Now that Jacob Wetterling has been found (in the saddest outcome imaginable) we must now wonder: Where is Joshua Guimond? Where is Jodi Huisentruit? And where are all the other missing children and adults?
Jodi Huisentruit – there is a photo of her that nags at me, haunts me, and I can’t get it out of my mind. The photo shows news anchor Huisentruit presenting a newscast from KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa. Behind her, on the news-backdrop screen, is a photo of Jacob Wetterling who would have been 15 years old on the day of the newscast. Huisentruit was reporting about how the case of the missing boy from Minnesota remained unsolved.
Why that photo bothers me is its grim irony. Two years later, Huisentruit herself would go missing and, like the Wetterling case, her abduction would baffle investigators far and wide. She is still missing after 21 years.
Another reason the photo haunts me is because I knew Jodi many years ago when she worked as a news anchor for KSAX-TV in Alexandria. My newspaper employer at that time, in the mid-1980s, had built a low-power-broadcast TV studio addition to the newspaper building as a TV news adjunct for our paper. A few years later, he sold the studio to KSTP-TV of the Twin Cities as a branch station for the Alexandria area. Huisentruit was the star news anchor for about a year. Working in such close proximity, we newspaper reporters saw her daily, often shooting the breeze with her on breaks during our busy news days. She was also a member of our Alexandria Media Club.
Jodi was a petite woman in her early 20s, 5 feet 3 inches, blonde, soft warm brown eyes that sparkled with glints of light when she smiled or laughed. She was one of those personality-plus types with a spritely charm. A native of Long Prairie, she was kind and caring, had a breezy sense of humor and a quick wit. She was a goal-setting go-getter with lots of energy, not surprising as she loved outdoor activities. She was a championship golfer.
We reporters were disappointed when Jodi announced she’d be leaving KSAX-TV for another job.
A couple years later, when we in Alexandria heard the news, we were devastated that something so unthinkable could happen to lively, likable, talented Jodi, who had such a rewarding lifetime ahead of her. Her abduction came to haunt all of us for a long time. It still does.
On the morning of June 27, 1995, Huisentruit, 27 at the time, did not show up for work on the Mason City TV station. At about 4:30 a.m., while getting into her car, she was grabbed and put up a struggle. Several items, including her purse and a pair of red high-heeled shoes, were found in the parking lot of her apartment building. The car key was found, bent, in the lock of her driver’s-side door.
We who knew her were horrified, dreading even to imagine the panic and terrors kind-and-caring Jodi must have suffered. Jodi’s father died in 1982. Her mother, sadly, passed on in 2014, after years of unbearable anguish, never knowing what had happened to her daughter.
That same never-ending anguish gnaws at the parents of Joshua Guimond, the 20-year-old St. John’s University College student who disappeared 14 years ago on or near the SJU campus.
Joshua, of Maple Lake, is the only child of divorced parents Brian Guimond and Lisa Cheney. On the night of Nov. 10, 2002, he was walking home to his dormitory from a party, a three-minute walk. Next day, a massive search began. The lakes on and near campus were searched thoroughly. Not a trace.
Guimond’s goal was to attend Yale Law School and then eventually seek a chance to serve in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
I interviewed Joshua’s father twice about his son’s vanishing. Understandably, Brian is not only devastated but also angry about Joshua’s disappearance. He is angry because he feels the case was never investigated thoroughly or that perhaps there were vital clues that were not followed up on, or – worse – he suspects maybe there was a sinister cover-up of some sort.
Let us hope the Guimond and Huisentruit cases are solved at long last. Not knowing is the worst torture. Closures to those cases – to all missing-people cases – could not come soon enough for the ever-anguished loved ones.
On what would have been Jacob Wetterling’s 15th birthday, TV news anchor Jodi Huistentruit gave a report about the missing boy. Two years later, Huistentruit herself was abducted and never found.
