The 1989 abduction and murder of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling of St. Joseph, Minnesota, has been solved with a confession in court Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2016. Afterward, he shot the boy and later buried him about 100 yards away. “And Jacob is finally home”, Andrew Luger, U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, said in a statement. We got the truth.
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September 6, 2016: Heinrich confesses in detail to abducting and killing Wetterling in court while pleading guilty to federal child pornography charges.
If convicted, Danny Heinrich will now face a maximum jail term of 240 months – or 20 years in prison.
“Heinrich said he left Jacob’s body and went home and went back later to hide the body, using a Bobcat to dig a hole”. But her optimism was shattered last week when Heinrich led investigators to where his remains were buried as part of a plea deal. Investigators wasted no time in reaching the plea deal that was signed August 30.
Luger says Heinrich was volatile and could change his mind any time.
Heinrich led authorities to Jacob’s remains last week, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing case.
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. He stopped them and told the other two boys to run home and not look back.
Jacob asked to go home, but Heinrich told him he couldn’t take him all the way home. “And of course, we needed to bring Jacob home”.
“I want to say ‘Jacob, I’m so sorry, ‘” his mother Patty Wetterling said after the hearing. He said he panicked, pulled his revolver and put two rounds inside. He shot the boy twice. Once again, he took the body out of the grave and put it inside a bag which he buried it in the place where police officers eventually found the remains nearly three decades later.
Heinrich, who has been in custody since his arrest a year ago, detailed the abduction and killing of Wetterling in court on Tuesday.
Henrich was first questioned shortly after the boy disappeared but maintained his innocence and police didn’t have enough evidence to charge him.
Investigators had long targeted Heinrich for the boy’s kidnapping but were unable to find evidence.
Luger said the possibility of a confession and the location of Jacob had “been our number one focus”.
As the man behind It Can’t Happen Here: The Search for Jacob Wetterling, Dudley is, however, more relieved than most over what Federal Bureau of Investigation agents uncovered over the weekend.
The jacket was consistent with the one Jacob was wearing when he was abducted.
Luger and the multi-agency team were certain Heinrich was responsible for Jacob’s death, but they knew how hard gaining a confession would be. When a prosecutor asked him “For what goal?”, Heinrich responded, “Souvenir, I guess”. He was told past year, however, that Heinrich could not be prosecuted for that attack because the statute of limitations had expired.
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 can not be charged because the statute of limitations has run out.
Heinrich initially fled the scene but returned later to bury the boy’s body. He opened the door for Jacob, removed the handcuffs, and made him undress.
“I will never forget that moment”, Luger said about receiving the message.
“It’s incredibly painful to know his last days, last hours, last minutes”, Patty Wetterling said after the guilty plea. We will continue to fight. “Our hearts are hurting”.
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Wetterling’s parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, became advocates for missing children after his disappearance.
