Using technology that wasn’t available in 1989, investigators found 53-year-old Danny Heinrich’s DNA on Scheierl’s sweatshirt, and used that evidence to get a search warrant for Heinrich’s home, where they found a large collection of child pornography.
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Danny Heinrich admitted to abducting and sexually assaulting Jacob Wetterling before shooting him twice and burying his body in a field in 1989.
He will not be charged in Jacob’s death due to a plea deal made with prosecutors and agreed to by the Wetterling family.
Heinrich was required to plead guilty to receipt of child pornography, according to the plea agreement, and the parties are seeking 20 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney Andy Luger told reporters that Heinrich isn’t getting away with anything. “We know what the Wetterling family and all of Minnesota has sought to know since 1989 – we know the truth”.
The discovery of Jacob Wetterling’s remains really began last October, when a fresh look at the case led to a search of Heinrich’s home in Annandale, Minn.
1994: Congress passes the Jacob Wetterling Act, legislation for a sex offender registry.
He recalled handcuffing the young boy and putting him in the backseat of his auto after he stopped the 11-year-old at gunpoint as he rode his bike home along a rural road in St. Joseph, Minn., with his brother and best friend.
Asked whether he abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered Jacob, Heinrich said: “Yes, I did”.
“Jacob wouldn’t have been found and the details would not have been told without the events of today”, Kendall said. Jacob then started to cry. He said the boy cried and said he was cold and wanted to go home.
Heinrich panicked and took out his revolver as [Jacob] had his back to him. “I pulled the revolver out of my pocket”, the newspaper reported him as saying. He returned to the site a year later to discover Jacob’s jacket partially exposed. The first shot didn’t fire, so he pulled the trigger again.
Jacob’s mother, Patty Wetterling, always kept hope her son would be found alive and said it is “incredibly painful” to learn of Jacob’s last hours alive.
He cuffed Jacob and put him in the front passenger seat of his auto, driving toward his hometown of Paynesville, Minn.
A year later, he said, he returned to the area and noticed the makeshift grave was becoming noticeable. The killer of Jacob Wetterling recently admitted the crime and and disclosed where he had buried the boy’s remains.
For almost 27 years, the kidnapping of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling remained an open and active investigation – his family never giving up hope that the truth would one day be uncovered. Three days afterward, a Stearns County deputy identified Heinrich as a possible suspect, according to court records.
On Wednesday, 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.
Heinrich’s attorneys declined to comment after the hearing. He maintained his innocence for years, and prosecutors never had enough evidence to charge him.
Nine months before Jacob hopped on his bike for a quick trip to the video store, a 12-year-old boy in Cold Spring – Jared Scheierl – was walking home from the Side Cafe when a man forced him into the back seat of his auto and sexually assaulted him.
He was physically linked to that case a year ago when DNA found on a sweatshirt Scheierl was wearing during the attack was matched to Heinrich’s DNA profile, according to WCCO, Minneapolis’ CBS affiliate.
Heinrich admitted he had up to 100 images of child pornography between what was found on the computer and what was found in the binder.
At right is Daniel Heinrich, who confessed to the killing 27 years later. Scheierl has talked publicly about his case in hopes it could help investigators find his attacker and Jacob’s.
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The missing Jacob Wetterling’s smiling face on thousands of posters became a symbol of both innocence and unsolved “cold” cases, raising national awareness about sexual predators.
