MN - Jacob Wetterling, 11, St. Joseph, 22 Oct 1989 - #12

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Baker Street had an outlet to the east that went to the front of the Del-Win Ballroom and also out to Hwy. 75. Hwy. 75 leads to I94 now, not sure where they connected back in 1989. But 75 is a major highway that goes west to St. John's, Alexandria, Sauk Centre, and east to St. Cloud and the Twin Cities.

http://s100.photobucket.com/user/shergal1/media/BakerStreet.jpg.html?sort=4&o=26

I can see lots of tire tracks shown on this photo. Pictured center is Steve Mund (LE) who took photos of footprints and tire tracks, and also made plaster casts. Not sure who the other LE is.

http://s100.photobucket.com/user/shergal1/media/walkdriveway.jpg.html?sort=4&o=30

This Mpls. Star Tribune article from Feb. 2004 (after Kevin came forward) states that Interstate 94 was only a couple miles away.
Part 1:
http://s100.photobucket.com/user/shergal1/media/start1.jpg.html?sort=4&o=31
Part 2:
http://s100.photobucket.com/user/shergal1/media/start2.jpg.html?sort=4&o=32

When I click on your 2nd link I do not get a picture of Steve Mund but rather a picture of 2 investigators walking east. 1 is walking on the gravel, 1 is walking on the grass. I notice that there is a rise in the driveway topographically to the east(as ELOCsoul noted) and a 'dropoff' after that- judging by the treeline. But what strikes me most is that the 2 investigators are ignoring all of that as well as any extraneous tire tracks and focusing on SOMETHING....what is it they are looking for? What are they following? Why does it take 2 men to look for something?
 
Additionally, the pink striping on this image is the eastern limit of the area Steve Mund was pictured spraying the prints.....why are the 2 investigators walking east beyond that pink striping? My understanding is that Jacob's last footprint was WITHIN that pink striping. So the investigators are walking beyond that pink striping to verify no further footprints???? If so, why circle the area with pink paint?
 
One thing I've wondered about with regards to Kevin's tire tracks, is that he said that they noticed the bikes in the ditch, and considered picking them up.

It was very dark that night, so if Kevin was looking at the bikes, it means that he would have had to have the car pointed directly at them. He probably drove right up to them, which means he would have driven straight out of DR's driveway, and not hugging and bending to the right to head immediately south.

I would think that detectives would have picked up on that.
 
What do you mean "DR was in a video with DR"....did you mean 'Kevin'? Do you have a link to that video? He(DR) wouldn't go along with a ruse....not knowingly.

If it were a ruse, it would have been designed to get DR to change his story.
 
When I click on your 2nd link I do not get a picture of Steve Mund but rather a picture of 2 investigators walking east. 1 is walking on the gravel, 1 is walking on the grass. I notice that there is a rise in the driveway topographically to the east(as ELOCsoul noted) and a 'dropoff' after that- judging by the treeline. But what strikes me most is that the 2 investigators are ignoring all of that as well as any extraneous tire tracks and focusing on SOMETHING....what is it they are looking for? What are they following? Why does it take 2 men to look for something?

Why does it take two men? Same reason it takes two, three, four, five plus highway construction workers to complete a job?
 
When I click on your 2nd link I do not get a picture of Steve Mund but rather a picture of 2 investigators walking east. 1 is walking on the gravel, 1 is walking on the grass. I notice that there is a rise in the driveway topographically to the east(as ELOCsoul noted) and a 'dropoff' after that- judging by the treeline. But what strikes me most is that the 2 investigators are ignoring all of that as well as any extraneous tire tracks and focusing on SOMETHING....what is it they are looking for? What are they following? Why does it take 2 men to look for something?

That is Steve Mund walking on the gravel.
 
One thing I've wondered about with regards to Kevin's tire tracks, is that he said that they noticed the bikes in the ditch, and considered picking them up.

It was very dark that night, so if Kevin was looking at the bikes, it means that he would have had to have the car pointed directly at them. He probably drove right up to them, which means he would have driven straight out of DR's driveway, and not hugging and bending to the right to head immediately south.

I would think that detectives would have picked up on that.

Also about the tire tracks, I was on a gravel road last night and concluded that there should be stopping prints if the car was parked. Also if i drove over the parked prints they still remained visible.

Its something like this that LE could point out to give more assurance to what happened. That there were stopping prints and that there was perps footprints entering a vehicle just like Jacobs.
 
POI is not a convicted actor. "The moment you think you have “figured it out”; you have limited your vision of the case and are in danger of missing a critical component".

ok. but why not him? What is he like as a person
 
If it were a ruse, it would have been designed to get DR to change his story.

who is Kevin? DR knows he is not LE. I seriously doubt that LE would ask some random person to do a ruse
 
One thing I've wondered about with regards to Kevin's tire tracks, is that he said that they noticed the bikes in the ditch, and considered picking them up.

It was very dark that night, so if Kevin was looking at the bikes, it means that he would have had to have the car pointed directly at them. He probably drove right up to them, which means he would have driven straight out of DR's driveway, and not hugging and bending to the right to head immediately south.

I would think that detectives would have picked up on that.

x Crime-Scene1.jpgx Crime-Scene1.jpg x crime scene bikes.jpg x jacob_wetterling_map-149x300.jpg

If the photos loaded right; they're what I'm calling; crime scene 1, crime scene bikes, JW map, L-R
It looks like I loaded the first photo twice, but, I'm not gonna try to fix it.

Your post made me think of a couple of things; part of which I had already been a little curious about, and then some that came to mind with your post, and a couple that came to mind as I was looking this over.

One thing, with your sentence: "He probably drove right up to them, which means he would have driven straight out of DR's driveway,"

With that sentence; I'm not certain if this is what you're saying, but, after reading your post, I had wondered, (considering the comment about discussing about putting the bikes in the trunk, etc...), whether or not Kevin in fact drove straight across the road to that little drive like spot directly across and next to the bikes.

With your point about how the car would have to be pretty much facing straight at the bikes for them to have seen them; something that I've just wondered about; kind of a curiosity, but, just something to think about, especially considering your comment.

This one six part picture is a lot of help here:

This is really better to visualize if you make the picture somewhat (somewhat considerably) larger. I don't know if you can do that or not with the way the picture will post here, but, if you copy & save the pic to your PC you should be able to do that. Or, if that doesn't work, you can Google JW crime scene photos and find it there.

Starting with the picture in the bottom right; if you're sitting in DR's driveway looking across, there really is a somewhat significant ditch, where they laid the bikes down.

Then go to the picture in the top right; looks like maybe a 10 speed, with the seat and handlebars, pretty much down in the ditch, and the wheels somewhat flush with the grass; so, it kind of seems like it wouldn't really have been that visible.

Then the pic on the middle right; I'm thinking that looks like it may be the scooter, and the wheels are pretty much down in the ditch, and the handlebars stick up somewhat, but, not too much; also, looks like they're not chrome, so, it could be that they wouldn't have been that visible.

Then the picture on the middle left, where the crime scene tape is in front of the bike; I'm pretty confident that this bike is like what we used to call Sting Rays; a smaller bike with high handle bars, and it seems like they had like a long, banana like seat. It looks like the wheels are pretty much down in the ditch, and the seat is pretty much flush with the grass, and the handle bars stick up just somewhat, but really just one side of them. Just checked, on "The Hunt" is shows a fairly clear picture of that bike, and it does look as I described it; also, handle bars, look like at least partially painted blue, but, not much chrome, and from the view on the show, looks like not that much of the bike was sticking up; whereas, in the pictures, it kind of looks like this bike is the one with the most sticking up.

Then, to the picture in the bottom left. This one you really have to blow up quite big to get a decent view of it; if you look at the crime scene tape, just about the middle of it, to the right, you can see a bike wheel, and it looks like a few feet over to the right, you can just barely make out that there's something there that is likely part of a bike. This one is pretty hard to see. But, anyway, it appears that this picture was taken when the bikes were still there in the grass where they had been left, and it's really pretty hard to see them, in the broad daylight. I just watched "The Hunt" (on DVR) 13 mins into the show, they show footage of the scene, pause it to get a good look; it shows the bikes in the ditch right next to the little drive, basically the same view as the picture in the bottom left, only moving, from further back, to forward, and those bikes are hard to see.

I don't know, it's just a curiosity to me, but, as you pointed out, that the car would pretty much have to have been pointed right at the bikes; and considering the darkness, it almost seems like the bikes could have been almost somewhat difficult to see; like not really something that would jump out at you, like you'd really kind of have to focus on them.

Another thing that hit me when I was thinking about this. Kevin, his GF and her brother and his wife, went out to see what the action was that they heard on the scanner and saw the emergency vehicles; so, they tried to follow the cop cars w/lights. Appears they lost track of the cop cars, and Kevin decided that since the rest of the road was a dead end, that they were in the wrong place; so, they decided to turn around and go back to T Thumb's (still chasing the action, not ready to go home yet) because, they had heard something about Tom Thumb's on the Scanner. Well, they had also heard something about the kids and bikes, on the scanner.

Here's quote from 'Kevin's Story' from Joy's Blog: "They hadn’t been listening closely, but thought they had heard something about kids, some bikes, Tom Thumb, and possibly a mask."

Well, it just makes me wonder, under those circumstances, wouldn't Kevin have figured that he had found something that was a part of the action that he was looking for, and maybe, wait a little while, to see whether any cops showed up or not.

Actually, if you stop and think about it, if you look at the crime scene area as illustrated by the other little map; Kevin, had driven that far down the road, looking for the cop cars, and gets to DR's driveway

Quote from 'Kevin's Story' on Joy's Blog:

"Kevin, on the other hand, decides to turn left (south) and see if there are any flashing lights down that direction. He gets as far as Rassiers’ driveway and knows it’s a dead end after that, so he decides to pull in and turn around."

Frankly, if he knew at that point that it was a dead end after that, then he also knew that going up to that point, and, he had already gone that far; well, why wouldn't he have just gone down a little further to see what might be down the road; it would be like 3 mins by car, and he would have seen the flashing lights. And, if he had thought there were reason to go down that road in the first place; why would he have not considered, going to the end. I've even wondered, whether with 3 cop cars with lights down at the Wetterling's, whether he couldn't have almost seen them from DR's driveway, but, I guess not.

Coincidentally, the post right after this; #912 by shergal, has a video, last one on page, see her notes; that has some footage of the crime scene showing some of the bikes. About 1:40 into the video. It's also the best reference I've seen for video of the driveway, tracks, etc...
 
Additionally, the pink striping on this image is the eastern limit of the area Steve Mund was pictured spraying the prints.....why are the 2 investigators walking east beyond that pink striping? My understanding is that Jacob's last footprint was WITHIN that pink striping. So the investigators are walking beyond that pink striping to verify no further footprints???? If so, why circle the area with pink paint?

Most of those footprint and crime scene photos on my photobucket are screen grabs from the last video on this page, if you wish to review them further in context. (There is one large video at the top, and 3 smaller videos below that, and it is the 4th or last video on the page - with the faded picture of Jacob.)
http://www.kare11.com/story/news/cr...ors-take-fresh-look-at-similar-cases/9064905/
 
View attachment 62975View attachment 62975 View attachment 62974 View attachment 62976

If the photos loaded right; they're what I'm calling; crime scene 1, crime scene bikes, JW map, L-R
It looks like I loaded the first photo twice, but, I'm not gonna try to fix it.

Your post made me think of a couple of things; part of which I had already been a little curious about, and then some that came to mind with your post, and a couple that came to mind as I was looking this over.

One thing, with your sentence: "He probably drove right up to them, which means he would have driven straight out of DR's driveway,"

With that sentence; I'm not certain if this is what you're saying, but, after reading your post, I had wondered, (considering the comment about discussing about putting the bikes in the trunk, etc...), whether or not Kevin in fact drove straight across the road to that little drive like spot directly across and next to the bikes.

With your point about how the car would have to be pretty much facing straight at the bikes for them to have seen them; something that I've just wondered about; kind of a curiosity, but, just something to think about, especially considering your comment.

This one six part picture is a lot of help here:

This is really better to visualize if you make the picture somewhat (somewhat considerably) larger. I don't know if you can do that or not with the way the picture will post here, but, if you copy & save the pic to your PC you should be able to do that. Or, if that doesn't work, you can Google JW crime scene photos and find it there.

Starting with the picture in the bottom right; if you're sitting in DR's driveway looking across, there really is a somewhat significant ditch, where they laid the bikes down.

Then go to the picture in the top right; looks like maybe a 10 speed, with the seat and handlebars, pretty much down in the ditch, and the wheels somewhat flush with the grass; so, it kind of seems like it wouldn't really have been that visible.

Then the pic on the middle right; I'm thinking that looks like it may be the scooter, and the wheels are pretty much down in the ditch, and the handlebars stick up somewhat, but, not too much; also, looks like they're not chrome, so, it could be that they wouldn't have been that visible.

Then the picture on the middle left, where the crime scene tape is in front of the bike; I'm pretty confident that this bike is like what we used to call Sting Rays; a smaller bike with high handle bars, and it seems like they had like a long, banana like seat. It looks like the wheels are pretty much down in the ditch, and the seat is pretty much flush with the grass, and the handle bars stick up just somewhat, but really just one side of them. Just checked, on "The Hunt" is shows a fairly clear picture of that bike, and it does look as I described it; also, handle bars, look like at least partially painted blue, but, not much chrome, and from the view on the show, looks like not that much of the bike was sticking up; whereas, in the pictures, it kind of looks like this bike is the one with the most sticking up.

Then, to the picture in the bottom left. This one you really have to blow up quite big to get a decent view of it; if you look at the crime scene tape, just about the middle of it, to the right, you can see a bike wheel, and it looks like a few feet over to the right, you can just barely make out that there's something there that is likely part of a bike. This one is pretty hard to see. But, anyway, it appears that this picture was taken when the bikes were still there in the grass where they had been left, and it's really pretty hard to see them, in the broad daylight. I just watched "The Hunt" (on DVR) 13 mins into the show, they show footage of the scene, pause it to get a good look; it shows the bikes in the ditch right next to the little drive, basically the same view as the picture in the bottom left, only moving, from further back, to forward, and those bikes are hard to see.

I don't know, it's just a curiosity to me, but, as you pointed out, that the car would pretty much have to have been pointed right at the bikes; and considering the darkness, it almost seems like the bikes could have been almost somewhat difficult to see; like not really something that would jump out at you, like you'd really kind of have to focus on them.

Another thing that hit me when I was thinking about this. Kevin, his GF and her brother and his wife, went out to see what the action was that they heard on the scanner and saw the emergency vehicles; so, they tried to follow the cop cars w/lights. Appears they lost track of the cop cars, and Kevin decided that since the rest of the road was a dead end, that they were in the wrong place; so, they decided to turn around and go back to T Thumb's (still chasing the action, not ready to go home yet) because, they had heard something about Tom Thumb's on the Scanner. Well, they had also heard something about the kids and bikes, on the scanner.

Here's quote from 'Kevin's Story' from Joy's Blog: "They hadn’t been listening closely, but thought they had heard something about kids, some bikes, Tom Thumb, and possibly a mask."

Well, it just makes me wonder, under those circumstances, wouldn't Kevin have figured that he had found something that was a part of the action that he was looking for, and maybe, wait a little while, to see whether any cops showed up or not.

Actually, if you stop and think about it, if you look at the crime scene area as illustrated by the other little map; Kevin, had driven that far down the road, looking for the cop cars, and gets to DR's driveway

Quote from 'Kevin's Story' on Joy's Blog:

"Kevin, on the other hand, decides to turn left (south) and see if there are any flashing lights down that direction. He gets as far as Rassiers’ driveway and knows it’s a dead end after that, so he decides to pull in and turn around."

Frankly, if he knew at that point that it was a dead end after that, then he also knew that going up to that point, and, he had already gone that far; well, why wouldn't he have just gone down a little further to see what might be down the road; it would be like 3 mins by car, and he would have seen the flashing lights. I've even wondered, whether with 3 cop cars with lights down at the Wetterling's, whether he couldn't have almost seen them from DR's driveway, but, I guess not.

I suppose since it was dark, the car lights on Kevin's gf's car might have picked up a bit of the bikes, but it seems they would have been difficult to see. Unless they saw them when they were up on the "small hill" part of DR's driveway, so headlights would be aimed down more? Interesting ideas though. What baffles me more is why Kevin would even think of picking the bikes up and loading them into his trunk?? Especially if he knew "bikes" were part of some crime scene from the scanner.

I've always wondered why they couldn't see the cops' flashing lights on their cars through the field before they even turned into DR's driveway, those show up a long way away. And trees would have been mostly bare by then.
 
I suppose since it was dark, the car lights on Kevin's gf's car might have picked up a bit of the bikes, but it seems they would have been difficult to see. Unless they saw them when they were up on the "small hill" part of DR's driveway, so headlights would be aimed down more? Interesting ideas though. What baffles me more is why Kevin would even think of picking the bikes up and loading them into his trunk?? Especially if he knew "bikes" were part of some crime scene from the scanner.

I've always wondered why they couldn't see the cops' flashing lights on their cars through the field before they even turned into DR's driveway, those show up a long way away. And trees would have been mostly bare by then.

You quoted my post, just before I edited it to reference your post #912.

Quoting cGorg post #821 " The entire "Kevin" scenario is odd at best." does seem to sum up the way I think of 'the scenario!' I've wondered about seeing those lights, and a few other things for a while now. Also, after making that post, looking at the pictures, watching the video from "The Hunt" and from the video referenced in your post, the more I think about it, I really think those bikes could well have been pretty hard to see. I guess it's hard to say.
 
Also about the tire tracks, I was on a gravel road last night and concluded that there should be stopping prints if the car was parked. Also if i drove over the parked prints they still remained visible.

Its something like this that LE could point out to give more assurance to what happened. That there were stopping prints and that there was perps footprints entering a vehicle just like Jacobs.

Ever heard of bicycle gravel riding? (Experienced) I can tell you, for certain, that there are very different types of gravel. Your experiment with gravel may not duplicate what was at the abduction spot.
 
Ever heard of bicycle gravel riding? (Experienced) I can tell you, for certain, that there are very different types of gravel. Your experiment with gravel may not duplicate what was at the abduction spot.

Mountain biking. A very popular sport in Minnesota over the last 25 years.
 
From joys blog..

"As they come back out to the road, they notice the kids’ bikes lying in the ditch across the street. There are no police there yet. They sit and discuss what to do about the bikes. Should they put them in the trunk and take them to the police? At this point, they still have no idea that a child has been abducted, so they just assumed the bikes had been stolen. They decide just to leave them there and go see what’s happening at the Tom Thumb (since they had heard something about that on the scanner.)"
 
Ever heard of bicycle gravel riding? (Experienced) I can tell you, for certain, that there are very different types of gravel. Your experiment with gravel may not duplicate what was at the abduction spot.

I would just like to say that there was visible tire tracks recovered. The activity of them should show if there was stop and go. I thought the road I was on resembled the gravel in the pictures. I encourage anyone else to go out in the country and try the test yourself.
 
Not sure if this has been asked and answered previously. But I have always wondered, when LE drove to the Wetterlings, after the abduction...did they drive by the abduction sight (or did they take another route)?

Same question for the Wetterlings, when they were driving home after receiving the call that something had happened to Jacob...did they drive by the abduction sight (or did they take another route)?

Thanks.
 
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