Transcript of True Crime Vault: Missing From the Mall

ESPN Fantasy Football is now the official fantasy game of the NFL. The 2026 fantasy football season is going to be the best one yet with new app enhancements, including NFL highlights in the Fantasy app so you can track your team live every week. Get expert insights from our fantasy analysts and try our new Knockout Leagues where the lowest scoring team is eliminated each week until one team remains. Download the ESPN Fantasy app for free today and sign up to play the number one fantasy game.

Welcome to the True Crime Vault, home to 2020's most chilling stories. A young woman goes missing from a mall.

The surveillance tapes and the frantic search. 2020 starts right now.

The fear of women walking out to their car by themselves, it's a real feeling that everybody has felt.

Drew was working at Victoria's Secret.

She did a little Christmas shopping, headed to her car, and then went missing from the mall.

She was talking with her boyfriend. Her last words that he heard her say were, "OK, OK," and the phone went dead.

It's the last time anyone heard from Drew Shedin.

The family of missing college student Drew Shedin is still holding out hope that she will be found alive.

At the time of her disappearance, she was a 22-year-old UND college student.

Did you feel safe?

I felt safe. We were 17 to 22-year-olds. We were invincible.

And I found her car, and I just sat there.

You were holding vigil at her car?

I was sitting right there, yeah.

Do you believe this morning that she is still alive?

Well, we're certainly hoping so, Diane.

It's a mystery that would wait 20 years for a resolution.

In the parking lot of the mall was found a knife sheath.

Whoever lost that sheath may very well be involved in the abduction of that—

Girl, it was just a daunting feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing that something is desperately wrong.

This is such a large area to cover.

There were people who she may have had contact with that she wouldn't even recognize as a potential threat.

You have a serial predator on your hands.

Yep, yep.

For most people in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, heading up north means taking a trip to their weekend cabin. Few are lucky enough to call the Northwoods home year-round. But the Minnesota father who built this cabin with his own two hands is one of them. This is you and Drew. What year is this, do you know?

Uh, 2000. Just getting ready to go to college. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alan Shadine has called his daughter Drew Drewsy ever since she was little. She vanished just before Thanksgiving in 2003. That's one of her early works, right?

Yes, that one's real early. I think she was 7 or 8 years old when she drew that.

Amazing.

It's basically the view right outside the window.

Yep.

As a college student, Drew was majoring in graphic design, but it's clear she had been an artist long before that. Before she disappeared, Drew was a senior at the University of North Dakota and so excited to graduate. But the Gamma Phi Beta sorority sister would never get the chance.

Last time I saw her was right downtown Park Rapids watching a Vikings game.

That's a good memory.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And as I drove away, I had this really eerie feeling Do you remember the last thing you said to her? I'll be careful. I love you.

One month later and a few hours away in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is when and where Alan Shadine's 20-year nightmare would begin.

So the Columbia Mall is in the south end of Grand Forks. It's just a, uh, shopping mall. Shadow of what it was back in 2003. Several of the businesses inside have closed, and Victoria's Secret, where Drew was working, that closed several years ago. In 2003, during the Drew Shedin investigation, I was assigned to assist. At the time, my partner was Ori Seneschal.

Grand Forks was approximately 50,000 people at the time. It's right along the Red River, on the west side of the Red River, which putting it into North Dakota. The University of North Dakota was a big part of that town.

Just across the Red River is Minnesota and the city of East Grand Forks. But for people living on both sides, it feels like one big community.

People were nice, and everybody, I think, felt comfortable there, and there wasn't a lot of crime.

It's a place where people might think bad things don't happen here. But what happened to Drew Shedin changed everything.

On November 22nd, 2003, Drew was working at Victoria's Secret in Columbia Mall. I believe she was scheduled to get off work at 4:00 PM. After work, she went to Marshall Fields, which was also in the mall, so she could purchase a purse. They found video at Marshall Fields In the video, you can see Drew entering the store, exiting the store.

Drew was wearing black pants, a black pea coat, and she had a pink shirt on underneath the coat.

She was a 22-year-old UND college student. She was from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. She was described as one of those people that everybody liked. Bubbly personality, outgoing, very kind, very giving.

The purse she bought at Marshall Fields that afternoon was a gift for her mom.

It would have been dark, or getting to be dark, at 5:00. It was, you know, November 22nd, so approaching the, the winter months. She made a phone call to her boyfriend, Christopher Lang, and she was speaking with Christopher as she was walking to her car.

Drew had been talking on the phone from roughly 5:00 PM to 5:04 PM to her boyfriend, and that phone call was interrupted and she abruptly hung up. Prior to doing so, she said something along the lines of, okay, okay.

We've all been leaving work, talking on the phone, multitasking, doing this, doing that. And then all of a sudden, in, in the blink of an eye, you're in that situation. And, you know, things have changed forever.

I'm a journalist from Minnesota, and this was one of the first big cases I covered a few years out of college. Being close to Drew in age, it really impacted me. I think Drew's case touched people on a national level because She seemed just like everybody's daughter, everybody's friend, somebody that everybody could identify with. And it was tragic when she disappeared.

Chris initially thinks Drew's going to call back. When 6:00 rolls around and he hasn't heard from her, he gets worried. He starts calling her and leaving messages. He also calls her roommate and learns she hasn't been back to their apartment.

Later in the evening, Drew's boyfriend Chris did receive a phone call from Drew's phone. But at that time, there was no communication. All Chris was able to hear at that point was what sounded like the buttons being pushed. And that was approximately 7:42 PM.

Drew's boyfriend calls Drew's roommate, Meg Murphy, again and suggests she try calling the bar where Drew was supposed to work a shift later that night.

She was employed at El Rocco Bar. She was supposed to work, I believe, at 9:00 PM that night. And she did not show up for work. They didn't think she would have not shown up for work without calling somebody or letting somebody know.

Police department.

Hi.

I'm calling.

One of our—

actually, my roommate was supposed to be home like a couple hours ago. How old is she? 22.

November 22nd, 2003. I'd heard them dispatch one of our other officers to talk to a roommate of a gal that hadn't shown up. I said, well, I'll drive down to the mall and see if I can spot her car. We're in the northeast parking lot of the mall outside the Penney's building, and Drew's car was parked in this space. Red Olds Cutlass was parked in this parking spot. By 11 o'clock when I got here, the lot was pretty much empty and there wasn't anybody around, so it was easy to find. I went and looked in the car. It looked like a bomb had gone off in the back seat, but then a lot of kids had cars like that, so I did find the bag with the, with the purse that she bought at Marshall Fields. I locked it up. By the driver's side rear wheel was a black object. It looked out of place. The knife sheath was laying by the left rear tire on the driver's side. I picked it up, put it in my pocket. I have no idea how important that piece of evidence was going to turn out to be.

As the search for Drew continues, police soon asked Drew's boyfriend Chris more questions, including why he didn't call police right away.

It wasn't a scream. It wasn't, uh, it wasn't anything that would It was just a— it cut off.

He was in a relationship with her. We needed to verify his alibi. Oftentimes, the people close to the victim are responsible for their disappearance.

On the night of the disappearance, how did you get word?

I got a phone call. They— had found her car in the parking lot.

Were you alarmed? What was your initial reaction?

Oh, I was panicked. I jumped in my work truck and took off, and it was a snowstorm that night, and I had to follow behind a semi because it was snowing so crazy.

What did you feel in your gut?

I think you don't want to think the worst, you know? You're trying to be positive. First, I drove down to the police station There wasn't anybody around. I pounded on the doors, couldn't get in. So then I jumped in my car, my pickup, and I drove back to the shopping center. And I found her car, and I just sat there.

You sat with the car?

Sat with the car.

You were holding vigil at her car?

I was sitting right there, yeah. It was a god-awful terrible night.

I had received a phone call from my father, and my dad said, Drew's missing. It doesn't look good. I just remember going, you know, I don't understand what this all means. He goes, she's missing, Sven. We just don't know where she is, and we don't think that it's good. He shared the story of what happened while Kris was on the phone, walking out in the parking lot by herself. I had moved away. I was starting a family in California, and Drew was working on college. I didn't really know my sister's, you know, pattern in life at that time. I didn't know where she could be or what she might be doing. She loved her sorority and her sorority sisters up there.

It was my second year on campus at UND, and I thought joining a Sorority was the last thing on earth I would do. And meeting the sisterhood of Gamma Phi Beta, and especially Drew, all of a sudden I was enrolled as a Greek.

How did she draw you in?

Her big blue eyes, first off, was one driving factor. Her smile could light up a room.

What was Gamma Phi Beta like on campus?

If you've ever seen it, it is a pink council. It is high energy. That's what I remember. Everyone loved them a slice of Deke's pizza. You would all be centered around a large pizza and sharing laughter and life, really. I remember Rush Week walking down University Avenue, and I was like, "Ah, I don't know if this is for me." And she just told me, "Trust in your journey, and you only get one try at this life." So those— it will stay in my memory forever.

I was looking forward to having Auntie Druzy there to be a part of my son's life. We're 2 years apart. Around 1990, 1991, we moved up to Pequot Lakes, Minnesota.

It is recording.

No, no, no. I can't tell if it's recording or not.

I had already separated from Linda, mother of my children.

My parents divorced when I was 7, so Drew was 5. We lived with my mother and my stepfather, Sid Walker. We call him Sitter. He was an amazing man. We grew up on a very beautiful lake. It's a beautiful place.

Oh, you can't hear me.

First time we met, I was I was out on a jet ski that broke down. Drew and Sven happened to be driving by in a boat and essentially towed me home. Drew was energetic, she was compassionate, and the right amount of goofy mixed in there.

The opportunity to move to the lake was really good for for her and her brother.

There's Drewsy.

Hi!

Gave her a lot of freedom, gave her a work ethic because she started working young.

In high school, Drew spent summers waiting tables at the Manhattan Beach Lodge on Big Trout Lake. It's just a few minutes away from her home, a place where little has changed, where a photo of her in the newspaper is still displayed alongside an article touting the food and the resort.

My sister loved her high school years playing basketball and golf and was actually quite good at that.

She was very popular. She was homecoming queen.

Yes.

Do you remember that?

Absolutely.

What was that like?

Oh, it's fantastic. Um, she deserved it. She was, uh, one of those kids that everybody loved— coaches, teachers, townspeople, neighbors. Yeah, I just see her smile and her grace and her gentleness. Really gentle but tough.

Around the same time Drew's car and a knife sheath were discovered in the Columbia Mall parking lot, word that Drew was missing was already spreading around campus. She hadn't shown up at her on-campus apartment. How did you get word that she was missing?

Well, with the sisterhood, kind of the calling train came out. Has anyone heard from Drew? Big sisters would call little sisters and then just make sure that everyone at that time had not heard from Drew. We started making calls throughout where she could be or possibilities. It was just a daunting feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing that something is desperately wrong. Desperately wrong.

As for Chris Lang, the last person Drew spoke to on the night she disappeared, police wanted to know why he didn't call authorities immediately when their call got cut off.

She was telling me about the stuff she bought. I'm picturing her, like, driving out of the parking lot abruptly. It was— she said— she said— she said something like, okay, okay. Is how I remember it. And I know, and I know it struck me as a little odd. It wasn't a scream, it wasn't, uh, it wasn't anything that would— it was, it was just a—

it cut off.

I remember saying to her in a message that, that I left her, like, you know, did you get in a little bender bender? And then later on that night, Sib called me at like midnight or something, and he told me that that they had found her car in the parking lot.

Okay.

And that, and that to me was, was the moment I knew that she indeed, in my estimation, was taken.

Because Chris was 300 miles away moving into a new apartment in Minneapolis, police say he was never really a person of interest. So who was?

We're listening to any tidbit of information someone gives us.

We don't know her patterns. We don't know who she knows. And we're looking to those people who are close to her to find out that information. Meg had mentioned that she was familiar with a person by the name of Mike, who Drew had at some point some kind of a romantic relationship with. Drew met Mike through her work at El Rocco. I believe he was a patron who frequented there. Mike Hager was a mechanic. He lived in Grand Forks. He was kind of outside of Drew's normal circle of friends.

He's someone she and Drew's dad Alan were both concerned about. Why did you think the police should look at Mike Hager?

Well, just because of a couple of things that she'd said. He, you know, he just was kind of, uh, glammy and wanted more in the relationship than she was willing to give.

They at some point did have some kind of relationship. It seemed as though towards the end, they're kind of starting to annoy her and that she, you know, kind of wanted to cut ties with him. The morning of November 23rd at 6:00 AM, officers went to Mike Hager's residence and the person who answered the door said, Mike lives here. I'm his roommate, but I haven't seen him for a week. So they left it at that. He didn't realize that the person who answered the door actually was Mike Hager. He lied about who he was.

This guy has lied to police.

Yes.

That's not a good sign. Neither was what Steve Connolly spotted by the front door when he paid Mike Hager a visit.

I know it's a pair of female shoes.

Did you think maybe they were Drew's shoes?

Mysteries unravel and stunning truths are revealed when 20/20 Investigates.

Follow the clues, the evidence, the breaking new details.

ABC's 20/20 means true murder mystery. Shocking. If you follow true crime in 20/20, then you've got to listen to this. Subscribe now to 20/20 True Crime Plus. Ad-free, exclusive true crime content. Search 20/20 True Crime+ on Apple Podcasts and start your free trial. Terms apply.

As Luigi Mangione prepares to stand trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Bryan Thompson, which he denies, a new podcast series from ABC Audio and 20/20 goes inside this captivating case.

To many people, Luigi Mangione is a modern-day Robin Hood.

People were cheering the demise of this person they'd never met who was a father of two and a husband and had a life and was just doing a job.

From the manhunt ending in a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, to what authorities are saying about a possible motive, I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmire. Listen to Burden of Proof: Luigi Mangione wherever you get your podcasts.

Meg mentioned Mike's name right away when she reported Drew missing.

I talked to, uh, um, the roommate, and we might have a possible suspect.

I'm trying to get some information on it right now.

It seemed as though he was more interested in a relationship with Drew than she was.

When police had knocked on Mike Hager's door, they were told Mike wasn't there. But an officer was assigned to follow up later on.

I was a patrol officer at that time. My shift began at 7:30 in the morning. And I was then briefed on— —uh, the investigation that began overnight. I was advised that, um, that Drew had, um, gotten off work at Victoria's Secret, uh, did not make it to her evening job, had been on a phone conversation with her boyfriend at the time, and that appeared to have abruptly ended. Uh, they weren't able to make contact with her, and that her vehicle had been found at Columbia Mall. I was tasked with, uh, trying to make contact with Mike Hager. That reportedly had dated Drew, and my understanding was maybe had not wanted the dating to end.

And so you knock on the door? Yes. What happens?

Door is answered by a gentleman that I personally know to be Michael Hager.

And where did you know him from before?

We used to work in a restaurant in the Columbia Mall years prior. He was a cook and I was a manager.

When he opened the door, how was he dressed?

Just in a pair of sweatpants. Shirtless?

Yes. He was open, cordial, smile. He was very nice to me. I said, I understand that the officer stopped by earlier. And he said, well, I talked to the officer. And I said, well, my understanding was you weren't here.

This guy has lied to police. Yes. Does that raise alarm bells?

It did. Absolutely. I asked him about his whereabouts since the day before on Saturday. He provided me information as to him and a friend had come back to his apartment at 5. Numerous other people came over throughout the night. There was some heavy drinking.

Yes. And what did you notice by the door that made you think twice? I noticed a pair of female shoes. Did you think maybe they were Drew's shoes?

There was a possibility. I said, is there a female in the house? He said yes. And then a short time later, a female came from the bedroom out into the woodshed.

Room. Officer Connolly quickly realized it wasn't Drew Shedin.

There were several people on scene that could attest to his whereabouts. When I told him about Drew and she was missing, he understood the seriousness of it, and he was very cooperative.

But you're still not letting him off the hook.

At that point, it's still an active investigation.

Connolly realizes that Mike Hager has a misdemeanor arrest warrant for failure to pay some fines. And decides to bring him in for further questioning.

They were able to talk to him. He lied about who he was because he was upset that officers were at his house at 6:00 in the morning and, like, they were going to come raid the place. And so that's why he said he lied. He was eliminated.

Thanksgiving is approaching, and police are facing a monumental task. Outside Grand Forks' city limits, It's nothing but farm fields as far as the eye can see. Drew could be anywhere.

When Drew was reported missing, all of these fields were bare and the ground was frozen at the time. So just a very, very difficult scene than what we have today. Grand Forks is right on the border of North Dakota and Minnesota.

Because of that proximity, police wondered if Drew could be on the Minnesota side. And it wasn't long after she vanished that they discovered something else that would make them almost certain of it.

They were able to identify the general location of where the second phone call to Chris Lang had come from based on tower data.

The FBI initially got involved in Drew's investigation on Sunday around noon. She was taken on Saturday night. The Sprint phone records indicated that her phone was still on and pinging in the Crookston area, which is a town east of Grand Forks in Minnesota.

You learned that Drew's cell had pinged. Yes. Did that give you hope? Oh, it did.

It gave us hope that we could at least get to a point where, you know, we might find some evidence or get an understanding what— you know, potentially where she could be.

A search of Drew's apartment turned up no clues to her whereabouts. Police collected several items, though, including her sheets, her toothbrush, which could be used to get samples of her DNA, and a book, The Lovely Bones. It's a fictional story written from the point of view of a young woman who goes missing and is murdered. Police hoped Drew's disappearance wouldn't end the same way.

Her phone continued to be activated until about 6 o'clock that night, Sunday night.

It's obviously, if we can find Drew's phone, we have a better chance of finding Drew and a better chance of finding out who else she might have been talking to just before she disappeared. Is that the kind of thing that might lead investigators to think she had a stalker?

Potentially, sure.

Winter weather started coming in, and it started to snow a little bit. We were really trying aggressively to search and try to locate where her phone might be in hopes of finding Drew.

This early in the investigation, there's always in the back of your mind the potential that she's a college student who just hasn't been seen yet and will show up. We were able to get— a great video that showed what Drew was wearing. And we could see that she was bringing the cell phone to her ear right at 5 o'clock as she walked out of Marshall Fields.

The video footage of her in Marshall Fields really drew no red flags or concern. There was no indication of anyone following her or her being nervous or upset in any way.

Police knew how serious this was from the very start. The hangups on the phone, the knife she found in the parking lot by her car— neither were a good sign.

The young deputy, he informed me that they had found a sheath from a knife in— so not certain that he was supposed to tell me that, but he did.

That must have sent a chill down your spine. Yeah. Yes. I can't imagine the kind of adrenaline you were running on. Yeah.

What did that feel like? My work life always was high anxiety. We're going to put our shoulders back and we're going to be brave.

I previously served twice, actually, as the United States Attorney for North Dakota. I was getting hourly reports, it seemed, because I think we all had a sense that this could have very easily been a crime that would be implicated for federal investigation and prosecution.

The Federal Kidnapping Act states that if a victim is kidnapped and taken across state lines, the crime falls under federal, not state jurisdiction. It also allows for harsher sentences, including the death penalty if that kidnapping results in murder.

There were federal and state and local authorities involved on both sides of the state line with Minnesota. And there was an almost immediate urgency about the matter.

It's almost impossible to avoid working together with state and federal agents from both states when you are located like Grand Forks and Minnesota are.

We knew she wasn't with her vehicle. We didn't know what her status was, why her phone was active where it was. We didn't have any luck finding her phone initially, and obviously we didn't find Drew initially either.

Back in Grand Forks, Officer Conley is also back to square one. You were tasked to go to the mall? Yes.

When I got there, it was a Sunday, uh, early morning, so they would have barely opened. I just went to Victoria's Secret and JCPenney's.

I was the store director at Victoria's Secret, and that is how I first met Drew. It was a great atmosphere, fun. And everybody made it a great place to work. Drew was a sales associate. She was such a bright light. She was so awesome. She was such a happy, smiley, incredible lady.

I was able to gather that she had worked yesterday from about noon to 4:00 and gotten off of work, told one of the employees that she was going to go pick up something. She had also indicated to an employee that since she did not have to work at her other job till 9:00, she was going to go home after work.

It was right before Thanksgiving, and we always called it Pink Friday. So it was very busy. Drew worked a day shift, and she got done around 4:00.

5 PM, when we know Drew left the mall, was still early in the day during the busy holiday shopping season.

Starting to become winter, so it gets darker a little bit earlier. The fear of women walking out to their car by themselves, it's a real feeling that Everybody has felt not once, twice, but many times. Any lingerie store could occasionally attract a few creepy people, and the manager says the store took employees' safety seriously. Our security officers that would walk the mall were wonderful, and they would always say, you know, let us know, give us a call if you're feeling like you have a, you know, a weird vibe. From people. So we, we took advantage of that, but it didn't happen very often. They were questioning some of the, the managers. Was anybody, you know, bothering her or anything like that?

And in fact, investigators learned there was someone who'd been calling the store asking for Drew.

There was somebody who kept calling for her with a foreign accent was the only way it was described.

There had been a male and a female that repeatedly called the store asking for Drew, to the point where they were told, you can no longer call here. And they responded with, well, that's okay. We have her home phone number.

My memory of Monday was it was a very busy day.

Sunday had come and gone, as did any hope of finding Drew's cell phone, which stopped pinging.

I was wondering what we were going to uncover and am I ready to gain that knowledge of what really happened to Drew? Because as the minutes ticked on, that feeling in my gut just got bigger and and bigger.

You were full of dread. Mm-hmm.

Police decide to go public with their investigation, holding press conferences for local and national media. This was when most people learned that Drew Shedin was missing.

The family of missing college student Drew Shedin is still holding out hope that she will be found alive.

Drew's boyfriend, Chris Lang, believes passionately she is still alive.

She's somewhere safe and warm.

I believe it in my heart. You know, she's fine.

The mysterious phone calls Drew was getting at work were also raising concerns. Is that the kind of thing that might lead investigators to think she had a stalker? Potentially, sure. Figuring out if Drew had a stalker was crucial to the investigation, especially because a female employee of nearby Marshall Fields had recently reported to police that she was being allegedly harassed. Harassed by a man whom she said makes her uncomfortable, even ran after her once, and has been at the store 3 or 4 times in the past month. Police reports show he was ordered to stay out of Marshall Fields, but not out of Columbia Mall, where Drew was when she vanished.

His name was Ed Levine. He was continuing to visit a sales clerk at Marshall Fields. And paying a lot of attention to this person. It was unwanted attention. At one point, he'd even been warned that, you know, returning to that store could cause him to be arrested.

One of the first things they found out when they tracked him down was he was near the mall the day Drew disappeared.

He'd been in Grand Forks shopping and provided a list of places.

They asked for his receipts. He said he'd been home by 5 o'clock, but they needed to be sure. That's because 5:04 PM was when the call Drew was on with her boyfriend, Chris Lang, was cut off and she vanished.

Grand Forks police know they need more help looking for the phone and for Drew. And that's when yet another law enforcement agency gets involved.

In 2003, I was employed as a special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. This is in the early days of cell phone technology, and triangulating off of cell phone towers or directional usage from cell phone towers was really just getting started.

Winter had come, so we went from great search conditions to look for someone and look for evidence to some of the worst conditions that you could think of coming across the tundra.

In the air and on all-terrain vehicles, the volunteers came from everywhere, Canada to Kansas.

Drew was from an area where I had a second home. I knew Drew. I knew many of her friends. I knew I had to try and do something, try and help somehow.

20 years later, I still can't describe that experience. It's something that I never thought I would go through and It's something I certainly don't want to go through again.

They went through and asked about her relationships, if there was anyone that we would suspect or think or anything that she had done in the past week that was out of the ordinary, and if there was any other places that we think she would be. Did Drew have any enemies?

Not that I knew of. It's no secret that in disappearances like this one, sometimes police look at the partner first. But they'd already ruled out Chris Lang because he was proven to be 300 miles away in Minneapolis when Drew went missing. As for the guy Drew dated for 2 and a half years before Chris Lang, authorities felt he raised more suspicion.

Drew and Meg shared an apartment that was on campus. While we're working with Meg, she did mention one of Drew's ex-boyfriends, Adam. Adam Schultz.

He was mentioned early on as being a possible suspect in Drew's disappearance. Adam Schultz was also a UND student. He was an aerospace student. During the interview with Meg, she talked about Drew's relationship with Adam, and she did have some concerns there in how he was treating her and that the breakup didn't go well. So that was one of the things that led us on to Adam.

Meg told police that when Drew and Adam Schultz were both interning in Aspen, Colorado, he allegedly caught her cheating on him. According to police reports, Drew's roommate claimed that this upset Schultz to the point where Drew became scared of him because of some of his actions, and that apparently Drew had tried breaking up with Schultz several times.

But Schultz wouldn't take the hint. He was certainly cooperative.

He was— he was forthright with us. But it seemed like he was trying to help steer the investigation in certain aspects We're generally a little bit skeptical, you know, when we're talking to someone and they're trying to steer us in a certain direction.

Back when police had searched Drew's car, they found a lot of items in the back seat and in the trunk. It's the trunk where police found a card they seized with the name Adam on it, saying, Drew, I just wanted to write and tell you that I've had a great time spending time with you this weekend. This past week. I hope it continues. I look forward to seeing you this weekend. Love, Adam. But because there was no date, there was no way to tell when it was from and if it was from the weekend Drew vanished.

He was somebody that made some of Drew's friends uncomfortable. They thought that he maybe wasn't very nice to her.

Police reports don't include any details Adam provided authorities regarding the claims people made about his relationship and breakup with Drew. We reached out to Adam Schultz, but he declined to be interviewed. She would never do anything to anyone.

In a news clip recorded by the station I worked for at the time, Adam appears genuinely concerned when speaking about Drew. But police had concerns of their own. Never asked for trouble.

I never was looking for it, so I don't understand how this situation could happen.

We asked him, you know, what his activities were and You know, he had talked about getting gas in his vehicle and also that he had flights. He was a flight student and that he was out flying and that sort of thing. The flight information, that was pretty easy to verify. Him getting gas that day was not easy to establish.

He thought he got gas and that he would have a gas receipt to prove that he was getting gas around that time. So he was able to find the receipt. And then it turned out that the receipt was from 2 days prior.

As detectives were working the leads on Adam, dozens of people at all levels of law enforcement were working 24/7 to figure out what happened to Drew.

Our searchers were finding pretty much anything that could potentially be evidence. You know, we had cigarette packs and multiple clothing items, uh, you know, bras and underwear and just Really anything that anyone thought potentially could be involved.

None of it would end up being connected to Drew. But what they found under a bridge in Crookston that Tuesday was—

we were able to establish that with certainty that was Drew Shedin's shoe.

It wouldn't be long before police had more than one person on their radar. You have a serial sexual predator on your hands. Yep. And a piece of video turns up that police say shows that Drew may not have been her kidnapper's first target.

He did appear to be watching women as they were exiting the store. So his violence is escalating.

Yes.

We've all been leaving work, talking on the phone. All of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, things have changed forever.

On November 22nd, 2003, college student Drew Shedin vanished from the mall.

She was the girl next door to everyone.

Did Drew have any enemies? Not that I knew of, no.

One of her shoes was found and there was, there was an opening in the water.

Where can we find her? Who can we talk to? Who's responsible for this? There was this sheath.

That was found. They showed us the knife that was associated with the sheath. I had just seen that exact knife. I said, we got to go right back out to talk to him.

He was excellent at stalking people. This was his pattern.

So his violence is escalating. Yes. And you have a serial sexual predator on your hands.

Yep. Yep. How heartbreaking is that? To think about she's alive and she's crying and she doesn't know what's gonna happen to her.

Now it gets to be a lot uglier, you know? There has to be a good outcome to this.

Tuesday, November 25th, 4 days into their investigation, detectives are moving on all fronts to find out exactly what happened to missing University of North Dakota student Drew Shedin.

Thanksgiving was around the corner, and I remember Christmas lights had sprung up, but the mood was somber and surreal.

In 2003, the holidays for Drew's family had been a lot like they are for most families. What was Thanksgiving like?

You know, a lot of food. Typical Thanksgiving. Eat a lot, you know, go to a movie. The last movie Drew and I went to was Titanic. That was a Thanksgiving movie. Between us, we were both trying to hide the tears.

You can tell Drew and her dad had a special bond. Drew and her friends did, too. I get the sense that everybody loved Drew. Yes. Yeah. And so I wonder, you said you felt safe. Mm-hmm.

Did that change? That was ripped away from us.

Absolutely. Police were working day and night to piece together leads in the case. There's the knife sheath from the parking lot. Questions about various people she may have come in contact with, the possibility she had a stalker at her Victoria's Secret job. Now, one of her Nine West shoes found near a highway bridge in Crookston, the last place her cell phone was pinging.

From the Columbia Mall to the area where the shoe was located is approximately 25 miles.

It was Drew's roommate Meg who identified the shoe.

She said, 100%, I know this is Drew's shoe. She said that she wears the shoe as often, as much, or if not more than Drew did.

The shoe was found under the bridge on the Highway 75 bypass going into Crookston, which goes over the Red Lake River.

Actually, how it exactly got there, we don't know.

I saw the location where the shoe was found. Based on where it was, it looked like somebody could have just pulled over to the side of the road and dropped it. But that's just one possibility. Drew also could have lost her shoe while making an escape.

No one knew. So it was emotional, and it was a big step in the case.

Law enforcement was out there with dive teams and cadaver dogs. And I have to say, there were hours that we all spent assuming we were about to find her body under the icy waters of that river. And that, of course, did not pan out over the days ahead.

There were other things that weren't panning out for investigators either. Remember Ed Levine, the man who was banned from Marshall Fields by police after a woman reported he was allegedly harassing her? Detectives had wondered if he was involved.

This was happening roughly 2 or 3 months before Drew was reported missing. So, you know, certainly a situation like that we look into.

While his receipts showed he had been near the mall that day, a search of his house and car revealed nothing suspicious, and they ruled him out. Labino was not involved.

We're pretty clearly able to prove that he was not involved.

As for the idea that Drew had a stalker calling her at Victoria's Secret, that fizzled out too.

There was somebody who kept calling for her with a foreign accent. It was determined that it was debt collectors that were probably calling regarding an outstanding cell phone bill.

Even though those leads didn't pan out, Drew's family and the entire community believed the right lead was right around the corner.

Pink was one of her favorite colors. One thing how our community could keep Drew alive is those pink buttons, and everyone was wearing them.

Our sorority house was a hub for if you wanted to pick a button or if you wanted to grab a ribbon. We felt like if anyone saw pink, it would spark some type of thought or hopefully some type of clue into Drew and where she was.

So many people we talked to about the story said that hope became synonymous with this case. Yes. Why do you think that is?

I think that anybody that looked at her beautiful smile and her presence said, OK, there's hope.

I just wasn't going to stray from she's out there. We just have to find her. I just couldn't. I wouldn't let myself do it.

3 days into Drew's disappearance, disappearance, police decide to look into another pool of potential suspects.

Polk County detectives and Crookston City Police and probation officers began to look at local sex offenders in the area.

Please identify two individuals that were living in the area of where the phone was when it made that second call to Chris Lang.

The first has an alibi. Someone to vouch for him, and police rule him out. But authorities had to dig deeper for another offender on the list, Roger van Huvelen.

He pretty quickly asserted that he was at home and alone. And that wasn't all.

When police approach van Huvelen, he says something chilling, something like, "I was expecting you." Sophistication.

Class. Restraint. Dignity. None of these words have anything to do with Super Troopers 3. 1, 2, 3, go! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Barbara in the house! Hope you guys aren't too drunk already! Now in theaters. No new info on the guy who did it.

Oh, so it couldn't have been a woman?

Sexist! You ever see Ocean's 8?

Enough! Super Troopers 3. Miau. Only in theater. Rated R. Under 17 not admitted without parent.

The Hulu original series Furious, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

There are 3 victims we know of.

The suspect is female, white, late 20s. Female serial killers kill for power, control. I believe there's a deeper motivation here.

You have no idea who you're dealing with, and you are going to end up dead.

I've been waiting for you.

Watch the Hulu original series Furious, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers.

Terms apply. Investigators started looking at sex offenders early on. They interviewed one named Roger Van Huelen.

He said he had no personal knowledge of Drew's abduction. All he knew was was what he'd heard about when he was at church. But investigators weren't so quick to write him off. He says something chilling, something like, I was expecting you.

I wouldn't be surprised at that because everybody on the registry knows that when something like this happens, if he had heard about an abduction, he's going to think, oh, they're going to come.

And start questioning me. When you're an investigator and, you know, you're trying to sort through information, that is something that would stand out as, you know, being unusual for sure. I looked into his background.

And after graduating from high school in Iowa and serving in the Air Force for 20 years, he settled on the outskirts of East Grand Forks.

In the mid-1990s, Van Heuvelen was convicted of 2 counts of criminal sexual conduct with a girl he met at the park and molested at his home. While the type of attack was different than what police believed happened to Drew Shedin, he had to be eliminated as someone who could have been involved.

You know, it's just as important to prove someone did not commit a crime as it is to prove who did commit the crime. And we made sure that all leads, you know, were followed to that natural end.

That would take time. And there were still other leads to keep chasing, too. Another lead police say still couldn't be resolved was whether Drew's ex-boyfriend, Adam Schultz, may have been involved. They say he couldn't prove that he was getting gas at the time he says he was.

We weren't able to corroborate his story with anybody else. However, he had consented to searching his house.

That search wouldn't take place until Friday the 28th, the day after Thanksgiving. And police had gotten a tip about yet another sex offender they should check, a man by the name of Alfonso Rodriguez, a man who a tip caller said he saw shopping in Grand Forks the day Drew vanished.

The 26th was the day that Alfonso Rodriguez came into the picture. He was identified as a sex offender who was living in Crookston. And he had served 23 years in prison for previous offenses.

As part of this 2020 report, I interviewed Special Agent Dan Alquist with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He was the first to interview Rodriguez about Drew's disappearance. What information did you have about his prior offenses.

We didn't have a lot of information. His prior offenses were from 1974 and 1980, prior to computers.

Shirley Iverson, Rodriguez's first known victim, knew exactly what he did and what he was capable of. This story takes a trip back in time to 1974, when a different college student life was about to change forever.

I was home from Concordia College on a break. I had just turned 18, and we were gathering at a pretty common spot for high school kids and college kids to gather, which was the Viking Bar. I went to my car to drive home. As I got to my car, there was a rap on the window, and it was a man asking for a ride home. It was someone whose brother was a classmate, and this was his older brother, Alfonso. You know, a ride home about 7 blocks would be no big deal, so I gave him a ride home. Unbeknownst to me, they had moved, and so we were actually at an abandoned home, and he sexually assaulted me. The terror is just profound as you're being strangled in the car, because obviously I was saying no, being held against your will, and then to be, you know, sexually assaulted Combines the two worst fears that you have. I drive home, and to this day, one of the hardest things was climbing that flight of stairs to awaken my mother and to tell her what happened.

Two days after Shirley's assault, Alfonso Rodriguez is charged with four sex offenses related to the attack.

He was released on his own recognizance. They did not see him as a flight risk, and so he was allowed to go home.

Before he could appear in court on the charges in Shirley's case, he attacked again.

A month later, I find out that a classmate had been raped. She had been kidnapped as she came out of our local theater. Alfonso abducted abducted her and took her out to a rural road and raped her.

In the second case, Rodriguez is charged with 3 felonies—rape, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon, a 6-inch kitchen knife he'd used to threaten his victim. On New Year's Eve of 1974, he pleads guilty to the rape charge and gets a sentence of up to 15 years, which is stayed, meaning he won't serve prison time unless he violates terms set by the judge. That same day, he also pleads guilty to one of the charges in Shirley's case, attempted aggravated rape. And the judge sends him to a Minnesota security hospital for sex offender treatment. But his time there appears to do little to curb his violent tendencies.

In the spring of 1980, One of our school teachers had decided to go for a walk. Alfonso Rodriguez was on a leave to visit his family from the state hospital. He pulls over. He asks for some directions.

He was armed with a knife and he attempted to get her into the car. She fought him off. And he stabbed her in the arm and in the abdomen. And she was able to get away.

So his violence is escalating. Yes. And you have a serial sexual predator on your hands.

Yep. Yep.

In stabbing her and attempting to kidnap his third victim, he receives 20 years in prison. He's also violated his probation. With his new felony conviction triggering the original prison sentence of up to 15 years. So how much total prison time did he serve for these attacks?

23 years. He got out May 1st of, uh, 2003.

Rodriguez has served his full sentence, and when he was released, he wasn't on probation. He was a free man.

The only thing we were able to do is contact law enforcement, tell them that he is getting out of prison, make sure the public knows about his history and that he has come back to live in Crookston again.

What happened in the fall of 2003 is that Drew Shedin is abducted in Grand Forks, North Dakota. And immediately the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

For people not familiar with Minnesota, Crookston and Grand Forks, where Drew disappeared, are close together. It's just a 30-minute drive. I did call.

I did talk about where he lived. I was pretty clear this would fit his MO.

A lot would hinge on whether Alfonso Rodriguez had an alibi.

No, I wasn't involved when these girls were abducted.

We learned that Alfonso Rodriguez was working at a construction site. His eyes met my eyes, and he immediately reached for his tool belt, unclasped it, dropped it on the floor, and walked towards me. I asked him if he would be willing to come out to our car and visit for a while, and he said he would. I was with a fellow BCA agent, Brad Barker.

We're working on the disappearance of this gal, and everybody's a suspect until we can rule them out, you know? What were you doing on Saturday? Well, I went to get a pull-up, and I was at—

He was shopping for some jeans. He said he'd gone to Target and a few various stores, went to the mall, and he said he went to a movie.

What time did the movie start? What time did you leave the movie theater?

Oh, 7:30.

What was the name of the movie again? It was Once Upon a Time in Grand Forks.

I hopped out of the car and called my boss who was at the command post, and I asked if he could just quickly get on the phone or the computer and try to determine where are all the movie theaters in Grand Forks and what was showing on Saturday. I got a message back that That particular movie, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, wasn't playing anywhere in Grand Forks on Saturday, November 22nd, 2003. I didn't let him know that we knew that just then. Confessions are great, but lies put people in prison.

Rodriguez agrees to let them search his car.

Car. The first thing that struck me is, is the car appeared to be kind of immaculate, and the trunk was kind of the same. There was a fishing rod and a pair of rubber gloves, and there was a folding lock blade knife. These are ubiquitous in, you know, northern Minnesota. I mean, Nobody's got one. We looked in the glove box in the interior of the car, and there was a small folding knife, like a pocket knife, that had two blades. And one of the blades was broken, gone. I asked if, you know, if he would be all right if we took that as evidence, and he was fine with that.

Investigators also want to know what Alfonso Rodriguez did after he said he saw that movie.

On the way back, Alfonso had told us he left the area of the movie theater and the Columbia Mall area, and then he drove to the McDonald's restaurant. We were going to drive right by that McDonald's on the way to the police department. So we whipped in there and we asked about any surveillance footage, and we turned that in when we got to the command post for viewing and for review.

At the same time Dan Alquist was interviewing Alfonso Rodriguez, other investigators had already been assigned to look into the mysterious sheath found near Drew's car the night she disappeared.

Investigators from the task force had gone out to Menards and determined that the sheath that was found near Drew's car was part of a set that's sold exclusively at Menards. And that sheath goes with a folding knife.

They showed us the knife that was associated with the sheath, and you could have knocked me over with a feather because I had just seen that exact knife in Alfonso's trunk. And I looked at the commander and I said, we got to get right back out to talk to him.

Before attempting to seize the knife, investigators wanted to confirm Alfonso Rodriguez with inconsistencies in his story and dig deeper into his whereabouts.

He agreed to come to the police department, talk to us.

Get to the theater initially, I think he said it was about 4:45 or 4:40. Um, a movie's about 2 hours long. You're out of there 6:40 and you're driving away. Did you go anywhere after the movie?

In that McDonald's surveillance footage they'd gotten, he never appears. Where he does turn up is in footage pulled from Target in a chilling clip that haunts investigators to this day. He's following a woman, and it's not Drew.

It did appear that he was looking for a victim.

While much of Drew Shedin's investigation was focused on Alfonso Rodriguez, who lived in Crookston, Police in Grand Forks were still in charge because that's the city where Drew vanished from the mall and where Target surveillance footage surfaced, placing Rodriguez in the area just an hour before Drew's disappearance.

I did have an opportunity to see the video from the Target store. He did appear to be watching women as they were exiting the store, and it was quite chilling to, to see him hunting like He spent a few minutes, uh, sitting on a bench in the vestibule area at the entrance-exit of Target.

The blonde woman leaves the store and walks into the parking lot, and shortly after, Rodriguez follows her. Um, throughout the investigation, she was referred to as probably the luckiest woman in Grand Forks that day.

Just an hour after this crime, clip was recorded, Drew Shedin vanishes from the mall.

A number of years ago, they convicted you of, of, uh, assault and crime, uh, stabbing and whatnot. Now a girl is abducted and taken from the store there, from the mall property. And you're right in that area. Tell us that you went to the movie theater, but that doesn't really pan out. We're having trouble finding you on the McDonald's videotape. If you were me, put yourself in my shoes, what would you think? Me suspicious. No, I wasn't at the mall.

One of those girls have done it. I said, well, I'll tell you what, Alfonso. All we really want is that knife in the trunk. Would you at least let us look at that knife? And he said, oh, yeah, no problem. And I'll let you look at the knife. And so we went out there, opened the trunk, got the knife, and it was the exact same knife as I had just seen. I was suspicious that it was, but now I'm looking at it, and it looks just like the same knife that was at the command post.

As search warrants for Rodriguez's house and car are drafted to be served early Thanksgiving morning, the search for Drew continues.

What is the reality of each morning like, Sven?

You know, just that the next day to count down to having her back with us.

This is something you can't control. I can control most of my world. I can control myself in my world, but I couldn't control this.

Allen and I were together on a daily basis and became really inseparable. He would sometimes go off on his own, maybe after we were done. He would probably go out there and have conversations with Drew. It was very difficult to be out there in these conditions and, and just not knowing what you're going to come across.

If Alfonso Rodriguez knew where Drew was, he wasn't talking, even when investigators tried appealing to him again.

It's not too late to change back and tell us what happened, because if you are involved, if you did have a conversation with this girl and something went wrong— I never met her.

OK. That interview ends with Rodriguez asking for a lawyer. And Dan Alquist telling him he is not going free.

I didn't want him to destruct evidence, and I didn't want him to go anywhere where he could, you know, potentially hurt a live victim.

In less than a week, she has gone from a complete stranger to a member of countless families. We all now know Drew Shedin. Where she goes to school, her sorority, where she works, what kind of car she drives, and how police believe she was abducted.

This Thanksgiving, Alan had a message for all the searchers who had set their plans aside to search for his daughter.

We need everyone to go and look and check, check your buildings, and if you've seen anything, come forward.

There would be no holiday for investigators who spent Thanksgiving Day serving a search warrant at Alfonso Rodriguez's house.

He had a corner of the, of the downstairs he kept very neat. It kind of looked like a, uh, someone who had been in prison for over 20 years. It looked like he had recreated that within the home.

There was nothing initially that really struck us as a deep connection to Drew's disappearance. There were some items that were seized, a pair of jeans that he said he was wearing, but there was nothing that really stood out like, oh, this is a smoking gun sort of a thing.

Police had spent days searching for any sign of Drew. They even purchased clothing similar to hers and showed it to investigators at the daily briefings so they could be on the lookout. They showed it to the media too. And I remember it vividly. Pink shirt, black pants, black shoes, black peacoat.

Imagine their surprise when a black peacoat and other items turn up in a different search at someone else's house, the home of Drew's ex-boyfriend, Adam Schultz.

FX presents The Shards. Los Angeles, 1981. We're going to roll the school.

Don't we already? It was supposed to be the best year of their lives.

I would stab someone for a drink right now.

Until their friends started going missing.

There's something going on.

From executive producer Ryan Murphy and based on the best-selling thriller by Bret Easton Ellis. Sounds terrifying. FX's The Shards, now streaming on Hulu.

Stassi is back. Most people know me from Vanderpump Rules.

But I'm a mom, a wife, a podcaster.

I'm traumatized by reality TV.

Me, but I can't stay away from it.

It's like if they're not on your payroll, they don't get to be in your life.

Wow. Reality has never been this real. Not everyone is built for this.

I'm not here to ice anyone out. But when you said that— Don't cut me off.

This time I get to do it on my terms. I showed up for you.

What could go wrong? Uh. House of Stassi, Wednesdays at 10 on Freeform and now streaming on Hulu.

Right around Thanksgiving, Alfonso Rodriguez was, you know, certainly developing as a suspect. But that didn't mean we stopped investigating the other names that were coming forward. We started following up on Adam Schultz.

Adam and Drew had dated for 2 and a half years.

He was mentioned early on as well as being a possible suspect in Drew's disappearance.

The flight information, that was pretty easy to verify. Him getting gassed that day was not easy to establish.

He gave a consent to search his vehicle, his residence. He voluntarily gave his DNA so that we could have that on record. And he was cooperative with the investigation. However, he was somebody that made some of Drew's friends uncomfortable.

The search for Adam's home yielded some curious items— a knife, Women's underwear, brass knuckles, a list of weaknesses including jealousy and vengefulness, and a black peacoat, the type of coat Drew Shedin was last seen wearing. Intriguing finds, but in the end, nothing was connected to Drew's disappearance.

He was not involved. At the same time that he was on one phone call. Drew was on phone call with her current boyfriend. So, you know, the, the cell locations were verified. We were able to ultimately eliminate him as potentially being involved.

Police determined Adam Schultz had nothing to do with Drew's disappearance, and on Friday, they found what they needed to help prove who did.

In my interview with Dan Alquist, he told me Rodriguez's Mercury Sable looked pretty clean when investigators first saw it, but now the forensic team was going in for a closer look.

And I'll never forget it. The scientist got in the car and he was looking around, and he was looking at this light-colored interior, and he said, oh wow. He pointed with his finger at a tiny little speck, and once you saw that One tiny little speck. Then it was a whole bunch of tiny little specks. Then we looked at the right rear passenger's window, and there's some of these tiny little specks on the glass. The blood that was present in those tiny little specks was found to be Drew Shedin's blood.

For investigators, this is the smoking gun they've been waiting for. Rodriguez becomes the focus of the investigation, and Van Huelen and the other people they'd questioned in the early days of the case are ruled out.

I believe that she may have been hit in the face or something that caused bleeding, and I think she was probably crying very hard.

How heartbreaking is that to think about? You know, if she's alive and she's crying and she doesn't know what's going to happen to her.

I'm sorry about that.

Even asking the questions is always— it's tough.

I've got a good answer for that. I just want to try to get it out. Sure. It's absolutely tragic. All I can hope is that it didn't last very long.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. appeared stoic, his head down, as the charges against him were read aloud in court. To it that Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.

did abduct Drew Jardine from the JCPenney store parking lot.

With Drew Jardine's father sitting quietly a few feet behind him, Rodriguez offered few words during the 10-minute hearing.

What were your thoughts?

Oh, just that, you know, I mean, devastation, you know. You know, his history was such that, uh, you know, Every attack was getting more brutal, and, you know, where does it go from there, right?

Rodriguez was charged with kidnapping at the state level, though the case would later become federal if they could prove Drew was taken over state lines.

All I care about is if that's going to lead us to where she is.

And right now we've got you, and we've got a good person sitting in this chair, a good person that I know can do the right thing.

I know pizza totally isn't a good thing. But I'm hungry. I have a little word.

Thank you. The community's all poured out to try to find that girl's body. It was a quest for answers. And then it became a quest for justice.

There would be no Christmas miracle for Drew's family. In fact, spring would arrive. And have to thaw those frozen fields before there would be another big break in the case.

In April 2004, on the 17th, there was a retired sheriff's deputy that was out searching. I was in California, and my partner Ori had called, and I still remember her words. Bill, they found Drew. She was generally covered by this brush. You could see her peacoat pretty clearly. They found, uh, her shoe. Her cell phone was in this area, and, and, uh, several other pieces of clothing.

Her clothes alone tell the story of her death.

Unfortunately, Drew was, you know, naked from the waist down, and her hands were bound behind her back.

Remnants of a plastic bag suggest she may have been asphyxiated. Tell me about that horrible day.

When they found her body, it was an absolutely horrible day, but it was a day of relief because at that point we, you know, knew that Drusille was no longer with us. I unknowingly parked there a number of times down in the bottom end of that ravine.

But it was all covered with snow. Yeah.

God of grace, we thank you for Drew, for the many ways her all-too-brief life has touched and enriched so many lives.

At the funeral, I had a moment of realization that this, this was not just Gamma Phi Beta. This was not just UND. This was not just North Dakota. This was our nation that was affected by what happened to Drew Shedin. And up there watching her mom let go of that white dove was something I will never forget.

Drew Wrigley and I believed that, that this was an appropriate death penalty case., and we submitted our recommendation to the Attorney General. It was a kidnapping, number one, and it was across state lines. It also involved an individual with a long criminal history involving sexual assault of women. The Deputy Attorney General made the decision to have the case be prosecuted in North Dakota.

There hasn't been a death penalty of any kind for over 100 years in our state. It's not part of our culture. We did everything that we could to make sure we got the best information possible in front of that jury. Sometimes, uh, sometimes it doesn't go the way you hope. And when I walked into that courtroom, I knew.

In North North Dakota a guilty verdict for the man charged with the killing of college student Drew Choudin. There are some stories that just stick with you. I remember reading the story for GMA in August of 2006, on the day a jury found Alfonso Rodriguez guilty of kidnapping and killing Drew Choudin. A month later, they came back with their death penalty verdict.

A federal jury in North Dakota has handed down the first death sentence in that state in almost a century.

I know it wasn't easy a decision for the jurors, I'm sure. But Drew's voice was heard today.

I did wish that there was more that we could do because it couldn't bring Drew Shedin back. But we obtained justice on that day. 12 people. 12 people in a region of the country that doesn't exactly embrace the death penalty.

Alfonso Rodriguez would spend the next 15 years on death row. But just 2 years ago, in 2021, the same judge who presided over the trial stuns the Shedin family. Though Rodriguez's guilt was never in question, the judge overturns his original sentence, citing a handful of things, including issues with the medical examiner's testimony and a failure by Rodriguez's defense team to pursue an insanity defense. A new sentencing hearing was ordered just recently. In 2023. But before the hearing could take place, Attorney General Merrick Garland halted executions of all federal inmates.

Right now, he's serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, and that's because the Department of Justice withdrew its motion for the death penalty.

While I understand there could be some Maybe many will say that still sounds like justice, that still sounds pretty good. I will, uh, I'll leave public life when I start determining something that I don't believe to be justice is pretty good.

I'm strongly opposed and disappointed, uh, that they would do something something like that, open up the wounds and that, you know, my mother, my father, myself went through this because the ones that suffer in death are the living, not the dead. They're gone.

Oh, I'm wearing the pink tie because pink was Drew's favorite color. All my memories of Drew are ones that I will cherish forever and, God willing, never forget. This is one of her pieces of art?

Yes.

She drew that as a young lady. I always thought that there was probably a premonition because it's an angel. It has an awful lot of her in the picture, sadly.

It's almost as if she drew herself in heaven. Exactly. Complete with angel wings.

Angel wings, yes. She deserved something more than just a granite gravestone.

It's the Tree of Life. Tree of Life.

That is her gravestone, that tree. That was the last project that she worked on at the University of North Dakota.

I'm sure you talk to her a lot. Yeah. What do you say to Drusey?

Oh, you know, she said— talks to me. She tells me more than I tell her because she knows I'm more wayward than anybody else around.

So Alan Shadine can also hear his daughter in voicemails that he saved from 20 years ago.

Hi, Daddy, it's me. I know that you're in Mexico, but I just want to call and tell you Happy Valentine's Day. I love you. Hope you're having fun. Talk to you later. Bye.

She had a huge heart. She had a beautiful smile, and she's just a fantastic young lady that went away way too soon.

One way she will always be remembered is by the creation of what's being called now Drew's Law, which is legislation that's created a more interconnected national database.

The public can use it to track level 3 sex offenders, which we know is so vital. That's our program for tonight. I'm Deborah Roberts.

And I'm David Muir. From all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night.

Thanks for listening to the 20/20 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9 on ABC for all-new broadcast episodes. See you then.

There's a headline every 30 minutes for our show, I'm pretty sure.

Welcome to Get Real. I'm your host, Amanda Hirsch. This is the show for the reality TV obsessed. You thought the show was crazy.

Living it was crazier.

I was dripping sweat before I even started.

For the stars and fans of the Hulu reality verse. Do we think she's stirring the pot to secure a place on the show? Find and listen to Get Get Real wherever you get your podcasts and stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Terms apply.