by Dennis Dalman
What was trumpeted by widespread media as a break in the Jacob Wetterling case turned out to be, in fact, not a break at all, though a press conference in St. Paul left no doubt there are at least some similarities to an Annandale man arrested for possessing child pornography and the man who abducted Wetterling 26 years ago.
Daniel James Heinrich, 52, was arrested Oct. 28 and charged with several counts of receiving and possessing child pornography. He has recently and in the past repeatedly denied having abducted Wetterling. Heinrich is in the Sherburne County Jail, Elk River, and is expected to be indicted on child-pornography charges in federal court.
For a statement from Jacob’s parents, Dr. Jerry and Patty Wetterling, as well as a meeting with the media, see related story in today’s paper.
At the press conference, law-enforcement officials, including Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner, emphasized Heinrich has not been arrested or charged in any way in connection with the Wetterling case, although he remains a “person of interest.”
However, this is not the first time Heinrich was named as a person of interest in the Wetterling disappearance Oct. 22, 1989 when the boy was 11 years old. Years ago, Heinrich, who was living in Paynesville at that time, had been under suspicion as having assaulted at least five boys in that city, groping them sexually before letting them go. The incidents occurred in a time frame between 1986-1989. Several of the boys he allegedly groped were riding bicycles in the city. In years past, law enforcement tried to find solid connections between Heinrich and the Wetterling abduction but connections were impossible to prove.
A July 28, 2015 search of Heinrich’s Annandale home, however, did establish one fact about the Cold Spring cases. A previous sample of Heinrich’s DNA matched that of the incident of a man who attacked, abducted and sexually assaulted a 12-year-old Cold Spring boy in January 1989, 10 months before Wetterling’s disappearance. At the Oct. 29 press conference, officials said Heinrich could not be charged with that crime because the statute of limitations has passed.
Press conference
Those who spoke at the Oct. 29 press conference in St. Paul were Richard Thornton of the FBI, a special agent at the Minneapolis FBI office; U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger; Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension; and Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner.
The officials gave details about the search of Heinrich’s house and what was (and was not) found there. Heinrich, they said, is facing multiple serious charges of possessing child pornography.
They assured those gathered that the Wetterling case is very much in an open-investigation status and that they and others are determined to solve the case sooner or later.
A statement from Wetterling’s parents was also read, although they did not attend the press conference. (See related story.)
Chilling similarities
There are chilling similarities between the Wetterling case and Heinrich, as discovered by law enforcement:
- The man who abducted Wetterling has a low, gruff, whispery voice, according to Jacob’s brother and friend, who were with him at the time the masked man took him away. Several Cold Spring boys who had been attacked and groped – and the boy who had been taken into the car – said their attacker had a low, gruff, whispery voice. The boy abducted in Cold Spring bore a remarkable resemblance to Jacob Wetterling, abducted 10 months later.
- During the search of Heinrich’s house in Annandale, there were many videos found that were apparently surreptitiously filmed of boys riding bicycles, playing at playgrounds and delivering newspapers, among other ordinary day-to-day activities. Several of the boys in Cold Spring were knocked off their bicycles by a man, some in an alley behind a pizza restaurant. Wetterling, his brother and friend were riding bicycles when the man stopped them and abducted Jacob.
- In at least one of the Cold Spring incidents, the attacker asked the boys their names and ages. The man who abducted Wetterling also asked the three boys their ages.
- In one of the Cold Spring assault cases, a boy was attacked in the stairwell of an apartment building. The boy was grabbed and thrown down the stairs. He began to scream, and the man, who was wearing a mask, said to be quiet or he would kill him. He groped the boy and talked in a deep, low whisper, asking what grade the boy was in. He then took the boy’s wallet and left on foot.
- In another case, a man, after groping the young victim, cut off some of the boy’s head hair with a jagged knife and then kept the hair and the boy’s stocking cap – a cap with the letter “I” on it and hearts all around the edge of the cap.
- The 12-year-old who was abducted and sexually assaulted Jan. 13, 1989 in Cold Spring told authorities a man forced him to get into a car while he was walking home after ice-skating. The man then drove him to a rural area where the boy was violently sexually assaulted. Then the man pushed the boy from the car into a ditch and told him if he turned around to look he would be shot to death. The man who abducted Wetterling said a similar thing to Jacob’s brother and friend. He told them to run into the woods and if they turned to look they would be shot.
- The man who assaulted the Cold Spring boy was wearing military fatigues and black boots, possibly combat boots. The raspy voiced masked gunman who abducted Wetterling was described by the two other children as wearing dark clothing and black boots.
All of those similarities could be coincidences, but they have been enough to keep Heinrich under scrutiny as a person of interest.
House search
The warrant affidavit was presented to a judge from the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office. The judge then approved the warrant for the July 28 search of Heinrich’s home, which spelled out many items searchers said they could reasonably be expected to find in the house, including many items related to Wetterling.
Such items, however, were not found.
In the search-warrant application to the judge, the following Wetterling-related items were listed:
- A red hockey jacket with the name “Jacob” stitched on the front.
- A red T-shirt with the name “Wetterling” printed on the back.
- Other items, including socks, that Wetterling was wearing at the time of the abduction.
- The warrant application also contained a request to get a saliva swab sample from Heinrich, which was granted by the judge.
The search, however, did uncover a veritable stash of child pornography. They included 19 ring-binders of pornographic images of young boys, a computer hard-drive of many more images and a large collection of video tapes showing boys involved in everyday activities: delivering newspapers, riding bicycles, playing at playgrounds and more. Law enforcement officials said the videos appear to have been filmed by Heinrich, probably with a camera that had been hidden or filmed from a concealed place. No images of Wetterling turned up in the extensive inventory of photos and videos in Heinrich’s home.
Heinrich’s Annandale residence is at 55 Myrtle Ave. S., about one block from a middle school.
Jacob gone
On the night of Oct. 22, 1989, at about 9:15 p.m. 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling, his brother and a friend were on their way home from a convenience store where they had gone, with parents’ permission, to get a video movie.
While riding their bicycles home on a rural road south of the store, a man appeared, apparently from a ditch where he had been hiding. It was later learned he almost certainly had a vehicle waiting nearby on a side road.
The man was wearing a mask and carrying a handgun. He told the boys to throw their bikes in the ditch and then lie down in the ditch. He asked each boy his age. Then he told Jacob’s brother and the friend to run into the woods and not look back. When the two did look back not long after that, the man and Jacob were gone.
A massive search turned up nothing.
The abduction left the people of St. Joseph in a state of horror and shock, and soon the news traveled through the state and nation and even worldwide. At the time and since then, it has become perhaps the most famous case of child abduction, partly because of the efforts of the Wetterlings to bring attention to the cause of child safety, abduction prevention, emergency alerts and changes in laws regarding child molestations and abductions. The Wetterlings’ efforts inspired the creation of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, with its motto of “Jacob’s Hope.”