Oct. 24, 1989: St. Joseph boy, 11, kidnapped at gunpoint

A bloodhound, helicopter pilots and scores of college students and firefighters searched cornfields and woods Monday for 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling, who authorities said was abducted at gunpoint Sunday by a masked man on a rural township road.
The athlete and A-student was snatched as he and his younger brother and a friend were returning from a convenience store on their bicycles at about 9:15 p.m. Sunday, said Stearns County Sheriff Charlie Grafft.
No ransom demands have been received and authorities said they knew of no motive for the abduction and had no suspects. "It could be kidnapping for ransom, could be sex," Grafft said. "We don't know. He could be in the next state by now."
Said Dr. Jerry Wetterling, 41, Jacob's father, "I've never received any threats." Wetterling, a local chiropractor and president of the St. Cloud chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said it was impossible his son's disappearance was a prank. "They are really honest boys," he said.
Grafft said an account of the abduction provided by Jacob's brother, Trevor, 10, is credible and authorities assume the boy has been kidnapped. Trevor said that he, Jacob, and Aaron Larson, 11, were returning on bicycles from a convenience store a mile from home where they had rented a videotaped movie. The area is about 5 miles west of St. Cloud.
They were about halfway home when a man wearing dark clothing, black boots and carrying a pistol walked out of a long gravel driveway leading to a farm.
"He had a mask; it looked like pantyhose, on his head," Trevor said. "He told us to get off our bikes or he'd shoot. We did what he said. We laid in a ditch and he asked our ages."
After the boys told their ages, "He looked at Aaron's face and he told me to run to the woods as fast as I could," Trevor said.
Said Aaron, "He told me to run, too, or else he'd shoot."
Just before they began running, "We saw him grab him (Jacob) by the arm," Trevor said. Several minutes later, he said, they looked around, but Jacob and the masked man were gone.
Trevor said several cars passed the trio on their way to the store but no vehicles passed them as they rode their bicycles back toward home. He said they heard rustling in the weeds along the road at one
point but thought nothing unusual. Trevor and Aaron said they didn't hear or see a vehicle, but a person who lives nearby told police he heard tires squealing at about 9 p.m.
"I have a very sick feeling there was a car and he was taken away," Jerry Wetterling said.
The FBI has joined the investigation. Volunteers, including students from the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph and St. John's University in Collegeville, distributed posters of the youth to stores,
gas stations and other locations in the area.
"We got a telephone call saying show up here at 5 o'clock to help look for a boy who has been abducted," said Kazimer Gazdzik, a sophomore at St. John's University and a member of the Alpha Kappa Sigma fraternity, which sent a search crew of 50 students.
Phone lines to the Stearns County Sheriff's Department were jammed with calls from volunteers offering to help search. "People call and say, `I've got a full tank of gas; I'd like to help,' " a dispatcher
said. "The response has been overwhelming."
In the Wetterling household, the uncertainty and fear were taking a toll yesterday.
Jacob's mother, Patty, 39, wept when searchers showed her a poster with her son's picture and the words "Missing, Abducted."
"I just don't understand this," she said. "My worst fear is that some professional child abductor came in here looking for an 11-year-old good-looking kid. My biggest fear is they drove all night
and now he's gone."
"He's such a smart kid," she said of her missing son, a sixth-grader at North Community School in St. Cloud, active in soccer, hockey and basketball and learning to play the trombone. "I keep thinking he'll figure something out. It's just so unbelievable."
Jerry Wetterling said, "I don't think it was anyone targeting our family. He didn't ask the kids' names, only ages."
The incident has left neighborhood children frightened about venturing out at night on the outskirts of a small town they assumed was safe. "Just yesterday I said I wouldn't worry about walking in the dark because nothing could happen here," said Holli Eickhoff, 13.
Police were tracking down several sex offenders recently released from the St. Cloud reformatory, and were checking reports of a suspicious maroon station wagon seen recently in the area.
The Wetterling parents were attending a party in St. Joseph Sunday night when Trevor called and asked if he, Jacob and Aaron Larson could ride their bicycles to the convenience store. Patty insisted they not be gone long, and told them to get a neighbor girl to baby sit for their younger sister.
Jacob Wetterling is the second oldest of four Wetterling children. He is 5 feet tall, 75 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes and a mole on his left cheek. He was wearing a red hockey jacket with an orange vest, blue sweatpants and high-top tennis shoes.