-
Tips for becoming a good boxer - November 6, 2020
-
7 expert tips for making your hens night a memorable one - November 6, 2020
-
5 reasons to host your Christmas party on a cruise boat - November 6, 2020
-
What to do when you’re charged with a crime - November 6, 2020
-
Should you get one or multiple dogs? Here’s all you need to know - November 3, 2020
-
A Guide: How to Build Your Very Own Magic Mirror - February 14, 2019
-
Our Top Inspirational Baseball Stars - November 24, 2018
-
Five Tech Tools That Will Help You Turn Your Blog into a Business - November 24, 2018
-
How to Indulge on Vacation without Expanding Your Waist - November 9, 2018
-
5 Strategies for Businesses to Appeal to Today’s Increasingly Mobile-Crazed Customers - November 9, 2018
Jacob Wetterling’s killer Danny Heinrich confesses to the 1989 Minnesota murder
The confession was part of a plea deal that calls for Heinrich to spend 20 years in federal prison.
Advertisement
Heinrich confronted the boys, told Jacob’s brother and friend to run and forced Jacob into the vehicle.
After kidnapping the boy, Heinrich said, he handcuffed him and put him in the front seat of his auto.
Heinrich said “I was driving on a dead-end road” outside St. Joseph on the evening of October 22, 1989 when he saw three young boys on their bikes with a flashlight. Heinrich panicked upon hearing a police vehicle, loaded his revolver, shot the boy and buried him in a place finally uncovered last week, federal authorities said.
Initially, he said, he used a Bobcat to dig a hole and bury Jacob and camouflage the area with grass and twigs. He took the machine from a nearby construction company.
Last Wednesday, Heinrich led investigators to a location in rural Stearns County where they discovered a red jacket like the one Jacob was wearing when he was kidnapped. He said he loaded his revolver with two rounds and told Jacob to turn around because he had to go to the bathroom. Heinrich was charged past year with 25 counts of possessing and receiving child pornography.
Heinrich was first named as a person of interest in the case nearly a year ago, but his current federal charges stem from an unrelated case.
Jacob went missing one evening when when he and his brother left their home in the hamlet of Saint James, Minn., with a friend to ride their bicycles and a scooter to a store to rent a movie.
Heinrich said he wasn’t under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time and that his actions “were voluntary” and “of his own free will”. But last summer authorities searched his house for ties to the boy’s disappearance.
Heinrich testified how he led authorities to that second site last week.
At the time of Wetterling’s abduction, Heinrich lived in Paynesville, about 30 miles southwest of St. Joseph, with his father.
Prosecutors also had Heinrich detail how he kidnapped and sexually assaulted Jared Scheierl on January 13, 1989, just months before killing Jacob.
The Associated Press typically doesn’t identify victims of sexual assault, but Scheierl, now 40, has spoken publicly for years about his case, saying that talking about it helped him cope with the trauma.
Heinrich made Jacob duck down into the seat as he listened to a police scanner, which, after the other boys ran the half-mile back to the Wetterling home, crackled with news of the abduction.
Ultimately, the prosecution and defense teams reached an agreement: Heinrich would confess to the kidnapping, murder and sexual assault of Jacob Wetterling and lead authorities to the boy’s final resting place, and the prosecution would waive their right to charge Heinrich with the murder, which has no statute of limitations. Investigators revisited the site again Friday for crime-scene purposes.
The man who abducted, sexually molested and killed 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling in 1989 stood before a judge Tuesday and gave chilling details of the Minnesota boy’s final moments.
“Finally, we know”, Luger said. The other charges were dismissed in exchange for pleading guilty to one charge and his confession.
In addition to pushing for legislation to protect against sex offenders, the Wetterlings have been advocating through their nonprofit, the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center. U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said it was the only way to get Heinrich, whom he described as a volatile man, to show authorities where they could find the boy’s remains. The law requires requires states to implement a sex offender and crimes against children registry.
The count Heinrich pleaded guilty to was related to an image he downloaded on March 1, 2014, of an underage girl, who was naked.
Heinrich last year was named as a “person of interest” in the abduction of Jacob Wetterling, the 11-year-old St. Joseph boy who was abducted from a rural road near his house on October 22, 1989, and never seen again.
Advertisement
“I’m cold”, Jacob told Heinrich.