Jacob Wetterling Cold Case: Confession But No Charges for Killer Pedo

The heartbroken parents of missing 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling have at last learned the sad fate of their abducted son: He was molested and murdered over two and half decades ago, then buried in a Minnesota cow pasture.

Jacob had been kidnapped at gunpoint by a masked man in October 1989 while biking home on a country road with his brother and a friend. The armed assailant ordered the two other terrified boys to run and “not look back” or he’d shoot them.

They both fled on foot together, and Jacob Wetterling was never seen again.

In September 2016, however, the Associated Press reported that a longtime “person of interest” who, 27 years ago lived fairly close to the Wetterling residence in St. Joseph MN, “led FBI investigators” to Jacob’s skeletal remains.

A spokesman for the Bureau, speaking on condition of anonymity, also tipped off reporters for the St. Cloud Times and KSTP TV that 53-year-old Daniel Heinrich would soon be appearing in Federal Court on charges loosely connected to Wetterling’s missing-persons case.

And it was during those subsequent legal proceedings when Heinrich confessed to cuffing and driving Wetterling to a wooded area some 30 miles from his abduction site. There, the defendant said, he raped the boy and shot him to death, after “panicking” when he overheard on a police scanner that a patrol car was in the vicinity.

The killer pedophile then hastily buried Wetterling’s body at the crime scene; reburying it a year later in another remote location nearby when a “visit” to the first gravesite revealed that Jacob’s jacket had partially emerged.

Heinrich, who is reportedly a victim of child molestation himself, was taken into custody over a year ago for possessing and distributing child pornography. He previously entered innocent pleas to more than two-dozen such criminal counts, but those pleadings have drastically changed now.

Heinrich had come to the immediate attention of authorities during the earliest days of the Jacob Wetterling investigation, albeit there was never any substantial evidence in 1989 or the ensuing years to charge him for anything.

At that time, deviant ‘Danny’ Heinrich lived in Paynesville Minnesota and matched the description of an unknown man who had been stalking and sexually assaulting neighborhood boys.

In fact, in the years just before and after young Wetterling’s horrific abduction, at least eight juvenile males are believed to have suffered similar attacks and survived.

‘Nuclear’ DNA tests conducted in 2015 on one of these victims’ clothing implicated Heinrich as the perpetrator, but prosecuting him for the decades-old crime spree is no longer possible because statutes of limitation have since expired.

Court papers in connection to Wetterling’s now-solved cold case showed police strongly casting suspicion on Daniel Heinrich a year before the slain boy’s shallow grave was actually unearthed, with the aid of his killer.

According to Fox News, the "volatile" child-exploiter begrudgingly "cooperated" with FBI agents in this manner in exchange for lighter sentencing on the bevy of kiddie porn charges he couldn't otherwise hope to defend.

Consequently, because of his extraordinary plea deal, Heinrich can't be charged now for kidnapping and murdering Jacob Wetterling in 1989, nor for abusing his corpse -- twice.

But his belated admission of guilt puts to rest one of the most disturbing disappearances on record, and was all that was needed to finally tie it to unsolved assaults on other boys who were likewise targeted by a dangerous sexual predator in the 80s and 90s, but lived to tell about it.

Eponymous Rox

Trial for Abigail Hernandez Kidnapping Suspect

The Abigail Hernandez kidnapping trial in New Hampshire is "on track" and scheduled to begin in January 2016:

The accused, "Crazy Nate" Kibby, 34, of Gorham New Hampshire, faces 205 assorted and sordid criminal counts related to his October 2013 abduction of the North Conway teen as she was walking home from school.

Those range from repeated sexual assaults on a minor to unlawful use of electronic restraints, and, once Kibby is convicted next year, he'll likely be imprisoned for life.

Ex con, Nathaniel Kibby, was identified by his victim from a police lineup just one week after she mysteriously returned to her North Conway residence in an underweight and traumatized condition. 

Kibby had brutally confined her for nine months on his rural property located a mere 30 miles from Hernandez's hometown. 

Read latest coverage of the Abigail Hernandez abduction with case updates on Crime Magazine.

BREAKING NEWS: Abigail Hernandez Abductor Arrested

A man residing near Abigail Hernandez was arrested today and charged with felony kidnapping and confinement of the 15-year-old girl nine months ago:

A traumatized "Abby" Hernandez somehow returned to her Conway New Hampshire home last weekend in a perilously malnourished state and since then has been quietly recuperating and cooperating with authorities still working her missing person case.

Earlier in the week, based on the teen's descriptions, police released an artist's sketch of a possible male suspect, and by Friday reported they were actively pursuing at least 20 "good leads" so far.

The arrest today of 34-year-old Nathaniel Kibby "without incident" at his Gorham, NH trailer home, just 30 miles north of where Abby Hernandez lives, was therefore a relatively swift -- but long overdue -- break in one of the strangest disappearances on record.

Kibby has been charged with felony kidnapping and is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow (Tuesday, July 29th) at Conway District Court. 

It is not known if the defendant has his own lawyer yet or if one will be appointed for him, but a press briefing has been scheduled for Tuesday immediately following the arraignment.

E.R.

Was Madeleine McCann the victim of a robbery gone amok?

Apart from the brutal rape, bludgeoning and strangulation of child model JonBenét Ramsey, no case has quite captured the public's attention and concern than that of long-missing toddler Madeleine McCann.

The blonde 4-year-old is believed to have been abducted from her Portugal hotel room in 2007, but just who those kidnappers might have been and their actual motive remains an unsolved mystery.

Now authorities have reinvigorated the worldwide search for 'Maddy' and some theorize that her abduction may have been related to a string of robberies in the resort neighborhood where the McCann family was vacationing.

It's possible that young Madeleine McCann could have unwittingly seen or even interrupted a burglary in progress, detectives working the case anew are actively speculating. 

If so, the girl would have been especially vulnerable to the consequences of such a discovery because she and her two infant siblings were left alone that evening while Mr. and Mrs. McCann were dining at a nearby restaurant. 

The McCanns -- frequently the target of suspicion and scorn themselves -- welcome the new theories and interest in the case, having never given up hunting for their daughter and for the criminals who took her away from them.

Investigators have also released new sketches of the potential perp/s involved in Madeleine McCann's disappearance, whilst revising the timeline closer to the precise hour Mrs. McCann found her daughter gone without a trace.

They're refocusing their inquiry mainly on a Caucasian male between 20 and 40 years of age.

The unidentified individual was observed in the area by another tourist from Ireland who said he and his family members noticed a man carrying a blonde-haired child around 10 PM, the same time Maddy's mother was about to return to the hotel to check on her small children.

According to that eyewitness, Martin Smith, 64, the girl he saw being carried from the premises was wearing pajamas and did not appear distressed.

The above information, however, is not all that *new* in reality, having been in the hands of the Portuguese police for almost the entire time Maddy McCann was declared missing.

Smith further claims that the Portuguese police deliberately disregarded his reports because they were fixating instead on a different suspect who later proved to be the wrong man.

With an investigation into the baffling abduction of Madeleine McCann revitalized this week, over 1000 fresh tips have already been phoned in or e-mailed, with two separate people providing the exact same name of the thus far unknown male sought for questioning.

Could a break in this cold case finally be only days away now?

License plate scanners and the Jessica Heeringa abduction

JESSICA HEERINGA IS STILL MISSING

Fixed or on police cruisers, license plate scanners are being used to track millions of  unsuspecting Americans, it's been revealed this week. Broad illegal searches which have civil libertarians rightly up in arms.

 

That recent disclosure, coupled with revelations of the government's nonstop internet peeping, made by ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden in early June this year, shows that indoors or outdoors Big Brother is now watching all of us 24/7.

 

And yet on the night of April 26, 2013, when underpaid Exxon Mobil-mart employee Jessica Heeringa was abducted as she closed up shop for the night, there where no cameras in her place of business and, allegedly, no license plate scanners along the route that the suspect and his silver minivan took...

 

Or was there?

 

A baffling abduction with no searches

 

Alerted by would be customers who found the Exxon station in Norton Shores Michigan curiously deserted, police were on the scene within minutes of Ms. Heeringa's April kidnapping.

 

Still, they say they found no clues, except a tiny droplet of blood which later through DNA analysis proved to belong to the 25-year-old blonde mother-of-one.

 

Fuzzy surveillance video of the suspected vehicle leaving the area that night was obtained from nearby businesses and that silver minivan singularly hunted for in the days, weeks and months since Heeringa has been gone without a trace.

 

Indeed, so sure was law enforcement about this aspect of the case, that they became fixated on the elusive van, refusing to launch any official ground searches for the victim, and further urging no one else to do so either.

 

But today stumped investigators worry that what and who they sought for so long may be a red herring in Heeringa's abduction. After all, no one has seen this vehicle ever since that date, nor a 30-something man who supposedly resembles the police sketch of its driver.

 

Never too late

 

Of course, as the Cleveland kidnappings have clearly shown us, it's not too late to organize search teams to scour the Norton Shores suburb for a missing woman. In fact, it's a darn good idea because most people who are abducted are taken by men they somehow are acquainted with.

 

Yes, men.

 

Generally, though, if a woman or child isn't found within 72 hours, the odds are they've met up with foul play, but, still, that shouldn't prevent folks from hunting for Heeringa, nonetheless.

 

One way or another, a family in Michigan needs closure now, even if all that is returned to them is their missing loved one's remains.

 

In the meantime, maybe local police agencies should just man up about their own warrantless surveillance of innocent motorists and cough up their license plate scans for that evening.

 

Sadistic stranger, fiendish friend, or even a corrupt cop, it couldn't hurt to see who actually was in the vicinity of the crime at that particular hour.

 

You know? 

 

EPONYMOUS ROX

 

The Mysterious Disappearance of August Reiger

WHERE ON EARTH CAN AUGUST REIGER BE?

 

Father's Day, June 16, 2013, an American family of four vacationing in Ecuador takes a jungle hike together on the scenic but hilly trails overlooking the tourist town of Banos. Two brothers suddenly race up ahead ... but only one of them returns. What happened to the other? Was he kidnapped? Did he fall? Is he a runaway? Or was he murdered?

 

Fulbright scholar, class valedictorian and Oklahoma resident, August Reiger, 18, vanished in thin air on June 16th while exploring Ecuador's picturesque countryside with his mother, father and younger brother, Laithe. 

 

At one point in the trek the two boys had dashed ahead of their parents, yet, minutes later, only the youngest son rendezvoused with them again.

 

"He was sitting there waiting," explains Mr. Reiger, "but he hadn't seen his brother."

 

The steep and winding path the Reiger family took, while secluded, is a popular tourist attraction in this region, and the small town where they were staying, dependably crime free.

 

In fact, although U.S. and Ecuadoran officials are jointly investigating August Reiger's strange disappearance as an abduction, and even offering a reward to his potential kidnappers, the reality is there's never been an abduction in this area.

 

Moreover, no ransom note has been delivered...

 

Adding to the mystery, some locals have since been claiming they might've spotted the youth riding in the back of a pickup truck, apparently headed for the Amazon rainforest.

 

But others think that's a bit farfetched. They're speculating that Reiger is probably at the bottom of a ravine somewhere, his body hidden from search parties by dense foliage.

 

What do you think? Is this brilliant young man still among the living? And, if so, where?

 

Eponymous Rox

 

[Updated on 7/2/13 from July 1st to include photo of Laithe Reiger]