MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — To crack Minnesota’s biggest cold case — the 1989 abduction of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling — authorities went back to the early days of the investigation.
They turned a renewed spotlight last year on a man who was questioned soon after Jacob’s disappearance but was never charged. That ultimately led to Saturday’s announcement that Jacob’s remains finally had been found.
“On these kinds of cases it’s really a tribute to law enforcement that they simply never give up. ... This is what persistence will reveal,” Michael Campion, former superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and former commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety, said Sunday.
The case has not lain dormant for those 27 years, said Tom Heffelfinger, former U.S. attorney for Minnesota. To the contrary, he said, it’s been a top priority for local and federal law enforcement the entire time.
When authorities last October announced the arrest of Danny Heinrich, now 53, of Annandale, on child pornography charges, they took the unusual step of calling him a “person of interest” in the Wetterling case, though they were careful to stop short of calling him a suspect. He has not been charged in Jacob’s abduction and death.
