He said the boy asked him, “What did I do wrong?”
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Wetterling vanished from his hometown of St. Joseph, Minn., on October 22, 1989, touching off a cold case mystery that went unsolved for 27 years.
As they began to drive again, Heinrich panicked when he saw a police vehicle down the road, he recounted. He told Jacob to duck down.
He then drove Jacob to a gravel pit where he undressed the boy and molested him.
Just 10 days ago, Heinrich’s defense team reached out to prosecutors to say a plea agreement was possible – and it would include a confession and information that could lead to finding Jacob’s remains, Luger said.
Heinrich said he was panicking and loaded his revolver with two bullets.
On Tuesday, details of the crime were given in open court as Heinrich pleaded guilty in connection to Wetterling’s death. “I told Jacob to turn around”. I pulled the trigger again and it went off. “Looked back, he was still standing”, Heinrich said, according to the newspaper.
“I said I can’t take you all the way home”, Heinrich said.
Heinrich said he left the scene but went back later to bury the body. He led authorities to Wetterling’s remains last week.
January 2009: News clippings and photos of Jacob are found among the belongings of a recently deceased Milwaukee man, Vernon Seitz, who previously had confessed to killing children in the 1950s. He told the court that he moved the body a year later after he returned to the burial site and could see the boy’s jacket had begun to show through the soil.
Heinrich confirmed he acted alone in the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of the boy. “Our kids ought to be able to go to school without worrying about whether they’re going to get home”.
As part of Tuesday’s plea deal, Heinrich also admitted to assaulting Scheierl.
He was initially facing 25 counts of child pornography, that was reduced to one count of receiving child pornography, the other 24 counts are dismissed in addition to this agreement. In exchange for his plea and confession, the other counts were dismissed. “He has taught us all how to live, how to love, how to be fair, how to be kind”, she said.
Heinrich’s attorneys walked quickly by the media without comment.
“The fact that hard working cops and prosecutors never gave up should make the people of Minnesota feel that law enforcement is doing its job”, Heffelfinger said.
September 1: Heinrich confesses in detail to authorities how he abducted and killed Jacob Oct. 22, 1989.
Wetterling was taken on a rural Minnesota road by a man wearing a mask and donning a gun, and his family has waited decades for answers on what happened.
Heinrich was arrested on federal charges stemming from a long-term child exploitation investigation. 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 three boys were on their bikes and shining flashlights to light their way.
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.
Scheierl told police his attacker wore camouflage and army boots and had a “walkie-talkie” type of device in the vehicle. His remains were identified Saturday.
Documents depict 1989 as a year of change for Heinrich.
The 11-year-old St. Joseph boy was taken from his bicycle on a rural road near his house while he, his brother, and his best friend were riding home after renting a movie.
Scheierl has said he’d like to talk to Heinrich; in court Tuesday, he said that he now finds objective in helping others, according to MPR’s Williams.
“From everything we knew Heinrich was volatile and unpredictable man who could want to talk one minute – and clam up the next”, Luger said. “So we investigated with everything that we could”.
Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall said too much time had passed to charge Heinrich with kidnapping or assault. That is what gets us up in the morning; that is the hope. “After nearly 27 years, Danny Heinrich was willing to talk, and we had to grab the moment”.
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Heinrich denies involvement in Jacob’s disappearance and is not charged in the case.
