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“Somebody took Jacob”

On October 22, 1989, 11 YO Jacob Wetterling bikes home and disappears with a gunman into the night. 9 months earlier, 12 YO Jared Scheierl gets ice cream and vanishes shortly after, but a few hours later, he makes it back home: 27 years later, he would be the key to finally solving Jacob’s disappearance, taking down one of the most terrifying men the state of Minnesota has ever seen.

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00 Today, October 12th, I am 5 feet tall.
00:03 My favorite food is steak.
00:05 My favorite color is blue.
00:07 My best friend is Erin Larson.
00:09 And my newest friend is Kaylee.
00:11 This is the last known footage of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling,
00:15 recorded just 10 days before he disappeared on October 22nd, 1989.
00:20 What follows is one of the largest searches for a missing person in U.S. history.
00:25 Wetterling was abducted at gunpoint last night while riding his bike with two other boys.
00:30 He grabbed Jacob and then he told me to run as fast as I could into the woods or else he'd shoot.
00:35 New evidence tonight leads the FBI to believe that Jacob Wetterling's kidnapper may have struck before.
00:41 Only 10 miles from where Jacob was abducted,
00:43 Jared Shirel was also kidnapped and assaulted just 6 days before his 13th birthday in 1989.
00:51 Decades later, he will be the key to solving not only his own case,
00:55 but also a series of attacks on other young boys in Minnesota, including Jacob Wetterling.
01:00 This crime was so horrific in nature and it's gone on for 25 years.
01:06 How many psychopathic pedophiles can exist in a 20-mile radius?
01:10 I want answers. I want to know what happened.
01:13 I'm going to give it 110%. If the answer's out there, then I'm going to find it.
01:18 St. Joseph, Minnesota.
01:21 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling lives with his three siblings, Amy, Trevor, and Carmen,
01:26 and his mom and dad, Patty and Jerry.
01:29 It's October 22nd, 1989.
01:31 It was a chilly but not too chilly October morning.
01:34 We got up, Jacob and I went fishing and then came back for noon kickoff for the Vikings game.
01:39 It was kind of a family tradition, watching Vikings football.
01:42 That evening, Jacob's parents go to a dinner party at a friend's house about 25 minutes away.
01:47 They were going to be back later that night, and they planned for the kids to stay at home while they were gone.
01:52 We were in the middle of dinner. Trevor calls, asks Patty if he and Jacob and Aaron
01:57 could ride their bikes down to the local convenience store and rent a movie.
02:02 There's nothing between us and the store. It's farm field mostly and a few houses.
02:06 But it was starting to get dark and I said, "No, you know, find something to do. We've got plenty to do."
02:11 But the kids keep asking.
02:14 They convince Patty and Jerry to let them go to the store with their friend Aaron,
02:18 if they take flashlights and head straight back home afterwards.
02:22 St. Joseph is usually a very peaceful place, and the Wetterlings figure the kids will be fine,
02:27 as long as they watch out for traffic.
02:29 It must have been about 45 minutes.
02:31 The phone rang and they called for me to come and take this call.
02:34 And it was our next door neighbor who called and said,
02:37 "You have to leave that party right now and come home."
02:40 He came back to the table and said, "We gotta go."
02:42 And I said, "You know what? Aren't those kids back yet?"
02:45 And he said, "Somebody took Jacob."
02:48 Patty and Jerry are horrified.
02:51 They rush home to find Trevor and Aaron in a state of shock.
02:55 Trevor was just agitated.
02:58 And I remember Aaron, Aaron was like hiding in the corner, biting his nails.
03:02 He just wanted to disappear.
03:04 They had witnessed something awful.
03:06 Why don't you give me anything you can remember about this male patty that approached you guys, okay?
03:12 He was like a man.
03:13 Was he?
03:14 Yeah, like a...
03:15 Was this for like, nylon things?
03:17 Or the mask?
03:18 You know what color it was?
03:20 Black.
03:21 The kids tearfully explain what happened.
03:24 After picking up a movie from the store,
03:26 Jacob, Trevor, and Aaron started to ride their bikes home.
03:29 But then, Aaron heard a sound coming from the side of the road.
03:32 You know, it was kind of tall grass.
03:34 A kind of a shiver went through me, and I didn't know if it was, you know, just the wind or an animal.
03:38 But just something didn't feel right, and I just remember,
03:41 the first thing I saw was kind of the flash of the gun.
03:44 A masked man threatened the kids with a gun,
03:48 forcing them to get off their bikes and go into a ditch.
03:51 At first, they thought it was just a high school kid playing a prank,
03:54 but they quickly realized how terrifying the man actually was.
03:58 He said he would shoot them if they didn't lay down in the grass and turn off their flashlights.
04:03 So they followed his orders.
04:04 The silhouette probably sent chills down my spine to hear his voice again.
04:08 And he asked Trevor to look at him and tell him how old he was,
04:11 saying with me, and then saying with Jacob,
04:13 and then, you know, he told Trevor to run as fast as he could in the woods or else he would shoot.
04:17 And then Trevor was gone maybe 10 seconds.
04:20 You know, he basically did the same thing with me and told me to run.
04:22 Trevor and Aaron ran as fast as they could,
04:25 knowing the man could decide to shoot them at any moment.
04:28 They turned around, hoping to see Jacob following them.
04:31 But both Jacob and the attacker disappeared.
04:33 Trevor and Aaron frantically went back to the house to get help.
04:37 They escaped to safety, but they had no idea where Jacob went
04:40 or what the man planned to do with him.
04:42 I was the last person, you know, with him.
04:44 You have that guilt of, he should be here and I shouldn't be here.
04:48 Hearing Trevor and Aaron's story, the Wetterlings are devastated
04:51 and desperate for answers about where their son is and who took him.
04:55 Trevor and Aaron give as many details as they can about their attacker.
04:59 The search for Jacob becomes one of the largest searches for a missing person in U.S. history.
05:04 As days pass, no one can find him.
05:07 But the Wetterlings' best hope could come from another victim,
05:10 a young boy named Jared Shirel.
05:13 There were details that I recognized right away.
05:15 The description of the voice was similar.
05:18 There was a number of details that were pretty consistent to my case.
05:23 January 13th, 1989, nine months before Jacob's disappearance,
05:28 12-year-old Jared Shirel lived a happy life with his family
05:31 in the small town of Cold Spring, Minnesota, just 10 miles from the Wetterlings.
05:35 That night, he went ice skating with his friends.
05:38 Afterwards, they got malts from a cafe.
05:40 What started as a typical night quickly took a turn for the worse.
05:44 When it was time for the boys to head home, Jared walked up to his friend, Cory.
05:48 There's a little alleyway out back, and we walked through the alleyway.
05:51 And the one thing that I will always capture
05:54 was Jared asked me to walk him home.
05:56 And I said no.
05:58 Jared said goodbye and started to walk home alone.
06:01 But when he didn't get back on time, his family started to panic.
06:05 Where the hell would he be?
06:06 It doesn't take an hour to get from the restaurant to the house.
06:10 No one knew where Jared was, but nearly two hours after he said goodbye to his friends,
06:14 his parents saw him running up to the house, distraught.
06:17 Right away, he said he was attacked, and the man who did it was still out there.
06:22 His parents called the police, and Jared had to relive his traumatic experience
06:26 for any hope of catching the man who did this to him.
06:29 It was probably 9, 9.30, when I started walking home.
06:33 A car approached me.
06:34 I just started giving this guy directions.
06:37 The man had got out of the car.
06:39 He grabbed me.
06:40 He said, "Get the f*** in the car. I have a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it."
06:45 Jared followed the man's orders, doing everything he could to survive.
06:48 He studied the car as much as possible,
06:51 hoping he would be able to escape and use the details later to help catch the attacker.
06:55 He noticed there was a police scanner inside the car.
06:58 The man made Jared pull his hat over his eyes and lay down in the back seat.
07:02 But still, he paid attention to every turn they took.
07:05 After driving for about 15 minutes, the man turned onto a gravel road and stopped the car.
07:11 Jared was gripped by fear as the man approached him.
07:14 Then, the 12-year-old was sexually assaulted in the car.
07:17 When it all ended, Jared was terrified, wondering what the attacker was planning to do to him next.
07:22 But to his surprise, the man drove him right back to Cold Spring.
07:26 About two miles from the Shirels' house, he gave Jared his snowsuit back,
07:30 but he kept some of his other clothes, and he threatened the young boy before letting him go.
07:34 He had said, "It's okay to talk about this, but if they come close to finding out who I am,
07:39 I'll find you and kill you."
07:42 The attacker told Jared to run.
07:44 If he turned around, the man would shoot.
07:47 Jared sprinted back home, desperate to get away.
07:50 After going through an unimaginable attack at such a young age,
07:53 it's up to Jared to explain what happened.
07:55 He tells the police every detail he can remember about the car,
07:59 and the man who assaulted him, hoping to help them catch this monster.
08:03 Jared says he was wearing camouflage, and he tells them about the police scanner inside the car.
08:08 He even directs them along the route they drove.
08:10 "It's sad to picture it, but in order to do that,
08:13 I had to lay in the backseat of the squad car with my eyes covered and just go off my memory."
08:19 Three days after Jared's abduction, police identify a possible suspect,
08:23 Danny Heinrich, a former member of the National Guard.
08:27 He's already had other run-ins with the law, like burglaries.
08:30 He also has a few DWIs, and during one stop,
08:33 an officer noticed he had a police scanner in his car, just like what Jared had described.
08:38 In a photo lineup, Jared identifies two men he thought looked similar to his attacker.
08:43 One of them was Heinrich, but he can't narrow it down to one suspect,
08:47 and police can't charge anyone.
08:49 Jared has to go home knowing the man who assaulted him, and threatened to kill him, is still out there.
08:54 "I think I slept on my parents' bedroom floor for the first year.
08:58 You know, the level of fear that you go through, the emotions, anxieties that you learn to overcome."
09:05 Jared thinks he's the man's only victim, but later that year,
09:08 he hears about Jacob Wetterling's abduction in the nearby town of St. Joseph,
09:13 and immediately notices the similarities to his own kidnapping.
09:16 Jared wonders if it might be the same culprit,
09:19 and he wants to do everything he can to stop him and help find Jacob.
09:22 December 13th, 1989.
09:25 Almost two months after Jacob Wetterling's disappearance,
09:28 Jared Shirel works with FBI agents to make a sketch of the man who attacked him.
09:32 They see similarities between the sketch and Danny Heinrich,
09:35 and three days later, the FBI brings Heinrich in for questioning.
09:39 They ask where he was on the nights of both Jared and Jacob's kidnappings.
09:43 He doesn't have an alibi for either, and he agrees to give them his shoes,
09:46 a hair sample, and the tires from his car.
09:49 The shoe prints and tire tracks left at Jacob's kidnapping site are similar,
09:53 which helps officers to get a search warrant.
09:55 Once inside Heinrich's house, they find radio scanners, black boots, camo pants,
10:00 and even photos of young boys.
10:03 However, police let him keep the photos, and they leave.
10:06 February 9th, 1990.
10:08 Nearly a year after Jared was attacked, the FBI matches fibers from his snowsuit
10:13 with the fiber sample from the car Danny Heinrich was driving.
10:17 He's arrested on probable cause for Jared's kidnapping and sexual assault.
10:21 FBI profilers help set up the interrogation.
10:24 They even stuff papers in folders and write Heinrich's name on them,
10:27 trying to intimidate him and make it seem like they have a lot of evidence.
10:31 But in reality, they need him to confess.
10:34 They hold him overnight in jail, but he denies everything.
10:37 The county attorney decides they don't have enough evidence to charge him with anything,
10:41 and they have to let him go.
10:43 Suspicion grows, and while they can't prove anything yet,
10:46 Jacob's family refuses to give up their fight to find him.
10:49 We are constantly looking at this case.
10:51 We're not going to put it in a drawer.
10:53 We're not going to forget about it.
10:54 We are going to stay committed to getting this resolved.
10:57 We owe that to the Wetterling family and the community to get an answer to them.
11:01 When your case gets cold, the only person that can keep it in the public eye
11:06 is a loved one, and they have tried to do that,
11:09 and Patty has never stopped trying to keep Jacob's face out there.
11:14 I never want to have to look Jacob in the eye and say,
11:17 "You know, I wanted to keep going, but I got tired," or "It was so long."
11:22 We never quit, ever.
11:24 Meanwhile, the pressure builds on Jared.
11:27 He wants to do everything he can to help connect his case to Jacob's, and to bring answers.
11:32 Police often pull him out of class at school,
11:34 and even though they try to keep his identity private,
11:37 rumors spread quickly in the small town that he's the boy who was assaulted.
11:41 He constantly has to answer questions,
11:43 and investigators keep pushing him to tell them for sure who did it,
11:47 even though he doesn't know.
11:48 One particular interview, my parents weren't allowed in the room.
11:52 I was drilled with all the necessary details,
11:56 and then questioned in regards to how certain I was on those details.
12:01 It led into, "You know who this person is?"
12:04 And, you know, as much as I wanted to provide the answer, I didn't know the answer.
12:09 I finally broke down in tears, and my parents had seen me and said, "We're done."
12:15 Jared's family decides to leave Cold Spring,
12:18 hoping to help him move on and feel like a regular kid again.
12:21 They want to protect him from all the pressure,
12:23 and also from the attacker, who still lurks free.
12:26 They move just about 20 miles away to their new home in Painesville, Minnesota,
12:31 hoping for life to become more peaceful.
12:33 But Jared and his family have no idea about the horrors that are already going on there,
12:38 and they won't find out for over two decades.
12:41 For years, Jared Shirell's case and Jacob Wetterling's kidnapping remain unsolved.
12:46 It seems like there's no hope for finding Jacob or catching the man who took him.
12:50 But over 20 years after the kidnappings,
12:53 one blogger will make a discovery that changes everything.
12:56 I was looking for something new to write about,
12:59 and a story came on the news about the Jacob Wetterling case,
13:02 and I thought, "What happened here?"
13:04 You know, "How does a kid just disappear from here?"
13:07 And she's got the benefit of not being law enforcement,
13:10 so people will talk to her differently, and she keeps uncovering things.
13:15 I spent a lot of time at the library and online and going through old newspaper articles,
13:21 and I figured out early on that I really wanted to talk to this guy named Jared.
13:28 Around 2013, Joy Baker reaches out to Jared.
13:32 She found a newspaper article about a series of unsolved kidnappings
13:36 and assaults of young boys in Painesville, Minnesota,
13:39 the town where Jared and his family moved to after his assault in Cold Spring,
13:43 only about 20 miles away.
13:45 Starting in 1986, three years before Jared and Jacob's attacks,
13:49 there were multiple reports of a man terrorizing young children in Painesville.
13:54 He would follow kids riding their bikes or simply walking around town.
13:57 He would then grab them, ask their age, and assault them before letting them go.
14:02 Police were never able to stop the man or figure out who he was,
14:06 but Joy Baker thinks those assaults could be connected to Jared and Jacob's kidnappings.
14:11 When Joy talks to Jared, he's shocked.
14:13 It's the first time he has ever heard about these other cases in Painesville.
14:17 25 years later, and I had learned this from Joy.
14:21 You can't imagine my eyes when I had seen that and just thinking, "I live here."
14:28 To Joy and Jared, they sound strikingly similar to his kidnapping,
14:32 and even the FBI agents hadn't connected the cases together.
14:35 They asked me to send them the article. They weren't aware.
14:39 If we could have found them and piled up cases of abuse by him then,
14:44 to me, it's just something, again, where we failed, it still bothers me.
14:49 For decades, Jared thought he was the only survivor,
14:52 but as soon as he learns there are others, he decides to conduct his own investigation.
14:57 He could be the connection police need to find Jacob
15:00 and to bring justice for all the young boys and families impacted by the attacker.
15:05 That initially was the reason that drove me to the amount of investigating or researching that I have done
15:11 is the fact that I am a parent now.
15:13 I couldn't fathom having to go through that or experience their sense of loss.
15:19 Over the next couple years, Jared and Joy continue to investigate.
15:23 They do countless hours of research, and Jared finds and reaches out to other survivors.
15:28 Within the first week, I talked to one of the victims and just got details of his attack,
15:35 and they knew who I was. They were comfortable talking, and it led to a domino effect.
15:40 Finally, after all of Jared and Joy's work, investigators look again at the Painesville cases, along with Jared's.
15:47 Authorities still have a hair sample from an early suspect who lived in Painesville at the time, Danny Heinrich.
15:54 With advancements in technology, investigators are able to use DNA from Jared's clothes he wore on the night of his attack
16:00 and compare it with the DNA from Heinrich's hair sample.
16:03 It's a match. Police now have concrete evidence that Heinrich is the one who attacked Jared,
16:09 but sadly, Jared finds that he won't be able to put him in jail for it.
16:13 They said, "The good news is we have your guy. The bad news is statutes of limitations exist in your case, and we cannot prosecute him."
16:22 That made me feel like I've worked hard to find this answer, and I get the answer, but I don't get prosecution. It's not fair.
16:32 Even though Jared can't get Heinrich convicted for his case, he still wants to help the other families who need answers.
16:38 Because of the work Joy and Jared did, police are able to investigate further into Jacob's disappearance.
16:44 They get a search warrant for Heinrich's house.
16:46 They don't find evidence about Jacob or the Painesville attacks, but they do find binders of child pornography.
16:52 July 28, 2015. Heinrich is arrested on child pornography charges, but while investigators believe he took Jacob,
17:00 they still don't have definitive proof.
17:02 They may never know where Jacob is or what happened to him if Heinrich doesn't confess.
17:07 In a desperate attempt for answers, they come up with a shocking deal for him.
17:11 If he shows them where Jacob is, then he won't be charged in his case.
17:15 They will also drop all but one of the child pornography charges.
17:19 U.S. Attorney Andrew Lugar thinks it's the only way to get the truth, and the Wetterlings agree to offering the deal to Heinrich.
17:26 We had belief, but not evidence.
17:28 So my job, under all of these awful circumstances, put him behind bars for a long time and get the answers that this family
17:37 and the state of Minnesota have been looking for for almost 27 years.
17:41 Was it a hard decision?
17:43 No, not really. For nearly 27 years, we've been looking for Jacob. We wanted to know, where's Jacob?
17:51 Heinrich agrees to the deal.
17:53 After only 10 minutes in court, the prosecutor asks if he kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered Jacob Wetterling.
18:00 He calmly responds, "Yes, I did."
18:03 He goes on to explain what happened when he took Jacob.
18:06 After he assaulted him, Heinrich thought he saw a police car patrolling nearby.
18:11 He panicked and shot Jacob.
18:13 He also confesses to Jared's abduction and sexual assault,
18:16 and leads the officers to a spot just outside of downtown Painesville, where he buried Jacob's body.
18:22 It was actually absolutely stunning to try and process how do you shift your head from hoping and searching to now knowing he wasn't alive.
18:34 Because of the plea deal he made, Danny Heinrich is not charged with Jacob's murder.
18:39 But in 2016, he's sentenced to 20 years in prison for child pornography.
18:44 He will be in his 70s when he gets out.
18:46 Jacob's death is now a painful reality.
18:49 But finally, the families have the truth about what happened nearly 30 years ago.
18:54 And Patty Wetterling says they almost feel a sense of calm knowing that Jacob isn't hurting.
19:00 I want to say Jacob, I'm so sorry.
19:03 It's incredibly painful to know his last days, last hours, last minutes.
19:10 That gunshot snuffed his breath out.
19:14 But his spirit is so strong, you can just see how it affects people.
19:18 He has taught us all how to live, how to love, how to be fair, how to be kind.
19:24 He speaks to the world that he knew, that we all believe in, and it is a world that's worth fighting for.
19:29 His legacy will go on.
19:31 We love you, Jacob.
19:34 Jacob's parents created the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, now the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center,
19:39 a program that helps families of missing children.
19:42 They also worked to pass the Jacob Wetterling Act, which required states to establish sex offender registries.
19:48 Patty Wetterling served as the chair of the board for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
19:53 and today she's a well-known advocate, never stopping her work to protect children and help other families.
19:59 We're fighting for our children.
20:01 They have hopes and dreams, and it's our job to find them.
20:04 We can never give up, ever.
20:06 Without Jared Shirel telling his story and his work with Joy Baker to get justice,
20:11 the Wetterlings may never have known what happened to Jacob.
20:14 Today, the Wetterlings are still close with Jared and Joy,
20:17 who helped bring answers for many families that have been fighting for decades.
20:22 I'm grateful for the level of support and encouragement that I've received along the way.
20:29 This is another step towards closure.
20:32 I give Jared all the credit in the world.
20:34 He's come forward and said, "I think it's the same guy. I want to do everything I can to help Jacob."
20:40 I hope some other people realize how brave Jared really is.
20:44 I also want to say one huge shout-out to Jared and Joy.
20:49 Jared had the courage to stand up and say, "This happened to me, and there are others."
20:55 We really did just adopt this man.
20:57 He was so incredibly, powerfully part of our resolution.
21:03 [END]