by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
A St. Joseph man who was at one time under suspicion in the Jacob Wetterling abduction case is suing Stearns County, Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner and others involved with the 27-year-old case.
Dan Rassier lived on his family farm just east of the place on a rural road where 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted Oct. 22, 1989. A private road to the farmstead led to the road of the abduction site.
In his lawsuit filed two weeks ago in federal court he asked for damages totaling $2 million. Rita, Rassier’s mother, is also a plaintiff named on the lawsuit. Rassier claims he was the subject of a frame-up by law officials who, he further claims, had to have known he, Rassier, was not guilty of the abduction. He also alleges investigators had evidence Danny Heinrich of Paynesville was the one who abducted Wetterling but investigators failed to connect the dots at the time.
Also named in the lawsuit is Pam Jensen, a Stearns County investigator; and Ken McDonald, an agent with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Michael Padden, an attorney for Rassier, said the lawsuit will prove investigators lied to the judge in their application in seeking the warrant to search the Rassier property.
Heinrich was, in fact, the one who abducted and murdered the boy after sexually molesting him near Paynesville. In a startling development in September of last year, Heinrich, who’d been arrested for possessing child pornography at his home in Annandale, admitted to the crime against Wetterling and then showed authorities where he buried the boy’s body.
In 2010, authorities sought a search warrant and then searched the Rassier farm, where Dan Rassier lived with his parents. The investigators ordered the removal of tons of soil from the Rassier farm, which was sifted through later. No clues or evidence were found in the search or analysis of the dirt.
Rassier, a Cold Spring music teacher, had always insisted upon his innocence, even though authorities referred to him as “a person of interest” in the baffling case.
In an interview with the St. Joseph Newsleader in 2010, right after his farm was searched, Rassier said he had long endured veiled accusations and outright suspicions that he had something to do with the Wetterling case. He said he hoped the case would soon be solved for the sake of the Wetterling family and for his own sake so the cloud of suspicion over his head would finally end.
In September 2016, that is exactly what happened. Heinrich confessed his guilt, and the case was finally solved, 27 years after the shocking abduction.
Padden, the attorney, said Rassier had absolutely no qualms about being investigated right after the abduction because that was expected of law enforcement in the immediate wake of the crime, and Rassier at the time was hoping the law would quickly eliminate him as a possible suspect so they could concentrate on finding the person or persons who abducted the boy. It was years later, Padden said, when Rassier was being named publicly as “a person of interest” that Rassier found baseless and unjust.
Dan Rassier, Cold Spring music teacher, is suing the county and some law-enforcement officials for how they cast aspersions on him and his parents during attempts to solve the Jacob Wetterling case.
