Hey all, I'm new here. I graduated from CSBSJU in 2018 and grew up about 10 miles outside of St. Joe. I'm currently a 2L law student. I had been obsessed with both Jacob Wetterling and Josh Guimond for years, even prior to attending St. Bens. I was a sophomore in 2016 when Jacob was found. I walked to Local Blend that morning and saw news crews everywhere. The mishandling of Jacob's case is no secret in Stearns County, but at the end of the day, the 27 year old mystery surrounding his abduction and subsequent murder was solved and he was brought home to rest, and that's truly what matters most. I'm hopeful the same can be done for Josh, but I'm not willfully ignorant to the fact that it will likely be an uphill battle, considering three of the major players include SJU, the monastery, and Stearns County PD.
I can also attest to the disheartening lack of acknowledgement of Josh's disappearance. I'm aware tensions were high in the early years of the "investigation," however; I found it sad that the school never publicly posted, or even acknowledged, Josh's disappearance. I spoke with my psychology professor often about the case because he was really the only faculty who would engage, and his insights were fairly valuable IMO.
Welcome to Ws @ izzy_mae_, thank you for chiming in on behalf of Joshua!
I personally fear that SCPD will prove to be difficult in Josh's case because they likely don't want the public to loose any more faith in their ability to solve crime than it already had from Jacob's case. I also fear that the school will prove to be equally as difficult. I'm not certain of the relationship that exists between the monastery and the school, but I'd imagine there is some sort of hierarchy that would be interesting to explore. Monks have a strong presence on campus, and some "fathers" and "brothers" even live in the dorms, often at the end of the hall, where they oversee dorm activity. I was caught in the male dorms past curfew one evening and the following day, my boyfriend (at the time) and I were called into the "brother's" "dorm" (apartment?) and I'll be honest...it felt odd. This is all to say that the culture of CSBSJU, and SJU in particular, is heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and while I haven't explored the nature of that relationship, I imagine its interesting to say the least.
I've often made the 3-minute walk Josh had taken the night he disappeared. It's difficult to describe just how small the campus really is, and how second-nature the student flow of traffic seems. For instance, the Link (the campus buses) run at 15-minute intervals almost all day long, up until about 2a.m. most weekend nights (correct me if I'm wrong/if things have changed since 2018). So, if Josh walked back to Maur around midnight on November 9th 2002, which was a Saturday, there should have been buses running.
Moreover, I think most other CSBSJU students would agree that anywhere from 10pm - 12am/1am, there are students walking around, especially if they're walking from their dorms/apartments to the two bus stops on the SJU campus or vice versa. I just find it difficult to believe that if Josh hadn't wandered into the woods or fell into a body of water (for which there is no evidence to suggest he had), and if he had been met with foul play and/or taken against his will, someone would have seen something. If he had gotten into a vehicle with someone along his walk back to Maur, I tend to think it must have been with someone he knew, trusted, or respected otherwise any struggle would have been noticed. There's enough activity on a Saturday night at SJU for someone to hear Josh, and hopefully help him, if he had screamed for help or showed signs of a struggle.
I guess I don't really know where to go from here, but I'm glad to see people are interested in Josh's case. I loved my time at CSBSJU, but I refuse to be willfully blind to the realities surrounding his disappearance. The arboretum is vast, and the forests are deep. There are a few different bodies of water on campus, though they have been dredged and searched. The campus sits right alongside I-94, the largest highway in Minnesota. He could have vanished within the small window of time between buses. The Abbey is sacred to both the church and the school. There is a monastery that sits right on campus, along the waterline of Lake Sag. There is a preparatory school on campus. There are secrets, some of which have come to light, and some of which, I imagine, remain "behind the pine curtain."