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Jacob Wetterling's remains found on Paynesville-area farm

"Our hearts are broken," Patty Wetterling said. "We have no words." Danny Heinrich, a suspect in Jacob Wetterling's disappearance almost 27 years ago, provided authorities with the information about the location of remains.

Jacob Wetterling, close to the age of his abduction.
The remains of Jacob Wetterling were recovered in this tree line area of a cow pasture off of Stearns County Road 85.
The remains of Jacob Wetterling were recovered in this tree line area of a cow pasture of Stearns County Road 85 Northeast of town.
Flowers were placed at the site were Jacob Wetterling was abducted 27 years ago Sunday September 4,2016 in St. Joseph, MN.
Casie Smith left of Minneapolis and Emily Schmidt of St. Joseph both 27, dropped flowers off at the site were Jacob Wetterling was abducted 27 years ago Sunday September 4, 2016 in St. Joseph, MN.
"I feel so sorry that he(Jacob Wetterling) is not going to come home," said Troy Cole who reported to authorities, in November 1986, that he was molested by Jacob Wetterling's abductor, Danny Heinrich.
Madison Vaught drove from Fargo N.D. to pay her respect for the family of Jacob Wetterling as she, placed flowers at the site were Jacob Wetterling was abducted 27 years ago Sunday September 4, 2016 in St. Joseph, MN.
Brian Schulte, a neighbor of the Wetterlings, paused for a moment over a memorial at the end of the Wetterling's driveway Saturday evening. Schulte says he hopes the family can finally find closure now, "after all them years, they deserve it."
Flowers and a cross were left at the end of the Wetterling's driveway Saturday in St. Joseph after it was announced that Jacob's remains were found earlier in the day.
In 1989, these composite drawings were released of suspects in the abduction of Jacob Wetterling.
On Oct 29, 1989, ribbon wraps around a tree at Jacob Wetterling's house.
Danny Heinrich lived in this apartment complex in downtown Paynesville around the time of Jacob Wetterling's disappearance. His remains were recovered in a cow pasture of Stearns County Road 85 Northeast of town.
A week after Jacob's disappearance, Lt. Kent Christensen of the Hennepin County Sheriff's office displays a jacket similar to the one worn by the 11-year old.
Patty and Jerry Wetterling joined a human chain along Hwy. 75 with their daughter, Carmen, 8, in Nov. 4, 1989.
Patty Wetterling, back right, is comforted by Pam Neilson on Oct. 27, 1989.
In October 1989, Stearns County Investigator Steve Mund examined footprints along a dirt road where 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted.
In 1989, officer Don Banhan used a bloodhound to search a Stearns County field for signs of Jacob Wetterling.
On Oct. 30, 1989, more than 200 National Gaurdsmen searched for Jacob Wetterling.
Ten years after the abduction of Jacob Wetterling, the crossroads where Jacob was abducted.
In 1999, Patty Wetterling read through letters that have been sent to her during the past 10 years since the disappearance of her son, Jacob Wetterling. She is sitting in one of the rooms at the Jacob Wetterling Foundation's headquarters in St. Joseph.
In 1999, ten years after Jacob's disappearance, white ribbons and signs hang at Jacob's House, the headquarters of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation. The ribbons and sign hang above a map of the United States filled with red pins showing where abduction fliers have been sent.
Patty Wetterling introduced singer Red Grammer at one of several concerts which are part of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation's "Power of Hope" events in October 1999.
In February 2004, Patty Wetterling talks about the new information about her son Jacob Wetterling's disappearance.
In 2010, Patty Wetterling talked to the news media on the second day of law enforcement agents searching a farm property near where Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989. Sheriff John Sanner said a court order prohibits him from saying why they're there.
In 2010, a Jacob Wetterling reward poster still hangs in the lobby of the Stearns County law enforcement building.
On June 30, 2010, squad cars and police were on the scene of the Robert and Rita Rassier farm near where Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989 in St. Joseph, Minn.,
On July 1, 2010, a dump truck hauls dirt away from a farm near the site where Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989. Investigators have been at a property at 29748-91st Ave. for two days.
BRIAN PETERSON/STAR TRIBUNE. JULY 1, 2010. St. Joseph, MInn. The Robert and Rita Rassier farm near where Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989 in St. Joseph, Minn., Thursday. Authorities on Thursday morning brought in earth-moving equipment and hauled dirt away from the farm near where Jacob Wetterling was taken. They also brought in K-9's -- presumably cadaver dogs.
In 2010, investigators descended on a farm that was near the location of Jacob Wetterling's abduction 21 years ago.
Tests on dirt and ash dug up on a farm property near the Jacob Wetterling abduction site have turned up no evidence that might solve the long-running mystery, sheriff said in 2010.
Aaron Larson held his son Anikon at their home in Slayton, Minn., in 2009. Larson was 11 years old when he was confronted by a man and his friend Jacob Wetterling was abducted. Twenty years later he still think about Jacob daily.
In this 2009 photo, Jerry Wetterling and wife, Patty, hold a photo of their son, Jacob, who was abducted in October 1989 in St. Joseph, Minn., and is still missing. Wetterling keeps a scrapbook of news clippings about abducted children being reunited with their families years later. It's a source of hope for her.
Jacob Wetterling, digitally altered to look how he would at age 29. C
In 2014, Patty Wetterling led a daylong event at the Mall of America, "Changing the Conversation about Today's Pornography."
In 2014, Patti and Jerry Wetterling take part in a news conference to announce the installation of six new billboards that will be placed near where their son Jacob was abducted in 1989.
Slide 1 of 35
Jacob Wetterling, close to the age of his abduction. (Colleen Kelly — ./The Minnesota Star Tribune)

For almost three decades, Minnesotans kept their porch lights burning, hoping Jacob Wetterling might find his way home.

Those hopes were crushed Saturday when they learned that a longtime suspect in the 1989 disappearance had led authorities to the remains of the 11-year-old, whose abduction from St. Joseph stunned Minnesotans and changed the way parents watch over their children.

"Our hearts are broken," Jacob's mother, Patty Wetterling, texted to the Star Tribune on Saturday morning. "We have no words."

Jacob was snatched off his bike, half a mile from his home, by a masked man with a gun on a dark October night. Danny Heinrich, a suspect first questioned shortly after Jacob's disappearance and now in federal custody on child pornography charges, provided investigators with the information that led to the boy's grave, hidden on a Paynesville farm.

At the time of Wetterling's abduction, Heinrich lived in Paynesville, about 30 miles southwest of St. Joseph, with his father.

The Stearns County Sheriff's Office said Saturday that dental records confirmed that the remains were Jacob's. Additional DNA testing will be conducted by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

A source with direct knowledge of the investigation told the Star Tribune that Heinrich, 53, led authorities to the remains in recent days.

Federal and state investigators working the case said little more Saturday about the break in the case, or what prompted Heinrich, who has been in federal custody since last October, to finally disclose what happened to Jacob.

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The Sheriff's Office said authorities are "reviewing and evaluating new evidence" and expect to provide more details later this week.

Heinrich's attorney could not be reached Saturday for comment.

Jacob's abduction shattered the entire state's sense of safety. He became the face of thousands of other missing and exploited children, and his disappearance became the driving force behind the creation of national databases for registered sex offenders.

The search for him spanned not only decades, but also continents, as investigators chased some 50,000 leads. In the end, the search ended in the same county where it began.

The Wetterlings, who never gave up hope that Jacob might somehow return to them, struggled Saturday to find words for the mystery that had officially become a tragedy.

"Our family is drawing strength from all your love & support," Patty Wetterling said on Twitter. "We're struggling with words at this time. Thank you for your hope."

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As they grieved, their hometown grieved with them, with mourners leaving yellow bouquets at the entrance to the driveway of the family's home and decorating downtown shops with white ribbons.

Ellie Quarry, of rural Little Falls, who lived in St. Joseph at the time of the abduction, said of Patty Wetterling, "She held out hope right to the very end. God, I prayed for that."

A masked man

Jacob Wetterling was a boy with a big smile, sandy hair and blue eyes who loved his family, played the trombone and was the goalie on his school hockey team. His dream, he once said, was to be a football player when he grew up.

On the evening of Oct. 22, 1989, he was riding his bike with his brother, Trevor, 10, and best friend, Aaron Larson, 11, on a remote dirt road near the family's home in rural St. Joseph. It was just after 9 p.m. and they were a half-mile from home with a video they'd rented from the Tom Thumb store when a masked man with a gun appeared.

He told the boys to lie face down in a nearby ditch and asked each one his age. Then he ordered Trevor and Aaron to run to the woods and not look back.

The boys did. And then Jacob and the masked man were gone.

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At the time of Jacob's disappearance, Paynesville had suffered a string of attacks on young boys — a husky white man, his face obscured, would approach and sometimes grope groups of kids on bikes. His voice was raspy, the boys told authorities, and he often made threats. The kids dubbed the menace "Chester the Molester."

A chilling similarity

Nine months before Jacob's disappearance, Jared Scheierl, a 12-year-old from nearby Cold Spring, was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a man who then released him with the warning "not to look back or he would be shot."

Heinrich was questioned by investigators soon after Jacob was abducted and several times in 1990. At the time, he denied any involvement.

Police began building a child pornography case against him last summer, when authorities searched his home looking for evidence in both Jacob's abduction and the abduction and assault of Scheierl.

Authorities tested the sweatshirt that Scheierl, now 39, had been wearing that day. They found Heinrich's DNA.

Last October, authorities announced they were unable to prosecute Heinrich in Scheierl's case because the statute of limitations had run out. But the search of Heinrich's home turned up enough child pornography to land him behind bars.

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Searchers found 19 three-ring binders full of pornographic images of children, including some under the age of 12 and photos of known child victims. Authorities said there was even more child pornography on Heinrich's computer hard drive.

When authorities arrived at Heinrich's house with a search warrant, he described himself as "a dirty old man" but denied creating pornography or sharing it with anyone, according to a federal agent who testified in court.

The search turned up nothing to connect Heinrich to Jacob. But the similarities between the two cases — both in the description of the suspect and how he approached his victims — gave authorities reason to suspect that the same person might be responsible for both.

Heinrich has been held on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. He was indicted in December on a total of 25 child pornography charges — five from October, plus an additional 20 related to possessing and receiving child pornography both in print and digital images.

Jacob's abduction sparked an extensive search that never truly ended. It was the kind of senseless, cruel crime that made parents across the state hug their kids a little tighter, and over time, it turned the Wetterling family into tireless advocates for missing and exploited children.

In 1994, the federal government enacted the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children Act, which required states to create registries to track sex offenders and those who commit crimes against children.

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Held on to hope

As the years passed, the Wetterlings never gave up hope. Every year, they marked Jacob's birthday. Every Oct. 22, they grieved his loss and studied the age-progressed pictures of the child they still hoped to find. There were pictures of Jacob as a teenager, and Jacob as a 35-year-old man.

Jacob would have turned 38 this past February. His parents are grandparents now and founders of the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, dedicated to helping other missing and hurting children.

On the center's website Saturday morning was the following message:

"We are in deep grief. We didn't want Jacob's story to end this way. In this moment of pain and shock, we go back to the beginning. The Wetterlings had a choice to walk into bitterness and anger or to walk into a light of what could be, a light of hope. Their choice changed the world."

Over the years, a porch light, left on in the hope it would someday lead Jacob home, became the symbol of the search for Jacob.

Every autumn, on the anniversary of his disappearance, thousands of Minnesotans flipped on porch lights in his memory.

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"This light has been burning for close to 27 years," the resource center's message continued. "Today, we gather around the same flame. …

"Our hearts are heavy, but we are being held up by all of the people who have been a part of making Jacob's Hope a light that will never be extinguished. It shines on in a different way.

"We are, and we will continue to be, Jacob's Hope. Jacob, you are loved."

Staff writers Jennifer Bjorhus and Stephen Montemayor contributed to this report. jennifer.brooks@startribune.com • 612-673-4008 david.chanen@startribune.com • 612-673-4465 jenna.ross@startribune.com • 612-673-7168


The remains of Jacob Wetterling were recovered in this tree line area of a cow pasture of Stearns County Road 85 Northeast of town .
The remains of Jacob Wetterling were recovered in this tree line area of a cow pasture of Stearns County Road 85 Northeast of town . (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Brian Schulte, a neighbor of the Wetterlings, paused for a moment over a memorial at the end of their driveway Saturday evening. Schulte says he hopes the family can finally find closure now, "after all them years, they deserve it."
Brian Schulte, a neighbor of the Wetterlings, paused for a moment over a memorial at the end of their driveway Saturday evening. Schulte says he hopes the family can finally find closure now, "after all them years, they deserve it." (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Danny Heinrich was arrested on October 20, 2015 on child pornography charges.
Daniel Heinrich. (Colleen Kelly — Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Patty Wetterling speaks to the media in St. Joseph following developments in the Jacob Wetterling case on Tuesday, November 3, 2015. ] (LEILA NAVIDI/STAR TRIBUNE) leila.navidi@startribune.com ORG XMIT: MIN1511031254190014
Patty Wetterling speaks to the media in St. Joseph following developments in the Jacob Wetterling case on Tuesday, November 3, 2015. ] (LEILA NAVIDI/STAR TRIBUNE) leila.navidi@startribune.com ORG XMIT: MIN1511031254190014 (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Television trucks broadcast from the St. Joseph intersection where Jacob Wetterling was abducted near his home in 1989. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Saturday, September 3, 2016
On Saturday, television trucks gathered at the rural St. Joseph intersection where Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989 — just a half-mile from his home. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
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about the writers

about the writers

Jennifer Brooks

Columnist

Jennifer Brooks is a local columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune. She travels across Minnesota, writing thoughtful and surprising stories about residents and issues.

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David Chanen

Reporter

David Chanen is a reporter covering Hennepin County government and Prince's estate dealings. He previously covered crime, courts and spent two sessions at the Legislature.

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Jenna Ross

Reporter

Jenna Ross is an arts and culture reporter.

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