ST. JOSEPH, MINN. — When the news they'd long been dreading finally came, it struck at the core of people in this small college town.
The mystery of Jacob Wetterling's fate had haunted St. Joseph for nearly three decades, a lingering legacy of uncertainty and fear.
"You think of it almost like a myth," said Cody Ireland, 21, a host at the American Burger Bar on the edge of this central Minnesota prairie town of 6,500, where Jacob disappeared in 1989. "There's definitely kind of an eerie feeling here in St. Joseph today."
The years of apprehension gave way to a shared grief Saturday, but also relief and the strong hope that the discovery of Jacob's remains will provide closure to his family.
Lucy Laudenbach was here when the search for Jacob began. She watched from the front porch of her rural home, just south of where the boy was abducted, as searchers combed the fields outside.
On Saturday, TV news trucks worked over the area again as word spread that Jacob had been found at last.
Twenty-seven years ago, Laudenbach said investigators stopped at the house, where she has lived since 1977, to ask questions, but she had seen nothing and knew little.
"I wish there was something we could have told them," she said, squinting out over the fields, now covered with tall corn.
