Heinrich told law enforcement where he buried Wetterling last week. State authorities did not have the proof of murder they needed under Minnesota law, so they enlisted federal authorities to bring 25 counts of child pornography against Heinrich, with a maximum sentence of 20 years for each count, said US Attorney Andrew Luger. Heinrich allowed Wetterling to get dressed, he said, but he began to cry when Heinrich told him he couldn’t go home.
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Just minutes after a 53-year-old Minnesota man detailed how he kidnapped, assaulted and killed her son nearly 27 years ago, Patty Wetterling spoke.
“Everyone wants to know what they can do to help us”, the mother said in a statement. We are, and we will continue to be, Jacob’s Hope.
Heinrich said he went home after killing Wetterling, but returned a few hours later with a shovel.
In a tweet, Williams relays that Heinrich had never met Jacob Wetterling or Jared Scheierl before he abducted them.
Patty Wetterling, Jacob’s mother, who has been a major advocate for Jacob and other missing children, spoke at the press conference today.
“All I can confirm is that Jacob has been found and our hearts are broken”.
The Stearns County Sheriff’s Office said Jacob’s remains were identified Saturday and additional DNA testing was being conducted. He ordered Jacob to duck down and lean forward in his seat until they got out of St. Joseph. First, in the molestation of 8 boys in Paynesville, and then nearly immediately in the Wetterling case 30 miles away in St. Joseph, Minn.
The man who took him, 53-year-old Danny Heinrich, admitted in federal court Tuesday to abducting Jacob, sexually assaulting him and killing him.
Last week Heinrich led a team of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and state and county investigators to a pasture near Paynesville where Wetterling’s skeletal remains were buried, according to a source with direct knowledge of the search.
New testing of DNA evidence previous year linked Heinrich to the 1989 kidnapping and sexual assault of Jared Scheierl in Cold Spring, nine months before Wetterling’s abduction.
“For us, Jacob was alive until we found him. we need to heal”, she said.
On a day that would have brought most human beings to their knees, Patty Wetterling summoned the strength and dignity to step before a crowd of reporters, standing by the side of Luger and others who have been instrumental in obtaining a confession from the man who killed her son.
Before Heinrich could change his plea to “guilty”, the judge asked a series of questions to make sure Heinrich was competent to make the decision, fully understood the consequences of the plea, that the facts that were admitted and true that support the admission, and that no one forced him into making the decision.
2004: Patty Wetterling runs as a Democrat against Republican U.S. Rep. We got the truth. In this moment of pain and shock, we go back to the beginning. We will of course all ask, why? But he has pleaded not guilty to several federal child pornography charges. “There is no good answer”.
Heinrich described during a court hearing what happened the night of October 22, 1989, the last night Jacob was seen alive.
1990: Jacob’s parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, set up the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center, which works to help communities and families prevent child exploitation. In a Minneapolis courtroom, Heinrich also said he kidnapped and sexually assaulted another boy. Investigators had long suspected the two cases were connected.
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Congress passed a crime bill that includes the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sex Offender Registration Act, which required states to register and track sex offenders.
