Danny Heinrich said on Tuesday he had kidnapped and shot to death Jacob Wetterling, who was riding his bike on a rural Minnesota road almost 27 years ago.
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With his parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling in court, Heinrich described wearing a mask and confronting Jacob and two friends with a gun. Heinrich recalled that Wetterling asked him, “What did I do wrong?”
HIs confession to Wetterling’s murder was part of a plea deal for that pornography case. “I told Trevor (Jacob’s brother) and Aaron (Jacob’s best friend) to run away, don’t look back or I’ll shoot”.
The defendant described how he then handcuffed Jacob and put him in the passenger seat of his vehicle.
“If you asked each one of us, we would say the last 10 days have been the most hard professionally in our lives”, U.S. Attorney Andy Luger told reporters.
“What I really to say today is about Jacob”.
He then drove Jacob to a gravel pit where he undressed the boy and molested him.
After their son vanished, Patty and Jerry, became advocates for missing children.
Danny Heinrich made his confession on Tuesday as he pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography in a separate case.
Danny Heinrich’s status conference is set for 1 p.m.in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
According to police records, Jacob Wetterling was out biking with his brother and another boy in St. Joseph, Minnesota, when a masked man approached them on Sunday, Oct. 22, 1989. After that, he’ll be evaluated for sex offender commitment – “and may never be released from custody again”, Kendall said. Heinrich had built up enough trust with his attorneys, who were critical in resolving the case, Luger said. But last summer authorities searched his house for ties to the boy’s disappearance. Paynesville is about 30 miles from where he abducted Jacob in St. Joseph.
January 1990: Heinrich is interviewed again and his father’s house searched.
Retested DNA evidence a year ago linked Heinrich to the 1989 kidnapping and sexual assault of Jared Scheierl in Cold Spring, nine months before Jacob’s abduction. He said he went home for awhile before returning later to hide the child’s body, taking a shovel from a construction company to dig a grave and filling it in with a Bobcat. Just last week, Heinrich led authorities to where Wetterling’s remains were buried. Investigators revisited the site again Friday for crime-scene purposes. The man who took him, 53-year-old Danny Heinrich, admitted in federal court Tuesday to abducting Jacob, sexually assaulting him and killing him. I said, ‘Don’t cry.’ ” Heinrich said at some point a patrol vehicle with siren and lights passing nearby caused him to panic.
The 53-year-old will not be prosecuted for the youngster’s muder.
With Jacob’s mother and father, Jerry Wetterling, in a packed courtroom, Heinrich described putting on a mask and confronting Jacob and two friends with a revolver near Jacob’s central Minnesota home of St. Joseph on October 22, 1989.
Heinrich led authorities to the second site while he was handcuffed last week.
Heinrich had always been under investigators’ scrutiny. He gathered the human remains and reburied them at a farm.
The book gives a detailed presentation of the efforts to find Wetterling and the man who took him. Federal sentences do not allow for parole, so he will serve the entire 20.
Scheierl, who’s now 40 and has three children, told CBS Minnesota that the authorities told him the statute of limitations had run out on his case.
Patty Wetterling also thanked Jared Scheierl, a Minnesota man whose own sexual assault as a 12-year-old was long suspected to be connected to Jacob’s disappearance.
Heinrich confirmed he acted alone in the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of the boy.
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That spot is evidently the same one Heinrich led authorities to last week, according to the AP.
