In a Minneapolis courtroom, Heinrich also said he kidnapped and sexually assaulted another boy.
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Heinrich’s confessions led investigators last week to recover Wetterling’s remains from where the body was buried in a field, almost 27 years after his death.
This photo released Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015 by the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office, shows Daniel Heinrich, who was arrested on federal charges stemming from a long-term child exploitation investigation.
Jacob was riding his bicycle with his brother and a friend near his home in St. Joseph when a masked gunman abducted him.
Heinrich was in court Tuesday to face child pornography charges, in a separate case from Wetterling’s abduction.
Congress passes a crime bill that includes the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sex Offender Registration Act, which required states to register and track sex offenders. At the same time, Paynesville police were responding to a series of attacks against boys as they walked or biked around town. Armed with a gun, he said he told two of the children to leave; one was Jacob’s younger brother, Trevor, and the other was Jacob’s best friend. When a prosecutor asked him “For what objective?”, Heinrich responded, “Souvenir, I guess”.
Heinrich handcuffed the boy in the front seat and said he had a police scanner so when he heard officers were searching for Jacob, he told the child to duck down. Heinrich said he found a Bobcat and knew where the company kept the key, so he returned to the site and dug a hole using the Bobcat, which is where he buried Jacob.
Heinrich was asked to describe during the court hearing what happened the night of October 22, 1989, the last night Wetterling was seen alive. That’s when he said he sexually assaulted Wetterling.
The boy, who had been forced to strip, said he was cold, and asked if he could go home.
It also includes an examination of several men who were investigated, including Danny Heinrich, who had been named as a person of interest in the case. 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. He loaded the revolver with two rounds, he said, and asked the boy to turn around. The armed man told the trio to lie facedown in a ditch and tell him their ages. The first shot didn’t fire, so he pulled the trigger again. He told Scheierl to run and not look back or he would kill him.
“What I really to say today is about Jacob”.
After shooting Jacob, Danny ran away from the scene – only to return a few hours later to bury Jacob’s body.
As they began to drive again, Heinrich panicked when he saw a police auto down the road, he recounted.
Heinrich had been under increasing scrutiny as authorities have revisited Jacob’s abduction and investigated a string of sexual assaults on preteen and teen boys near Paynesville, Minn., in the mid- to late 1980s; Jacob was taken less than a mile from his home in St. Joseph, which is about 20 miles from Paynesville.
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.
“We love you, Jacob”.
As part of that effort, investigators took another look at the sexual assault of 12-year-old Jared Scheierl, of Cold Spring, nine months before Jacob’s disappearance. Investigators had long suspected the two cases were connected.
Jacob vanished 27 years ago, after he was abducted by a masked gunman while riding his bike on October 22, 1989.
U.S. Attorney Andy Luger told reporters after Danny Heinrich pleaded guilty to a single child pornography count Tuesday that the 53-year-old Minnesota man isn’t getting away with anything.
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The man who led investigators to Jacob Wetterling’s body has admitted to killing him.
