Book about Wetterling tragedy draws high praise

by Dennis Dalman

After seven years of on-and-off-again writing, a memoir entitled “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope” that was co-written by Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, will be published and released Oct. 17.

Advance copies of the book have earned positive reviews, including many rave-ups by readers who were heartbroken, horrified and riveted by all of the people, events and overlooked clues surrounding the 1989 abduction of a St. Joseph boy, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling. He was “missing” for 27 years until in 2015, when a man was finally arrested. He eventually led authorities to Jacob’s body, buried in rural Paynesville, near where the perpetrator had lived at that time.

Reviewers who praised “Dear Jacob” were horrified by details of the abduction-killing, but they were also deeply moved by the Jerry and Patty Wetterling family’s never-ending agony and courage. Reviewers have also been impressed with that family’s determination to channel Jacob’s abduction into a persistence of hope for all missing children. The phrase “Jacob’s Hope” became a widely known sentiment that helped comfort families whose loved ones had been abducted or who had “disappeared” for an unknown reason.

“Dear Jacob” is being published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. The 348-page memoir is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and soon at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

Joy

Joy Baker of New London is a long-time blogger and investigative journalist who researched extensively the Jacob Wetterling case year by year, long before she met Patty Wetterling. She earned a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota.

For 20 years, she was co-owner of a central Minnesota advertising agency and now works as a marketing consultant, professional copywriter and writing coach.

Many years ago, Baker began to write an online blog about Jacob Wetterling, hoping the blog would cause people to come forward with what they kniew. Bit by bit, she succeeded in making connections, tracing overlooked evidence and connecting the many unconnected dots of the investigation process.

She eventually came across a 1987 news article about five attacks on teenage boys in Paynesville. That story led her to wonder if there was a connection between those attacks and Wetterling’s abduction nine months later when he a brother and a friend were on their way home from a convenience store in St. Joseph. In the attacks near in and Paynesville, a man named Danny Heinrich had been taken into custody for questioning but was released due to lack of evidence.

Then Baker learned one of the boys attacked was now a grown man named Jared Scheierl.

Baker contacted Scheierl, got to know him and convinced him to come forward and share more details of what had happened to him so many years ago. That connection led to other details, similarities and evidence leading law-enforcement to re-examine the crimes – the Scheierl case and the Wetterling case.

Patty

Patty Wetterling, who still lives in St. Joseph, is a national advocate and educator on the prevention of child abduction and exploitation. She served on the board of directors for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from 1991 to 2021 and was its chair from 2012 to 2015.

Four months after Jacob’s abduction, Patty and Jerry Wetterling formed the Jacob Wetterling Foundation (now known as the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center), an advocacy group for children’s safety. In 1994, the federal “Jacob Wetterling Act” was passed. It was the first law to institute a state sex-offender registry.

She also co-founded Team HOPE, a national support group for families of missing children. She is now a national consultant, presenting at child-abuse conferences and law-enforcement training sessions. The recipient of many awards, she was named one of the 100 Most Influential Minnesotans of the Century by the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1999.

Writing the book

One day, Baker introduced herself to Patty Wetterling. They gradually got to know and trust each other. In 2015, Wetterling pondered the idea of writing a book. Baker urged her to do so, but then Wetterling asked Baker if she would help write it. She agreed, and thus began the long, complicated process of dredging up nightmare memories and endless anxieties, as well as loving recollections of the boy named Jacob.

Devastation

On Sept. 1, 2016, the Wetterling-Baker book-in-progress came to a sudden stop. On that day, the awful news was revealed that Jacob’s body had been found in pastureland near Paynesville.

The Wetterlings were utterly devastated. Their slender thread of hope that somehow, someday, Jacob would be found alive had instantly snapped.

Patty was quoted as saying, “All I can confirm is that Jacob has been found and our hearts are broken. I am not responding to any media yet as I have no words.”

Baker, too, was stricken by the news because, as a mother of her own children, she had spent so much time thinking, talking and writing about Jacob that she’d begun to feel as if he’d almost been one of her own children.

Wetterling and Baker could not bring themselves to continue work on the book until 2018. After exhausting work and a close collaboration, they persisted and finally finished their book.

A correct hunch

Joy Baker’s long-time hunch about a connection between about the assaults in Paynesville and Wetterling’s abduction proved to be correct. It was later found that Danny Heinrich was, in fact, the perpetrator of both crimes.

In 2015, he was arrested at his home in Annandale where law-enforcement officials, using a search warrant, discovered a stash of child pornography. He was arrested and charged with that crime. Much later, after he was jailed, a test matched his DNA to a sample taken after the sexual assault against 12-year-old Scheierl nearly 28 years earlier.

The perpetrator confessed to the two abductions, but the statute of limitations had run out, although he was still charged with 25 counts of possessing child pornography. In a plea deal, he agreed to lead authorities to the place where he’d buried Jacob’s body hours after his abduction, after he molested him and then shot him with a handgun.

He is now serving 20 years in a Massachusetts’ federal prison. According to the judge who sentenced him, it is unlikely he will ever be released.

More kudos

Praise for the “Dear Jacob” book are still growing long before the book’s official release date of Oct. 17. Here are some excerpts from reviews:

From Ed Smart, the father of Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted in 2002 in Utah when she was 14-years old and sexually abused but was fortunately found alive about a year later.

” ‘Dear Jacob’ shares the trauma of a parent’s worst nightmare. The kidnapping of Jacob made Patty and Jerry Wetterling members of the club nobody wants to belong to. This story takes you inside their lives, showing the struggle of not knowing where your child is. The journey of finding hope allowed them to keep moving forward, pushing them beyond what they could imagine life would be.”

From Amy Klobuchar, U.S. senator from Minnesota:

“Patty Wetterling has displayed incredible courage as she’s turned her family’s grief into meaningful action. As a tireless advocate for missing and exploited children, she has honored Jacob’s memory by helping to change countless lives for the better. This book tells that powerful story and inspires us all to make the world a safer place for our children.”

From Caroline Lowe, former TV crime reporter and journalist:

“The book’s exceptional candor, intimate details and rare behind-the-scenes stories give startling insights into one of the country’s highest-profile child murder cases. I covered Jacob’s story for decades as a journalist, but I was surprised at how much I didn’t know about Patty Wetterling’s journey. This book is a must-read for anyone working on unsolved abduction cases, whether they are journalists, law enforcement investigators or people who want to know more about what happened to Jacob Wetterling.”