MN - Jacob Wetterling, 11, St. Joseph, 22 Oct 1989 - #10

They were coming down the trail used, resulting in a 911 call to police. Now here is a good question, how was DR so alert that he even saw this happening?

I'm struggling with the notion that it's been four years since that last dig at DR's farm with no evidence sufficient to make a charge. I know technology continues to improve, but -- was there nothing substantive on DR's computer, journal, or elsewhere to incriminate him? Did the FBI check to see if there have been any "incidences" in any of the many places where he has run marathons? I know people get away with murder all the time -- we see it here on WS all too often. Did DR really pass the polygraph or was it inconclusive?

I imagine people can have hook ups all over, so no incidences need to exist.

ThePhantom said:

I'm struggling with the notion that it's been four years since that last dig at DR's farm with no evidence sufficient to make a charge. I know technology continues to improve, but -- was there nothing substantive on DR's computer, journal, or elsewhere to incriminate him? Did the FBI check to see if there have been any "incidences" in any of the many places where he has run marathons? I know people get away with murder all the time -- we see it here on WS all too often. Did DR really pass the polygraph or was it inconclusive?

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I believe LE knows 50 to 70 pecent more than the public. For 15 years they led me to believe a man in a white van is responsible. How much more do they know now.

I would love to know if the FBI was able to track DR into the "deep web" to see if he belonged to any online groups that were into certain kinds of *advertiser censored*

ThePhantom said:

I would love to know if the FBI was able to track DR into the "deep web" to see if he belonged to any online groups that were into certain kinds of *advertiser censored*

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Was the hard drive responsible for the calculated dig of the fire pit?

I'm sorry about posting without a link about the first FBI unit to respond to be a bank robbery unit. Can anyone else chime in if you remember reading that or have a link? I thought it was in one of the magazine stories with interviews of PW. Now, upon Googling, I only see a Google results blurb for an article I can't access without subscribing to the Bemidji Pioneer "Forum discusses sexual exploitation, sex trafficking in Bemidji area." From the Google results blurb, I can see it, but then I can't access the same in the story to read the rest of the sentence. I know that is NOT where I originally read it. Can anyone help? If not, I can try news database later after my work week ends.

Marzipan said:

I'm sorry about posting without a link about the first FBI unit to respond to be a bank robbery unit. Can anyone else chime in if you remember reading that or have a link? I thought it was in one of the magazine stories with interviews of PW. Now, upon Googling, I only see a Google results blurb for an article I can't access without subscribing to the Bemidji Pioneer "Forum discusses sexual exploitation, sex trafficking in Bemidji area." From the Google results blurb, I can see it, but then I can't access the same in the story to read the rest of the sentence. I know that is NOT where I originally read it. Can anyone help? If not, I can try news database later after my work week ends.

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http://lightingtheirwayhome.wordpre...tober-22-1989-usmcc000001-updated-05-04-2013/

I see reading this article that Fbi agent Al Garber was head of the violent crime squad. Additional Fbi could have come from various divisions back then.

Sasquatch321 said:

I believe LE knows 50 to 70 pecent more than the public. For 15 years they led me to believe a man in a white van is responsible. How much more do they know now.

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Where did you get the white van info? I never heard that.

human said:

Where did you get the white van info? I never heard that.

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I was 13 in 1989, that was what I heard by word of mouth. For the next 15 years we only knew jacob was taken in a vehicle, preferrably a white van. I never heard about a footprint, a gravel driveway, a dead end road, or even that the man was disguised. They had that sketch of a face for 15 years.

Hm. I think the white van idea was ditched right away.

The footprints appear to have been in the media, so we missed them or were not paying attention to it.

The reports did say the guy had something in his head, although we were led to believe the sketches were related.

Dead end road? Not sure what that means? I think we knew that the Wetterling's lived in a cul de sac.

But there was no reference to DR that I ever saw

human said:

Hm. I think the white van idea was ditched right away.

The footprints appear to have been in the media, so we missed them or were not paying attention to it.

The reports did say the guy had something in his head, although we were led to believe the sketches were related.

Dead end road? Not sure what that means? I think we knew that the Wetterling's lived in a cul de sac.

But there was no reference to DR that I ever saw

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I dont believe the newspapers ever detailed the crime scene. Until the internet happened and new answers to the public, became apparent (seeing the area overhead via satellite and discovering the hill).

Marzipan said:

I'm sorry about posting without a link about the first FBI unit to respond to be a bank robbery unit. Can anyone else chime in if you remember reading that or have a link? I thought it was in one of the magazine stories with interviews of PW. Now, upon Googling, I only see a Google results blurb for an article I can't access without subscribing to the Bemidji Pioneer "Forum discusses sexual exploitation, sex trafficking in Bemidji area." From the Google results blurb, I can see it, but then I can't access the same in the story to read the rest of the sentence. I know that is NOT where I originally read it. Can anyone help? If not, I can try news database later after my work week ends.

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It is mentioned in this article (from Newsmax archived papers) that Al Garber was up there the next morning. I've never read anything about a bank robbery unit.

A LAWMAN RECOLLECTS

Al Garber was the supervisor of the FBI's violent-crime squad in Minneapolis. He got a call that night from an FBI agent stationed in St. Cloud and drove up to St. Joseph early the next morning. He supervised the investigation for about two years; he retired from the FBI in 1993.

"Why Jacob? I don't know why, I don't know why," Garber says. "We don't have evidence, but logic tells you that this person didn't drop out of the sky at this intersection and kidnap Jacob. I mean this person had a reason for being there. Look at this area. The area is not an area where you would routinely drive or walk through. ... This criminal didn't just happen to see the kids."

Larson agrees. "I think the guy kind of had an idea in his mind who he was after," he says. "I don't know if he had been following one of us for a while, or kind of keeping track of what our whereabouts were. ... He made a big thing as far as asking our age and having us look at him, so I figure ... that he had been maybe either keeping an eye or watching for the past weeks, days or months or whatever."

Garber says several men emerged as suspects, but no one was charged.

"There are several people who we could not determine whether they did it or not," he says. "We did everything that we could do to determine that. We found them. We talked to them. We tried to trace their movements. We tried so many, many things, and there are several people who still ... I don't know if they did it, but I know that they could have. But I don't know anything we could have done more."

The crime made national news because it was so unusual, Garber says.

"An armed abductor of a child -- that's not the way it usually happens," he says. "It happens where a person gains the trust of a child or a person takes a child or kidnaps a child, but to have a case where somebody at gunpoint abducts a child -- that was a very, very unusual crime. A very shocking crime."

From
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)

October 22, 2009
Edition: St. Paul
Section: Main
Page: A1

http://nl.newsbank.com/

Sasquatch321 said:

I was 13 in 1989, that was what I heard by word of mouth. For the next 15 years we only knew jacob was taken in a vehicle, preferrably a white van. I never heard about a footprint, a gravel driveway, a dead end road, or even that the man was disguised. They had that sketch of a face for 15 years.

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Yes, I agree with this. Our local media mentioned a white van for quite a while because someone had seen a man driving a white van with what looked like a distressed boy inside. As far as I recall though, there was eventually an article that they had located that van and it was some man who was passing through going to the lake or something with his son and his son was crying about something. So it was just another dead end.

Our local papers never mentioned the "R" name at all. DR when mentioned was referred to as "the neighbor on a farm" or "the man". Possibly people living right near there in St. Joe knew who they meant, but even having friends who lived in Kiwi Court, we only heard it had happened in front of a neighbor's farm. I never heard DR's name until 2010 when the dig began.

The bloodhounds used the day after Jacob's abduction led investigators to the tire track, but would they not also have led them to the house or other locations on the property? I read they searched a two mile radius.

You know, the one thing that struck me while re-reading a timeline for Jacob's case is how, just as in Joshua's case, authorities used every resource available and conducted an extensive search -- everywhere except for the one place they should have -- in Jacob's case, inside DR's house; in Joshua's case, inside the abbey.

I've said this before == those are the first two places I would have gone. I just don't understand.

ThePhantom said:

The bloodhounds used the day after Jacob's abduction led investigators to the tire track, but would they not also have led them to the house or other locations on the property? I read they searched a two mile radius.

You know, the one thing that struck me while re-reading a timeline for Jacob's case is how, just as in Joshua's case, authorities used every resource available and conducted an extensive search -- everywhere except for the one place they should have -- in Jacob's case, inside DR's house; in Joshua's case, inside the abbey.

I've said this before == those are the first two places I would have gone. I just don't understand.

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Probably due to those in charge thinking no way could these nice church going farmers with the teacher son, or the wonderful priests/monks at the abbey have had anything to do with such a sordid crime as kidnapping a child or a young adult male.

We are learning now, in hindsight, how wrong we all were thinking that all priests were beyond reproach.

shergal said:

Probably due to those in charge thinking no way could these nice church going farmers with the teacher son, or the wonderful priests/monks at the abbey have had anything to do with such a sordid crime as kidnapping a child or a young adult male.

We are learning now, in hindsight, how wrong we all were thinking that all priests were beyond reproach.

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So true. All of these crimes committed by those in the name of religion...it goes on and on at the expense of the innocent.

Sasquatch321 said:

I dont believe the newspapers ever detailed the crime scene. Until the internet happened and new answers to the public, became apparent (seeing the area overhead via satellite and discovering the hill).

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Yep, I remember when I drove by there the first time, it just blew my mind how isolated this location is. I actually felt guilty for not realizing how truly unusual this case was until that moment.

Going there really tells the tale