Also missing from the home was Zachary Todd Anderson, 25, a co-worker of Alayna’s dad, Matt Ertl.
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– The Ramsey County Medical Examiner confirmed the five-year-old Watkins, Minn. girl who was kidnapped from her home early Saturday morning died of homicidal violence. The girl’s mother discovered them gone at 8 a.m.
That led the BCA to issue an Amber Alert about 1:30 p.m. Saturday, saying authorities believed Anderson had left the house with Alayna in her father’s white pickup truck.
Hours later, the GMC truck is found on property owned by the suspect’s family in rural Cass County.
K-9 officers found Anderson at about 4:24 p.m. about a quarter of a mile from a cabin on the property. “He did not have a weapon and did not resist arrest”.
Information provided by the suspect as well as additional investigative efforts led law enforcement to Alayna’s remains in a swampy wooded area a few hundred yards from the cabin. She was dead when police arrived on the scene, he said.
Sheriff Cruze said it was tips from the public that eventually revealed the unimaginable.
The BCA release stated Anderson was being held in Crow Wing County due to “space issues” at the Cass County Jail. He has not yet entered a plea and it is unknown if he has retained an attorney.
When the time comes, relatives of the Ertl family, friends and others from Watkins and surrounding communities will gather at the Ertl Funeral Home in downtown Watkins to mourn and remember Alayna. “He had previously been to that residence and spent a night here and there – so he’s not a stranger and not new to the residence, but was just there for the night”. When he wasn’t found, the Sheriff’s Office asked the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for help. Law enforcement is still looking for information from anyone who saw Anderson or the stolen vehicle on Saturday.
“We have no known predatory sexual offender information on him or anything like that”, Cruze said.
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“It’s senseless”, Tom Ertl said of the little girl’s killing. “She will never be forgotten”, another friend wrote on a GoFundMe page created to offset funeral costs.
