Jacob Wetterling, 11, MN, Abducted 20 Years Ago

[Texaskowgirl]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...tterling_N.htm

20 years spent keeping vigil for abducted son
Updated 10/22/2009 1:56 PM



ST. JOSEPH, Minn. — The single road that connects Jerry and Patty Wetterling's quiet cul-de-sac home to the rest of the world looks a lot like it did 20 years ago today, when their son Jacob, 11, was abducted from the road by a masked gunman as he, his brother and a friend returned on their bikes from a convenience store.
Every time the Wetterlings take 91st Avenue — whether for days at a time or to get a gallon of milk — they pass the spot of the unsolved abduction, which led, five years later, to the first law requiring states to maintain sex offender registries.

"I say a prayer every time I go past it," Patty said.

"We call it 'The Site,' " Jerry said. "Sometimes we say we're going to take a walk to 'The Site.' It's kind of an eerie feeling."

Stearns County, Minn. Sheriff John Sanner says he believes a local man likely abducted Jacob after chasing away Jacob's brother Trevor and friend Aaron Larson. Despite a massive effort that he says included about 18,000 leads the first two months, police have not solved the case.

The Wetterlings have spent the past 20 years keeping hope alive and working to help protect others from the fate that befell the second of their four children.

"Jacob's Hope" became a slogan for those efforts, which helped lead to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act.

Enacted in 1994 and modified several times — most prominently in 1996 as Megan's Law, prompted by the 1994 kidnapping of New Jersey youth Megan Kanka — the Wetterling Act was the first federal law requiring all 50 states, the five principal U.S. territories and the District of Columbia to maintain a registration system, according to Dawn Doran, deputy director of the Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking Office at the Department of Justice.

..more

[PMLsmom]

http://wcco.com/local/wetterling.sit...2.1781571.html

Bumping for NEW search on neighbor's property for Jacob...LOTS of activity there...

[Jace]

Jacob, his brother, and a friend were bicycling home from a convenience store when a masked gunman came out of a driveway and ordered the boys to throw their bikes into a ditch and lie down on the ground. He asked each boy his age. Jacob's brother and friend were told to run toward a nearby wooded area and not look back or else he would shoot them. After a short run, both boys did look back and saw the gunman grab Jacob by the elbow and walk him away. The whereabouts of Jacob and the gunman are still unknown.

The investigation into Jacob's abduction continues. In 2004, some new reports appeared in the local press. A long-held belief that the abductor got away in a car was abandoned. It was also revealed that ten months prior to the Wetterling abduction another boy had been kidnapped, placed into a car, and sexually assaulted before being released. The modus operandi was similar to that in the Wetterling case: the man used a gun and upon releasing the boy told him to run and not look back or else he would be shot. That incident occurred ten miles from the location where Jacob, his brother, and friend were stopped.[1]

The Charley Project has sketches of a man believed to have abducted Jacob and sexually assaulted the other boy in 1989.[2]

In early 2009, Milwaukee police discovered child pornography and an alleged video of Wetterling taken before the abduction in the home of Vernon Seitz, 62, of the St. Francis, Wisconsin area. Seitz had died in his home, but officers asked for additional assistance after the pornography was discovered. Along with the child pornography, articles involving missing children and maps of the cities those children were missing from were found in Seitz's home. [3]

On June 30th, 2010 investigators with search warrants descended upon a farm near the abduction site[4]


More from wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=649492

[Jace]

Authorities: Wetterling Case Will Take Months

http://wcco.com/crime/Wetterling.Cas...2.1799820.html

[Jace]

Wetterling Suspect Dan Rassier:

http://www.immelman.us/news/wetterli...t-dan-rassier/


Someone commented below the article that they can't imagine he could have done it because he is a teacher, speaks softly, and his students like him.
In Belgium there is a teacher, Ronald Jansen, father of two, nice guy, always helpful and they said he was a rolemodel for others.
He killed his 18 year old neighbor and her boyfriend, another 18 year old girl who he kept in his cellar, and he also admitted he killed another one, only they don't know who yet. I only have a link in dutch, but I just wanted to say that even when someone looks nice, is always helpful, and nice to talk to, doesn't mean he can't have a very dark side.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/...dig_moordenaar

[Jace]

Parents Meet About Wetterling Person of Interest

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/n...st-aug-25-2010

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. - Parents in Cold Spring met about the man who is considered a ‘person of interest’ in the disappearance case of Jacob Wetterling. He was announced as the new music teacher at a St. Boniface school.

5-year-old Ava Stalboerger’s mom, Melissa, isn’t happy that the new music teacher at a St. Boniface school is the same man police believe is connected to Wetterling’s disappearance in 1989.

“Just given the fact that they would put him in a situation where children are involved concerns me immensely,” said Stalboerger.

For the past 32 years, the man whose family farm was searched in connection to Wetterling’s disappearance, has taught sixth grade band at district schools. Due to layoffs, the district moved him to St. Boniface.

After three days of digging at the family farm, police still call the 54-year-old man a person of interest.

Superintendent Scott Staska says that from the district’s perspective, the man has been investigated a lot and nothing has come through. He says the recent search in June wasn’t any different from any other in the past years.

Dozens of parent got together at a nearby park to talk about the teacher. They found out last week through an email that he would be the new new teacher.

[Jace]

All parents should decide to keep their children at home, or get them to another school. I wouldn't send my kids there for sure.
And the music teacher should be given another job, not anywhere near children, even if he isn't convicted, but he is still a suspect.

[Jace]

Concerns unfold around teacher in Wetterling case
http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100...0008/-1/RSSTOP

COLD SPRING — Dan Rassier understands the parental concern.






The longtime Rocori music teacher who in July was named a person of interest in the 1989 abduction of Jacob Wetterling is the target of some concerned parents at the St. Boniface Catholic School. The Cold Spring school has for years shared Rassier’s music-teaching services with the nearby Rocori Middle School. Some parents have now told Principal Sister Sharon Waldoch that they are uncomfortable with Rassier’s position.

“What can you expect parents to do after law enforcement and the St. Cloud Times, after they have presented a lopsided, one-sided, incredibly impossible picture? What do you expect parents to do?” Rassier said Friday. “I can’t believe it took this long for parents to make an issue out of it.”

Rassier, who turns 55 Oct. 25, has not been named as a suspect in the case, but Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner did tag him as a person of interest in July after two days of searching the family farm where Rassier lives.

In an interview last month with the Times, Rassier said he had nothing to do with Wetterling’s disappearance and that he has cooperated with authorities.

“We are telling the parents that Dan is hired by the district and we are part of the shared-time program and he was assigned to us prior to the investigation. We have no evidence of guilt, which they know. They are fully aware,” Waldoch said Friday.

Rassier has taught at Rocori since August 1978 and has no complaints or disciplinary action in his file.

Rassier has taught band and music in the Rocori school district, which includes schools in Cold Spring, Rockville and Richmond. He is also a former volleyball, basketball and softball coach and advised the yearbook for the district. Efforts to reach Rocori administrators Friday were unsuccessful.

Rassier is scheduled to be paid $62,241 this year.

Rassier grew up in St. Joseph and graduated from Apollo High School. He graduated from St. Cloud State University in 1976. He has a master’s degree from the University of Illinois. He is the treasurer of the St. Joseph Township board and an adjunct music professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University.

For Rassier, it’s the latest development that has cast a cloud over him with a connection to what is probably the state’s most famous child abduction case.


“I can feel for the parents. If I had small children and didn’t know the situation — they don’t know me at all. I’m just an innocent bystander witness. This has been going on for 21 years,” Rassier said.

Budget reductions have trimmed Rassier’s teaching assignment to teaching music half-time at St. Boniface and teaching band half-time at Rocori’s three elementary schools, St. Boniface and Sts. Peter and Paul Elementary School in Richmond.

He said the reductions to Rocori’s music program is a bigger concern than the spotlight that has been cast on him this summer.

“The kids are going to be hurt by the cuts. The whole issue of who is teaching the music class, in the end, the kids have lost no matter what I turn out to be,” Rassier said.

Waldoch said the parents who have talked to her are apprehensive about an unknown.

“Everyone who has expressed their viewpoint, the number-one common denominator is we care about their children and their safety. We are not here to make judgments. We care about their safety,” Waldoch said.

[Jace]

“I can feel for the parents. If I had small children and didn’t know the situation — they don’t know me at all. I’m just an innocent bystander witness. This has been going on for 21 years,” Rassier said.

Didn't know the situation? Innocent bystander witness? Is this guy from another planet or something, did he forget he is still a suspect?

[Jace]

No new answers for Wetterling family after latest investigation

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/dis...erling-family/

St. Joseph, Minn. — The father of a boy abducted in 1989 said the latest investigation, which authorities said Tuesday turned up no new evidence, has left his family in limbo.

"We just, you know, are just -- we're getting tired," Jerry Wetterling said. "We want answers and it's just time. It'd be time to know."

The Stearns County sheriff said that lab work on items taken this summer from a Minnesota farm near the site of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling's 1989 abduction that has been going on this summer is almost done, and no clues have emerged.

Wetterling said he's grateful to the law enforcement officials, volunteers, and lab technicians who are working hard to find answers to his son's disappearance, but this most recent update has been particularly difficult for him. He said it's hard to predict how he'll feel each time there's a new development.


Remembering Jacob"I've kind of felt sort of empty and I don't know exactly why because this is kind of what I thought might happen," he said.

Wetterling said his feeling might be because so much energy went into the investigation that he hoped maybe just this time it would lead to clear cut answers.

Wetterling said one of the ways he maintains a connection with his son is by pinning a button with Jacob's picture on his shirt every day.

"We're very certain that law enforcement is not going to let up in their search and we all need answers. Everybody wants to know what happened to Jacob," he said.

With little explanation, investigators returned in late June to the farm near the highway where Jacob Wetterling was abducted, trucking away dirt and prompting hope that the 21-year-old mystery might get solved.

Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner said that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.

"We have gotten some preliminary results back from the BCA crime lab and based on the analysis that they've completed on the items that we sent them, they were unable to identify any potential evidence for us," Sanner said.

Sheriff Sanner said investigators would continue to test and analyze any evidence. He said he couldn't specify what items would undergo further analysis and what kind of testing because he doesn't want to jeopardize what remains an ongoing investigation. He said more pieces of the investigation remain to be conducted.

The ongoing investigation has also been difficult for the family who owns the farm near the abduction site. A son of the family that owns the farm, who didn't want to share his name, said the investigations are taking a toll. He said the June search was the fourth on his the property since the 1989 abduction.

He said he's not surprised investigators didn't find any evidence from his family's property related to Jacob Wetterling's disappearance. Logistically, he understands why law enforcement keeps returning to his parents' farm, but he said he wants "this revolving door to stop."

He said he wants peace for both his family and the Wetterlings.