"Person of interest" named in 1989 Jacob Wetterling disappearance
MINNEAPOLIS -- Federal officials on Thursday named 52-year-old Daniel James Heinrich as a person of interest in the 1989 disappearance of 11-year-old Minnesota boy Jacob Wetterling.
Federal child pornography charges were also announced Thursday against Heinrich, but he is not being charged in relation to the Wetterling case, officials said.
Jacob Wetterling was abducted Oct. 22, 1989 by a masked man as he was riding his bike home. Jacob had been riding his bike with his best friend and younger brother Trevor to a store to rent a video in St. Joseph's Township, outside St. Cloud, reported the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. As they headed home, they were confronted by a masked man with a gun, who ordered the boys to lie face-down in a ditch. He reportedly asked each their age, before ordering them to run into the woods and not to look back.
Jacob, however, he didn't let go. The boy hasn't been seen since; today, he would be 37.
Heinrich was questioned in connection to the case in 1990 but never charged, reports CBS Minnesota,citing court documents. A DNA sample was taken at the time.
The child porn charges stem from a July search of Heinrich's Annandale home that resulted from a cold case review of the Wetterling file, said FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard T. Thornton.
Members of the FBI, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Stearns County Sheriff's department have been meeting over the last year to conduct a new review of the Wetterling case, Thornton said. Investigators determined that Heinrich should be looked at further.
As a result of new testing, Thornton said DNA found on clothing in the January, 1989 sex assault of a young boy near Cold Spring - nine months before Jacob Wetterling disappeared - was determined to be Heinrich's.
Thursday, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said the July search of Heinrich's home uncovered child pornography on Heinrich's computer that involved young boys. Investigators discovered 19 3-ring bingers filled with pornographic images of young boys, he said, some of which were known victims of child exploitation based on a database maintained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Investigators also uncovered dozens of VHS video tapes of young boys doing "routine activities" - like delivering newspapers, playing on a playground, and riding bikes - some of which he said appeared to have been shot from a hidden camera, Luger said.
Wetterling and the Cold Spring victim were not among those pictured in the images, officials said.
Luger called the arrest a result of a "long-term, wide-ranging child exploitation investigation."
As a result of similarities between the Wetterling case and a number of sex assaults in the 1980s, Heinrich is being called a "person of interest" in the Wetterling case, said Thornton.
Officials encouraged anyone with knowledge of Heinrich's activities in the late 1980s and early 1990s to contact them.
Jacob Wetterling's parents, Patty and Jerry Wetterling, have become advocates for missing children in the years since their son's disappearance. In a statement released Thursday, they also begged anyone with information about Heinrich to come forward.
"We are so grateful for the prayers, the support and the Hope shared in our search for Jacob and the search for answers. Who took Jacob? Where is he? What happened?," Wetterling's family said in a statement.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Stearns County Sheriff's Department at 320-259-3700 or 320-656-6625.
