little part of the red jacket was sticking up. At that point, he determined that he needed to move. Jacob basically walked Kitty Corner across the state highway into a farm field. And that's where Jacob remained until he told us about the location.

[Interviewer]

He had not killed anybody as far as you know, why did he kill Jacob?

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Finally, we know Danny Heinrich is the confessed murderer Jacob Wetterling.

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

And for that he will spend the

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

next 20 years in prison.

[Interviewer]

Why did he kill Jacob?

[Investigator/Prosecutor]

During the interview, he said that he had Seen some red lights of a police vehicle going past. And he said that that contributed to his panic and may have influenced his decision to shoot Jacob.

[Patty Wetterling]

I want to say, Jacob, I'm so sorry. It's incredibly painful to know his last days, last hours, last minutes. I also want to say one huge shout out to Jared and Joy. Jared had the courage to stand up and say, this happened to me.

[Jared Schirold]

I came here today to remember the spirit of Jacob.

[Interviewer]

As part of the plan plea deal. Heinrich also admitted in court to Jared's abduction and assault.

[Prosecutor]

The case of the Paynesville victims. We believe them.

[Interviewer]

Heinrich was never charged in those eight Painesville incidents.

[Jared Schirold]

Because of my anger with the statutes of limitations and the injustice, it just stopped working. It wasn't good. Depression, caught up with alcoholism caught up with me. And. And one day I just stopped feeling sorry for myself because there's so many others. And who am I to sit there and say, woe is me?

[Reporter]

It was important for Jared Schirold to file a civil lawsuit against Danny Heinrich just to get some legal recognition of what he had done, holding somebody accountable.

[Chris Newberry (Documentary Producer)]

So he and his lawyer worked hard for a number of years to get to the point, point where they were heading into the courthouse for the civil hearing.

[Jared Schirold]

We are finally coming to the day of the civil hearing here. I used to work at a front desk at a hotel, so that's why I learned how to do that. My ex wife will be testifying today. It'll go good as well as a friend of mine that was with me the night of my abduction. So kind of give a little more insight to this long journey. Just having that day in court changed my headlines. And then the next day, victim awarded 17.2 million.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

He says he knows he won't likely

[Joy Baker (Blogger)]

see any of that 17 million dollar

[Interviewer]

judgment, but says that's okay.

[Jared Schirold]

I didn't lose. I wasn't denied justice. The pain and suffering was real and it justified that.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

My whole name is Jacob Irvin Woodrow.

[Patty Wetterling]

Happy birthday. Hey, Jacob. Happy birthday.

[Interviewer]

You've written a book. Dear Jacob.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

What led you to want to put your pain out there and to relive it?

[Patty Wetterling]

Everybody has stuff going on in their lives and they're trying to figure out how do you. How do you get through this? Part of me wanted to write, to share some of what kept us going, if it could help another family. When I go out on the road and they, they show up because Jacob meant something to them and they. They still carry them in his heart and it changed the way they parent and it changed the way their parents parented. And it's like he changed the world. It wasn't me, but it was the spirit of who this kid was and what he believed in. And it's still shining. Dad, does that thing have sound effects?

[Friend/Neighbor]

I think Jacob's legacy is showing that all kids are really awesome and they need every bit of opportunity to flourish, to express themselves and to fully do that in a safe way.

[Patty Wetterling]

How was work? Well, I'm tired after long days of work.

[Interviewer]

How would you describe where you are at this moment?

[Patty Wetterling]

I am a believer in children, and I didn't want our own kids to live fearful, afraid of the world, afraid to go out and to play and to have fun.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

So.

[Patty Wetterling]

So we fought for the world that Jacob knew. I refused to let the man who took Jacob take away anything more. You can't have my marriage. You can't have my kids. You can't have the world of innocence and believing in dreams and going after your full potential. That's really what I have fought for, and I still will. It's the kids,

[Interviewer]

David. I was struck by how this mom so remarkably was able to turn her pain into action. Patty Wetterling continues to advocate for child safety, honoring her son's memory.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

In fact, Deborah, her book dear A mother's journey of Hope, written with blogger Joy Baker, reveals even more of the story. And you can look into it there. Just an incredible story. That's our program for tonight.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Thanks for watching.

[Law Enforcement/Dispatcher]

I'm David Muir.

[Interviewer]

And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

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