Transcript of Where Are You Jacob?

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That evening, the weather was perfect. It was one of those nights where the moon wasn't out and there's no stars. So we left probably close to around 8:30. I was actually on the scooter and then they were on their bikes. We weren't in a big hurry, we were just kind of cruising down the road. You couldn't see anything unless it was in our little circle of light from our little flashlights. A man came out from the left-hand side. There's a little gravel driveway that leads back to a farm, and it's one of those, like, kind of ingrained where it comes out and he says, "Stop and turn off your flashlights, and I have a gun." He told us to look at him and asked us how old we were. And so at the time, Trevor was 10, and myself and Jacob were both 11. I still remember my first reaction was, I think I let out a laugh almost because I thought this must be a joke. Then it became real. Somebody took Jacob.

Growing up in St. Joseph, Minnesota was like growing up in classic small-town America. Nobody locked their doors at night. Kids were able to run and play.

St. Joseph, Minnesota is known as St. Joe. You have a lot of the lakes. That people enjoy.

It's a rural community, so there's lots of farmers and farm businesses in the area.

Jerry was a chiropractor. He liked the feel of the small town, especially when you're building a practice.

What was life like for you at that time when you think back to the '80s?

It was, uh, kind of nuts. Kids, uh, were in different sports, dance. It was just a really wild time.

You can see—

you can see 4 kids, it was pretty busy.

Yeah, it looks like it.

But they were fun.

Look at those, like, stair steps too with their ages.

Yeah.

In 1989, Amy was 13, Jacob was 11, Trevor was 10, and Carmen was 8 years old. We bought this house in the woods. It just felt very peaceful here.

I grew up right next door to the Wetterlings.

Yeah!

Jacob!

All of the siblings in the Wetterling family had a very close relationship.

I was a stay-at-home mom. We just played. It was fun. Trevor, you gotta get down low so it'll—

Okay, wait, we gotta go down.

I think the favorite video is when Jacob portrayed me reading the newspaper.

Daddy, I hit a ball and accidentally broke one of those. Oh, that's okay. We'll buy a new one.

And then Trevor comes back up again and says, Dad, I forgot to tape the game. And Jacob goes, What? You forgot to tape the game?

I'm so angry.

You're grounded for 2 weeks.

Hey!

That's pretty funny.

This is Jacob.

He looks so much like you.

Yeah.

Wow.

He's a cutie.

And what does this say about him?

He loved playing hockey, and one year he decided to be goalie. But he was really good. He had a really good balance. If he stopped it, it was a great save. If it went in, that was a great shot.

What made him special to you?

He just had a really good spirit.

Sweet, innocent, very real. A light. Light up a room.

I am Aaron Larson. Jacob Wetterling was my best friend. They were kind of that family that was willing to try anything.

It looked like you had it just really kind of all laid out very nicely with your family.

We did.

We were happy.

Everybody was busy.

Well, you can see busy in this counter.

And this is 1989.

1989. This is January. I mean, every month.

This one is jammed.

Yeah, well, this was school, back to school, so you've got everything going on. And then this is October.

Now, this is the month that you'll never forget, October 1989.

October 22nd. Pretty much everything stops. It goes to nothing. It just stopped.

October 22nd, 1989 is a very vivid date in my memory. It was a Sunday. We didn't have school the next day for some reason.

Jacob and I went fishing at a nearby lake. He, um, had been practicing for a for a hockey tryout, and he was just crazily having trouble staying on his skates. It was just really bugging him. So I suggested we go fishing. We had a really nice time fishing and came back around noontime.

We all met in here to watch the Vikings game.

Fumble, penalty marker down, and Joey Browner runs it in.

But let's wait.

That particular night, we were invited to a dinner party.

You were going out to dinner with friends, and the kids were going to stay here.

And we asked Jacob if he minded babysitting. Amy was staying at a friend's house. We were just going to be gone a little bit, and, um, he was in 6th grade. He said, "Sure, no problem.

Can Aaron come over?" I remember being super excited because we actually get to hang out and we don't have school the next day.

We left, we got to our friend's house, called home to give them the number. This is pre-cell phone, you have to remember.

Of course.

They asked if they could ride their bikes to the store and rent a video. I initially said no. It was starting to get dark.

Being little boys, you kind of come up with not take no for that first answer.

They've ridden to the store a million times, but not at night.

Where we lived in a kind of a little cul-de-sac wooded area to the town is a straight road. But cars can go fairly fast on that road. I was just concerned that they would be visible.

Trevor said, "Well, let me talk to Dad." He had it all figured out.

He said that Jacob was wearing my reflective running vest, Erin had a white sweatshirt on, and Trevor was carrying the flashlight.

They had everything taken care of.

So, "Okay, go and then come right home." But then they called a third time.

These are responsible children, and they said, "Carmen doesn't want to go with. Is it okay if Rochelle comes over to babysit?" it.

So then I went over to the Wetterling house.

As a parent, we were in direct contact with them, and, and everything felt fine, like you've done everything right that you could possibly do, right? And it's a 5-minute, 10-minute max bike ride. It's not far, it's a mile.

Jacob Wetterling, his younger brother Trevor, and Jacob's best friend Aaron take their bikes and scooter to go to the local Tom Thumb to rent a movie.

We went into Tom Thumb, the convenience store, and we got The Naked Gun, the movie. And I remember also getting Blow Pops, just some suckers. And then we just headed back the same way we came down.

They were just like getting really close, within a half mile of their house, and all of a sudden this guy stepped out of the shadows and said, "Stop, I have a gun." A guy wearing a mask took your son.

Who would take a child?

It seemed like they weren't gone very long at all when all of a sudden Trevor rushed into the house. Followed pretty closely by Aaron. And they were frantic, kind of screaming, "Rachelle, Rachelle, someone took Jacob.

There's a man with a gun and he's got Jacob." My 11-year-old mind at the time, I thought, "This can't be. This can't be real." And then once he said, "I have a gun," that fear level went from 0 to 1,000 in probably 2 seconds. We both got told to run. I caught up to Trevor and we looked back and Jacob wasn't there.

To have a man jump out and abduct an 11-year-old boy, it was inconceivable.

I ended up calling my dad. He just came right over.

You both are having your dinner, then you get a phone call that I suspect you'll never forget.

So he answered the phone, and it was Rochelle's dad.

He asked for me, and, uh, Says the boys went to the Tom Thumb and a guy wearing a mask took Jacob.

A guy wearing a mask took your son? You're worried about him getting hit by a car and he gets snatched by somebody?

What are you thinking?

I'm not thinking.

I'm just—

He changed. Jerry came back to the table and grabbed my arm and said, we got to go. And I said, you know, what happened? Aren't those boys back yet? And he said, two of them are. Somebody took Jacob. It's like, what? It was unimaginable. I grabbed my purse and we left.

911, emergency. Yeah, my neighbors, the Jerry Wetterling family. That's where you're going? And some of their boys went down to Tom Thumb to pick up a movie. And on their way back, someone stop them, and, uh, we believe that they have one of the boys. Okay, were, were they picked up in a vehicle? Just a second, I'll ask the boys. Was there a vehicle there or was he walking? They couldn't— they didn't see a vehicle. Okay. Did they see the individual at all? Yes, they did. Did you see the individual at all? He had a mask gone.

He had like a nylon stocking over his face where you couldn't see, you know, any of the eyes or any of the— his features. Maybe that's why the voice stands out to me more. It was a very gruff, gravelly voice.

How old is the individual that has not returned? Um, how old is Jacob? 11.

Okay, Jacob is Jacob, right?

And he's 11. Jacob Weather things. The other dispatch right now is dispatching the squad to where you're at right now. Okay.

I'm Bruce Bechtold, and I was the first officer on the scene. I was a brand new deputy at the time. I get a call from dispatch that it sounded like a boy had been abducted, and in my mind, that can't be true. But I activated my lights and siren and drove pretty quickly this way.

It must have been the longest ride of your life.

It was. Who would take a child? That's all I kept— who would do this? It's about a 20-minute drive or so, uh, trying to figure it out. We had no idea what we were walking into.

It's one of those things that you just can't even fathom could actually happen in small-town Minnesota.

Have to drive past the abduction site to get to the Wetterling home. And it's in this location where we're standing now.

You're all riding your bike and your scooter from this way. And you get to this area. What happens?

All of a sudden, a man came out from this area over here. He said, "Stop, I have a gun," and told us to turn off our flashlights.

It's basically where all your fears and everything gets real very fast, He ordered them to put their bikes down in the ditch and then to lay down, face down, each one of them.

And this is the spot, Aaron, as far as you know?

Yeah, like right in here. So we were laying with our heads facing that way, like on our stomachs.

Mm-hmm.

And then he started with Trevor at first, and he told him to run as fast as he could into the woods. And then He told me to get up and run as fast as I can, don't look back, or else I would shoot.

Trevor and Aaron ran off to the woods back here, and then they ran from the corner of the woods here diagonally across the fields where a gap in the trees is. That's where the Wetterling house and the neighborhood is.

When Aaron finally caught up to Trevor and they were brave enough to look back, They just didn't see Jacob. He was gone.

Nobody was there. Then it was a matter of how fast can we get to somebody to help us because we had no idea what's going on. And where's Jacob?

You make your way back home and you hear from the other boys.

Trevor said, "This man, there was a man with a gun and he told us to get off our bikes and lie down in the ditch or he'd shoot." Do you have any Recollection of what was going through your mind that night?

Fear.

Just frantic fear, I guess I would say it.

The detectives were asking for all kinds of personal— they might have taken Trevor's hockey jacket because they both played for the same league. This is his hockey jacket.

And he was wearing this?

He was wearing this when he was kidnapped. Then they asked for a, you know, picture of Jacob.

Is this the photo that you gave?

This was the yellow sweater photo. It was— this was heartbreaking. You take it down, but it was so hard because I had, you know, 3 of the kids' school pictures on the wall, and then there's this blank frame. It was just one of those heart-wrenching Moments.

Moments.

That first night was just a lot of chaos.

You know, the sheriff was concerned that maybe he's tied to a tree or something, he can't break free. We're gonna find him.

Law enforcement are searching and searching the abduction site. Then key pieces of evidence and a witness emerge.

A car turns around in the evening really fast and it takes off.

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Today, October 12th, I am 5 feet tall. My whole name is Jacob Urban Witterheim. My favorite food is steak. My favorite color is blue. My best friend is Aaron Larson.

His 6th grade teacher, she had videotaped all of the kids and had them tell a little bit about yourself.

What I want to be when I grow up is a football player.

It was him, just his face and sharing all of his favorites.

My favorite game is Clue.

My favorite thing to do most is watch football.

And that video was taken 10 days before he was abducted. I remember the night before, he was kind of crabby because he felt like he was a bad skater. So he was a little bit sensitive. Sometime that evening, he asked— he felt really bad. "I'm sorry I was so crabby. You want to play a game?" And I said, "No, thank you. I appreciate you wanting to play." I was in the midst of putting things away, which is a heartbreaker. That's, that's one of, one of my worst, um, mom moments. I wish I could, wish I could take it back.

Police want to get a recorded statement from Jacob's 10-year-old brother Trevor, who was with Jacob when he was taken.

It was a really quiet, solemn drive down that road, now what was an ugly road. The bikes were still there the following morning, and it was traumatic. I could just feel Trevor stiffen. And then we went to the St. Joe Police Station.

This is a taped interview. Today's date is October 19th, 2008. 23rd, 1989. The time right now is 0909 hours. Can you tell us how old you are, please?

I'm 10 years old.

While you guys are riding your bikes, did some guy, uh, confront you?

No.

Some guy stop, make you guys stop riding your bikes?

Oh yeah.

Can you tell us what this person initially said when you guys were riding by him?

He said, "Stop, I have a gun." Turn off the flashlight, go in the ditch, face the other way. Then he asked us all our ages.

My heart just broke. He's a 10-year-old kid who witnessed this horrific thing. His brother was stolen. He hadn't slept. And the fear, the sheer terror of that night.

This is a child who's traumatized. I can't imagine as a parent what that had to have been like.

Where was his gun?

He had a gun in his hand.

OK, what happened then?

He told me to run as fast as I could to the woods. Right when he told me to run, he grabbed Jacob.

Where the abduction occurred was at the end of a driveway where the Rassier family resided.

34-year-old Dan Rassier lived on a farm with his parents. His parents were out of the country when Jacob was abducted.

My name is Dan Rassier, and in 1989, I was a band teacher. The night Jacob was taken, I was home alone, working on this collection, getting it up to date. Between 9:00 and 9:30, the dog is barking because the dog is noticing a car coming down the hill. It was like a blue, maybe a darker blue, but smaller car. And turned around very quickly and it was gone. Shortly after that, I went to bed. I woke up when Smokey was barking. Looked outside and a whole bunch of people were up by the woodpile with flashlights.

When I interviewed Trevor and Aaron, they said they didn't see a car. So then we thought, well, we need to do a ground search. We first searched where the bicycles were found and started working our way through this little bit of a wooded area.

Dan Rassier told police that he had seen a dark vehicle come into his property, circle around, and leave.

Talking to Dan, we thought, well, maybe there was a car. About in this area, we saw some tire tracks, and then we saw some adult-sized footprints and smaller ones, like child-sized footprints. They weren't going straight forward like this. They were to the side and almost like they were shuffling together. It didn't look like someone had just gone for a walk. It looked like like somebody was pulling this kid along. And so that caused us to think that maybe these were Jacob's footprints and the abductor's footprints. The car would have stopped here. So as they're coming down the road on their scooter and bicycles, they would have never saw that there was a car here.

Jacob's footprint down here.

Yeah, it was weighed down by that second pole.

And the irony is, it is such a peaceful, beautiful spot.

It's like God's country, you know? It is.

One of the biggest concerns with an interstate nearby and a vehicle— he could have just taken off. Jacob could be literally anywhere.

I just had the sense that this guy took Jacob and took off. In my mind, he's halfway to Las Vegas or Chicago. He's got him. He's going somewhere.

My gut feeling was just the opposite. It's like, he's so close, but we can't reach him. This man has put us behind locked doors and made us restrict our children's every movement. You couldn't be outside. You locked your doors. You kept track of your kids differently.

With the community and parents on edge, the hunt for Jacob Wetterling quickly becomes one of the biggest search missions in Minnesota history.

What can you tell us about the situation?

In the days following Jacob's abduction, there was massive searches looking for any sign of Jacob or his kidnapper.

The ground search was divided into sectors.

Beginning with an intensive check of the 36-square-mile St. Joseph Township.

It was a big area.

We checked all the fields, the swamps, like I say, and the abandoned buildings.

Sheriffs came up with horses.

You're all volunteers, right? How come you came up? Just for the sake of helping—

helping to find the little fella.

In the days following the abduction, Law enforcement conducted a neighborhood canvas.

We've covered everything that we can with the helicopter.

I remember the helicopter sound.

I still have PTSD over helicopters.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers involved. A task force was formed with multiple agencies and multiple investigators.

And we come up with nothing.

It was massive. There were resources I didn't know about. Ham radio operators. Give me a quick status. There's a small pilots association, and they were taking up little private planes.

It doesn't make any difference what the costs are.

We're just determined to do whatever is necessary. We've got to do an absolute thorough search out there.

The governor called and offered up the National Guard. Okay, move out! Which was really really huge because they searched, ground searched about 30 miles worth of land. I was wondering what all the Army guys were doing out here.

We went and met Patty and Jerry almost immediately. What we promised them is that we would do everything, everything in our power to find Jacob. You have to be patient, and she said, "I can't be patient, this is my child," and we both understood.

There was just people all the time, like at their house, people bringing food.

There's a hose right down there.

The media coming and going with the huge satellite trucks.

What you're doing right now is a very, very integral part of that, so we really appreciate you being here.

They felt that if the story got out, there would be more people knowing about it, more people looking for him, that that would be their best chance of finding where he was.

A friend of ours said, you know, you need to call the media.

He had seen a program on 20/20 approximately 6 weeks before Jacob's abduction.

20/20 with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters.

How getting the word out quickly was important in recovering that particular child.

In desperation, Jeremiah's parents turned to the media. Doing 7 to 8 interviews a day.

It wasn't too long before it started making national news.

From ABC, this is World News Tonight.

Last week, an 11-year-old boy named Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped from the streets of St. Joseph, Minnesota.

Well, the suspect is 20—

I was reporting for local television news in Minneapolis.

Who works at the discount—

As a mom, I was scared to death. Any parent in America could relate to an 11-year-old boy being taken. It just didn't happen back then.

I remember being at the Minnesota Vikings game when they had Jacob's missing poster.

Not just the Vikings are part of this football game, but it's a whole area. And this is a big, big thing, and everyone is a part of trying to find Jacob Wetterling.

I just thought, well, this is it. If they get Jacob on this particular broadcast for the Minnesota Vikings, they will absolutely find him.

How hard was that for you to see his picture out there as a missing child, your Jacob?

It's devastating. At the beginning, there's no way your, your brain can really take all this in. It's crazy.

In the early days of the investigation, Jacob's father was the main person dealing with the media. But I remember after Jerry Wetterling Jerry Sterling appeared on A Current Affair. People didn't think he reacted right.

Tonight, our David Lee Miller reports on that terrible crime that has brought terror to the country's heartland.

It was total shock, total disbelief.

People started turning in Jerry as a suspect. And it's like, they didn't like the way he looked on TV. He wasn't sad enough. He didn't cry. He wasn't angry. If it were me, I would respond this way. It was ridiculous.

I wasn't meeting their needs for what I should be as a searching dad.

Thank you, Bob.

He finally one day just said, "They don't want to hear from me. They need to hear from you." So that was my call to step up.

Jacob's all alone. This is not fair. Fear.

It's just wrong.

How tough was that on the marriage?

Very tough. Marriage is tough on a good day. Your partner can be your support when you're going through a tough thing. But this is a thing we're both experiencing in real time together. So it was hard for us to really be there for each other in the way that we needed to be.

You began to write letters.

I did.

To Jacob.

Why?

It was my way of just connecting to him. If he came home tomorrow, I wanted him to know exactly what we had tried, everything that we tried, because I kept thinking he was wondering, why did it take so long? Dear Jacob, my heart hurts as days pass by without you. I wrestle over the details We went over the details again and again. Who could have done this? Where are you, Jacob?

Little do the Wetterlings know that just miles away, investigators may have a link to Jacob's disappearance.

Investigators became aware of a similar abduction that had occurred.

There were so many similarities, they thought, this could be our guy.

This quiet Minnesota town, population under 3,000, has not been the same since Jacob Wetterling was abducted. A massive search has failed to turn up any trace of Jacob or his kidnapper.

That guy could be anywhere. He could come Someone else could come and take you.

Are you terrified that there's somebody out there who's going to try to snatch you or somebody else?

Yeah, I would say I was traumatized. I slept on my parents' floor for how many months? And we didn't know who had Jacob. That person's still out there, obviously. And so there's always that fear of the what if.

In my mind, the man that took Jacob that was always lurking around the corner.

After Jacob Wetterling, everything changed almost immediately, how people parent their kids.

I even asked the sheriff one time, I was like, "Are our other kids safe?" There were times when I just wanted to keep them all inside. But I spent a lot of my own energy trying to nudge them into being okay with the world again.

The people of St. Joseph have rallied on Jacob's behalf, putting up posters, raising reward money, and calling attention to his plight.

There were white ribbons everywhere, and they wrote on them, you know, "Jacob's Hope." At a church service, Jacob's classmates and family sang "Listen." Listen.

Can you hear the sound— One of his favorite songs.

It has become an anthem of hope. There was no evidence that Jacob was not alive, and that was the one thing Patty and the Wetterling family had to cling to.

From that first night on, we kept leaving our porch light on all the time. It was just a way to say we're— We're not stopping. You got to get home, Jake.

The FBI says it is the best lead they've had in nearly 2 months. For the first time, agents believe there is a connection between Jacob's abduction and another abduction earlier this year.

Just 9 months earlier, a 12-year-old boy in Cold Spring, Springs, which is just about 10 miles from St. Joseph, was abducted as well.

My name is Jared Shiro. On January 13th, 1989, I was 12 years old and I was walking home from a skating event with my friends, and we all stopped at the local cafe.

They ordered some milkshakes and French fries. Jared just lived really close, so he decided he was just going to walk home.

It was about 9 o'clock at night, and a car had approached me from the front.

A man asked if he knew where the Kramers lived, and Jared tried to help him with directions.

As I was kind of walking towards the car, he got out of the vehicle. Got close enough to me, grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to get the fuck in the car. He had a gun and he wasn't afraid to use it.

The abductor drove Jared to a remote site outside of Cold Spring, Minnesota, and assaulted him.

The perpetrator took my pants and my underwear, and he left me half naked inside of a snowmobile suit. After the incident was done, then he got back in his car and dropped me on the outside of Cold Spring and told me to run, don't look back, or he'd shoot.

The statement matched language used at the Wetterling abduction.

He grabbed Jacob, and then he told me to run as fast as I could. I could into the woods or else he'd shoot.

He said almost the same words.

I was just thinking that these cases are pretty similar.

I was really concerned that it could be the same person.

Were you thinking that there's a serial kidnapper on the loose? Possibly.

So many things about that crime were similar to what happened to Jacob. The main difference is the man let Jared go home.

He claimed to know who I was, and if he— the authorities would ever come close to finding him, he would find me first and kill me. The following days, weeks, months, there wasn't much sleep. It was complete chaos. I slept on my parents' bedroom floor, I think, for the first few months.

Jared and his parents reported this right away. And they met with police and gave a very detailed police report.

He believed the vehicle was a blue vehicle, blue interior. He described some sort of a police scanner or a handheld scanner in the front seat of the vehicle.

Jared described his abductor as wearing a baseball cap, camouflage clothing.

I think I put him around 40s. He had a little raspy voice. He's kind of— Husky rim build.

Today, the FBI released this composite, a sketch of the Cold Spring abductor. It was drawn after investigators noticed the similarities between the abduction and Jacob's. The abductor was a white man in his 40s or 50s. He had a deep raspy voice, and he told the boy he had a gun.

The characteristic that I remember of, like, our event is the voice.

When Jared Shire was abducted and sexually assaulted, that was very, very rare. You fast forward to when Jacob Wetterling was abducted. A stranger abduction in Minnesota on a gravel road. Probability that they were both related? Absolutely.

Police were looking for a child predator based on something you had said. What, what led them to think that?

When he was coming out of the, the road there, he initially had reached over and had touched me. So I think that obviously led them to think that that was what his main goal was on the sexual predator side of things.

Police always thought there were so many similarities between Jared's abduction and Jacob's abduction. They thought, okay, this could be our guy. But as each anniversary went by, year after year, and then nothing would happen, you do start to think this case is never going to be solved.

Every year we would get together, like, on the 22nd of October. We've reached another year of we haven't found him, like, we still don't know where he is.

His presence is still real and heartfelt, but this graduation is still a somber one for classmates of Jacob Wetterling.

A lot of people value a lot of things more because you realize, I mean, everything's not going to be here forever. I think Patty and Jerry would talk about they kind of lived vicariously, like, through my graduating class, but it's also, I'm sure it was a sad thing because they wish Jacob was there doing it with us.

Years go by, and then you hear the police are looking at somebody who's right down the street.

They wired me. You would never have harmed Jake.

I only feel that I could have saved him.

I'm Harvey Guillén, and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights and telling you a bedtime story, except these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heist, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories.

So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén every Monday.

If you like your true crime like you like your coffee, Red-Handed is the podcast for you. It's dark, intense, and might just keep you up all night. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And every week on Red Handed, we break down a different fascinating case. From the most recent US trials everyone is obsessing over, like Brendan Banfield, Karen Reed, and Ellen Greenberg, to the most unbelievable stories from around the world. There's nothing we love more than digging into every detail of the cases we cover, getting beyond a basic analysis and cutting to the heart of the story. Red Handed has over 400 episodes ready to binge right now. Plus, be sure to check out our weekly sister show, Shorthand, where we unpack everything from the Black Death to Area 51. If you're looking for smart, detailed true crime with personality, check out Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts.

It's an unsolved mystery.

Weeks go by, months go by involving this young all-American boy.

No news, no leads. No one knew why. Year after year after year after year.

And nobody really knew exactly how.

All law enforcement really knew was that young Jacob Wetterling vanished on a moonless Minnesota night, leaving behind a footprint as the only clue to follow.

When a story like that lingers, you just figure it's never going to be solved.

Where are you, Jacob?

So it's 2004 and it's late January and I get a call.

We invited Dan Rassier into the Stearns County Sheriff's Office and went over the information we had with him.

Dan Rassier lived in a house that was at the end of the driveway where Jacob was abducted. Dan Rassier saw himself as being a good citizen. He was a teacher, someone who cooperated with police.

I was completely thinking I was going to help with something. It starts off kind of just, you know, well, what can I do? And I remember him saying, well, that car that you saw, it's been accounted for.

The car theory The theory was that someone pulled into the Rassier farm driveway and was waiting there and abducted Jacob Wetterling and left.

I went, well, great. You've got your guy. No, no. We've phoned the driver of the car. And he is innocent. He did not do this.

That's when, uh, the investigation seemed to really turn towards, uh, Dan Rassier as being the abductor.

It had been 15 years since Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped right at the top of this driveway, and now the man living on this sprawling farm across from the abduction site is the focus of the investigation.

And if you just want to look at a thing like this, from a common-sense perspective, it's got to be somebody you're thinking that knows the area, somebody who's comfortable in the area.

We were pretty— I don't know if forceful is the word, but we were pretty somewhat aggressive with him, maybe more than normal, just to see if we could get a different reaction out of him. And I don't think he liked that. I know he didn't like it. I want you to tell me where you put Jacob so I can go out and find him.

We'll be done. Why? You could be a person that's a psychopathic killer, or you could be someone that's the nicest guy in the world, or you could be someone in between.

Basically, he's saying, you took Jacob, on and on, that kind of thing. How'd you do it? You knew they were coming by. You grabbed them.

For instance, I said, did you take Jacob Wetterling? And instead of just saying no, which most people would be upset that you accused them, He put his hand up and he said, "Did I take Jacob Wirtling?" Just kind of cocky remarks.

He would never eliminate himself. He always kind of teased you with "it might be me" type of comments.

If I did something like that, I would have to be nuts. And I'm trying to explain to him, but he's just so— he's so gone that I remember the interview just going, "Not good, not good." And so, on the way out, Pam Jensen says to me, "Well, you took that pretty well." I go, "Well, it's a joke. The whole thing is a joke." And then I left.

That must have been mind-boggling to think that police are looking at somebody who's right down the street.

Were you suspicious? For years. I was curious about him.

You were so determined to do anything to find your son that you were even willing to wear a wire.

I did wear a wire. I'd do anything. I just wanted to meet the man and have him look me in the eye and say he didn't do it. And so they did. They wired me.

So we put a wire on her, and we knew where Brassier went to the gym. So we had her bump into him.

I need to talk to you. We just sat in that lobby area and I asked a lot of questions. You know, Jacob was last seen on your property. Do you think Jacob could have been on your property? I needed you to look me in the eye and say you had nothing to do with Jacob's disappearance.

I had nothing to do with this.

You would never have harmed Jacob.

I only feel that I— if I would have been more alert. He's all hindsight. I could have stopped it. I could have saved them.

Do you remember that conversation?

Yes, we sat down for maybe 45 minutes. I told her my side of the story. She wanted to get all the questions answered. Did you do this, Dan?

Thank you, Dan. Well, let's talk again. Okay. Thank you. I told the FBI as I Tearing off the microphone. He's either innocent or a psychopath. He's really good at covering up, or he didn't do it.

In 2010, police did a 2-day pretty massive search of the Rassier farm.

Through time, we put together all the information we had, and we presented that information to a judge. And the judge felt there was sufficient probable cause to look on the farm.

And I'm standing in front of a cornfield on the edge of the Raisier family farm.

This was a big deal when they did the dig at the, at the Raisier residence.

Neighbors have been watching too. It's kind of scary.

They did a pretty extensive search, even digging up some of his property, which clearly he was not happy with.

The massive dig turned up a lot of dirt but no evidence, but it left Dan Rassier in the public eye as the guy who took Jacob and was holding the secret of where Jacob was.

Rassier was known publicly as a person of interest in the Wetterling case.

It wasn't like we stopped everything and started working on Dan Rassier. That's not the case at all. We worked every lead we could think of.

Dan Rassier was not involved in in Jacob Wetterling's abduction at all, but it would be years before he would be cleared by investigators.

But if Dan didn't do it, who did? That's when a blogger begins doing a little digging of her own. What are you thinking?

I just thought, oh, this is big.

This is— this has got to be the answer. This is really big.

Tonight in Missouri, Shawn Hornbeck is back home.

A California kidnapping case has come to an astonishing end.

3 missing women found alive together a decade later Two decades go by, no sign of your son, yet you still hold on to hope. I did.

This is what kept me going.

These are clippings of stories of other children who made it back.

I would do anything to protect my children and all of these children.

Over the years, we watched Patty turn into an activist.

I was working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and doing law enforcement trainings all over the country. People need to be educated about the dangers of those who violate children.

Because of Jacob's case and Patty, the sex offender registration law was passed.

Today, America warns, if you dare to prey on our children, the law will follow you wherever you go.

She got very involved and trying to keep this from happening to other families. It wasn't just about Jacob. It was about all children.

The Waterlink case is immense. It is so emotional. It is deep. And it was, for me, all-consuming. I'm Joy Baker. And starting in 2010, I wrote a blog about the Jacob Wetterling case.

You started a real investigation. Yeah.

I went to the local library, looked up all the old newspaper articles from that time period, and I just started to lay it out.

Over the next few years, Joy gained a following online. But the Wetterlings weren't aware of her until a chance encounter. In 2013, it was nearly 25 years since you had lost Jacob.

You meet a blogger. Yes. I was speaking at an event, and this woman came and introduced herself and said she'd been blogging about Jacob.

Patty is mildly freaking out about this person, and I just go to the block, and I'm reading and say, wow, this is good stuff.

We called her, I think, the next day, and we had like at least a 2-hour conversation of who are you and where do you hope to go.

Then a turning point in Joy's research. She stumbles across a 1987 newspaper article from the nearby town of Painesville.

I found this story about these 5 cases of young teenage boys who had been followed, assaulted. Also very similar language, like when they had been caught, he'd say, "Don't turn around or I'll blow your head off." And it was similar to the language that the boys who were with Jacob had reported.

Jacob and Jared.

Painesville is a small town about 30 miles from where Jacob was abducted and just past where Jared Shirell was abducted in Cold Spring.

For many years, I lived in fear, watching over my shoulder. Joy contacted me. She asked me if I was the Jared associated with the Wetterling investigation.

I shared his story on my blog, and people were commenting— that same thing happened to my brother or my nephew or my son.

Being a male victim of a sexual assault, I've learned that there's a lot more male victims out there than, than the world lets on to.

Sexual assaults on young boys is something you rarely heard about.

Chris Bertelsen, who grew up in Painesville, told me about a string of frightening incidents that he and his friends had there back in the '80s. Some of the incidents were reported to authorities back then.

Early in 1987, two friends of mine had been molested. One, a masked man grabbed him, groped him, and then another friend of mine had been molested near his home.

Was there a feeling that there was some guy out there who was preying on boys?

It was the talk of everybody. At least of us boys. It just became kind of a culture to watch out for this guy. All of a sudden, it's not safe to ride your bike.

A time of fear.

A lot of fear.

Then in May of 1987, Chris had his own run-in with that man.

He takes me back to the spot. My friend and I were riding our bikes around this corner. And the guy came flying out from behind the spruce trees. In the dark. In total darkness. Clotheslined my friend off the bike. And he stopped on the bike and I stopped. And my friend yelled, "You already got me." And the guy took off running. And I took off on my bike to call the police. My friend, he said, "I got his hat." In their scuffle, he grabbed his hat. We always kind of knew there were these pieces that, that were unanswered.

Although Painesville police did follow up and investigate the cases of the boys in that town, nobody was ever arrested.

One of the consistent things with all of my friends was that he had a low, gravelly voice, a mumbly voice.

More than two decades later, this string of incidents in Painesville may now shed new light on Jacob Wetterling's case. This is what happened to me.

This is what happened to Jacob. This could be the information that we've been looking for for all these years.

This looks very much like small-town America, very much, uh, just quaint homes.

There's a river that runs through it. It couldn't be more hometown America.

When Joy came across the incidents in Paynesville, I think a light went off in her head that these have to be connected to Jacob's case.

When you began looking into this case and you started to discover that there had been incidents of boys being either assaulted, molested, here in Painesville, what areas did you find that were significant?

A lot of them happened right here, right downtown, where kids were at their local hangout spot, the local pizza place.

You're convinced that these incidents here in Painesville were no doubt connected to what happened to Jacob, and that perpetrator was probably the same person.

I really, really felt that Painesville was the answer.

Law enforcement, in fact, did talk to some of those Painesville boys after Jacob's abduction.

When we found out about the Painesville incidents, we thought they were connected. We thought maybe the same person kidnapped Jared and Jacob.

In January of 1990, the Painesville police chief had contacted the task force. And indicated that Danny Heinrich might be considered a suspect in the Wetterling case. Heinrich was in his mid-20s at the time. He was a lifelong resident of Paynesville and was a member of the Minnesota National Guard.

Danny Heinrich was one of the names who'd come up early. No prior arrests for sexual assault, no prior anything against children, couldn't hold a job for long, had a troubled childhood.

The physical description was nearly identical in all of the Paynesville incidents. It was very similar to the Cold Spring abduction as well as Jacob Wetterling's abduction. Gravelly, raspy, static-filled voice was a specific description of the offender.

And investigators did take a close look at Heinrich after Jared Shirell's kidnapping.

One of the officers in Paynesville suggested that they look at Danny Heinrich. As a suspect because Heinrich wore camouflage clothing and he drove a car similar to the car described by Jared Shirell. They put him in a lineup.

It was just a picture lineup. So Jared picked two people that somewhat resembled the guy that had taken him, but that was as good as he could do.

One of those was Heinrich, and words somewhat resembled in the precision of legal language isn't that he picked him out.

With no other evidence, Heinrich is never charged.

After Jacob's abduction, Heinrich's name surfaced again.

When he was interviewed, Heinrich denied knowing where he was on the day of the abduction of Jacob.

Heinrich denies any involvement, so authorities take a different tact. They search the home he's living in.

They take his tennis shoes. They vacuumed his car, and they kept those fibers from the back of his car.

They obtained his tires from his vehicle.

One of the items tested was Jared Shirell's snowmobile suit, and it was determined that trace evidence on Jared's snowmobile suit may have originated from the seat materials in a Mercury Topaz. That fiber could have come from the seed of any Mercury Topaz manufactured around that time, not specific to Heinrichs Mercury Topaz.

If a laboratory examiner can testify that that tire impression belonged to that tire, that's evidence. If a laboratory examiner says that tire impression is consistent With that tire, that's not evidence. Same thing with shoe impressions. Same thing with hairs and fibers. It's strong indications for an investigator to pursue it.

It's not evidence. Investigators bring Heinrich in.

We started talking to him, and before long, he said, "I want a lawyer." And of course, once they say that, According to the rules, we cannot ask any further questions.

They did not have enough physical evidence to charge him, therefore they had to release him.

Through the years of investigating, Danny Heindrick always was one of our suspects. After different leads, we then decided that we'd go approach and see if we could talk to him. And we would knock on the door. The first time he shut the door on me a couple years 2 days later, we came back, same story. I knocked on the door. He says, "I got an attorney. I'm not talking to you." End of the story. Did we think that was suspicious? Sure. But could we do anything about it? No.

My station, WCCO, actually talked with Danny Heinrich, and he denied any involvement in Jacob's case. We talked with the suspect in his car.

Do you have any information about the abduction of Jacob Wetterling?

I have no information whatsoever. That's the truth.

Every day I'm getting all these tips and leads from Painesville residents, and I'm sending them all to Stearns County. But at some point, I just felt like a bother.

Joy may have discovered some additional information, but the fact that young boys were being either chased, stalked, or groped in Painesville was not new to us. We just couldn't share the law enforcement file, what we had with her.

Any victim of crime has a right to go in and see their case files. So I took advantage of that.

Jared meets with Captain Jensen. And he calls me, and he is on fire. And he just said, "Joy, there's more to this story. There's a heck of a lot more to this story." hat that may have DNA on it. And so we thought, wow, what did we just discover here?

Were you losing faith in law enforcement at this point?

I was frustrated. I wanted the team back, fresh look.

We do got a big break in the case.

They said, we got your guy.

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All new Mondays, 8/7c on ABC, next day on Hulu. 3 decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls. It was the—

probably the worst case I've ever seen.

It is the one that sticks with me.

Police zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars.

I don't know what the hell you guys want.

Do you think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time if we didn't think you're involved?

But as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades-long mission to uncover the truth.

23 years I've been trying to put this puzzle together, and this center's missing. I've always been told The truth will come out. You can't hide the truth.

Listen to The Snare, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and ad-free on Amazon Music. Today, law enforcement is launching a new effort to find Wetterling by placing 6 billboards billboards around the area where he went missing.

Jacob had been missing for 25 years. There was a little publicity about this new billboard campaign. And so that, to me, that kind of like sparked an idea. I'm Chris Newberry. I'm the producer and director of the documentary Echoes in the Night: The Search for Jacob Wetterling. I'm a Minnesotan, and I thought, Well, no one's really done an intimate look at the Jacob story. And the Wetterlings were open to this idea. I wanted to sort of see inside their lives and film in their space.

Those are all videos on the shelf over there. And then there's the other room. This was Jacob's room, actually. Uh, Jake and Trevor had bunk beds in here. Nobody really sleeps down here anymore with just the single beds.

That's kind of a poignant moment.

And this is the Wetterling room. This is a lot of evidence.

It's a lot of evidence.

It's been close to 25 years since Jacob's kidnapping, and now an FBI team that's highly trained in child abductions is about to conduct a review of the entire Wetterling case.

My name is Chris Bokers. I am a retired FBI special agent, and I was a member of the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team that did a cold case review of the investigation. In October 1989, I was familiar with the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. Case was impactful to me. To the point that I decided that I wanted to get into law enforcement to hopefully someday make a positive impact on this investigation.

This whole row right here is Jacob Wetterling. I think it by far dwarfs any other case that we have for sheer volume of evidence. In 2014, we needed to take a step back and have a review of the whole case itself.

In doing the cold case review, Danny Heinrich was a very good suspect early in the investigation. There was some very compelling information there. Such as? Such as that some tires had been taken from his car, and these tires correspond in design and measurements to the tire impressions that were taken from the gravel at the Rassier residence where the abduction had occurred. We also found that his shoes corresponded in design to the foot impressions that were taken from the scene.

That's pretty stunning stuff.

It was really good evidence. But because there's no nicks, cuts that are individual to these shoes or these tires, you can't say it's him.

Exact.

We can't say it's exact.

One might think that based on the substantial evidence that law enforcement had gathered against Danny Heinrich, wasn't that enough? But as a prosecutor, you have to evaluate a case not based on, you know, probable cause that it's likely, but proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And looking at the evidence they had at the time, it wasn't even close.

When they started reviewing the case, they looked at Jared's case too.

This would be clothing related to the abduction of the Cold Spring boy.

My thought all throughout my life was, if we can find my perpetrator, then we'll find Jacob's perpetrator.

I first met Jared during that early period of our production. I admired Jared a ton. His bravery to come forward forward and tell his story.

20-some years later, here I am, that scared little boy again, because we still don't know who this person is and we still don't know where he's at.

And when Jared Shirell was assaulted, DNA was not regularly used in, uh, criminal cases.

Over the course of time in the investigation, we had continued to repeatedly submit the items from the Cold Spring Boys abduction for DNA analysis. And it was only finally in 2012 that we were able to come up with an unknown male DNA that was left on the clothing.

Dennis Kern located a hair that had been saved on a slide at the FBI lab that was identified as Danny Heinrichs.

We got a big break in the case. The Hares provided a DNA match to the previously unknown DNA that was collected from the Cold Spring boys' abduction. And that match was Danny Heinrich.

And so they were able to conclusively show that Danny Heinrich was the person who kidnapped and assaulted Jared Scheierl.

Once we had a DNA match for the Cold Spring investigation, we sought a search warrant to go back to Heinrich's residence where he now lived in Annandale, Minnesota.

In that search warrant, law enforcement alleged Heinrich's involvement in 8 Paynesville incidents. The baseball cap is tested for DNA, and though 80% of the population was excluded, Danny Heinrich's DNA was not.

In that search warrant, we were looking for human remains. Or any trophies that might have been kept.

They were going to do a search warrant for— on this suspect, Danny Heinrich. That was scary. Would they find anything?

Today's date is 7/28/2015. The time is 8:36 AM.

Presently with Pam Jensen, Stearns County Sheriff's.

I'm Ken McDonald, Minnesota BCA.

After the DNA hit that showed Danny Heinrich was connected to Jared Shirell's case, authorities conducted a search of Heinrich's home in Annandale, Minnesota.

While other investigators were executing the search warrant, Captain Jensen and myself sat outside at the patio table with Danny Heinrich.

He had no idea he was being recorded.

You know, when they do a lot of these search warrants, You'd like to see what we have on the internet?

You're gonna find some things in that house that look pretty damn damning to me.

Well, you know, if you're worried about, like, pornography, a lot of people got pornography in their house. You're a single guy. Yes, I do have pornography.

I'm not gonna lie to you there. I do.

Tell us what you found when you got in.

The house itself was very neat. He had 2 cats, but the house was well kept, organized.

There is no human or anything remains on this property, I guarantee you 100%. As far as I know, before I bought the place, who knows what's in the root cellar underneath the house? That I wouldn't know anything about, you know. Right. Nothing pertaining to Jacob Wetterling. There's nothing here or ever has been.

Of course, we're trying to get a little information without making him upset with us.

I asked him about Painesville. I've never touched anybody, period. That's the God's truth. I'll admit I got some damning shit in that house, but I never touched anybody.

Very quickly within the search, investigators were finding binders that contained child erotica, child pornography.

We found numerous bins of child-sized clothing. We found wigs and handcuffs. We recovered 922 VHS tapes. A lot of the VHS tapes were of children's programming where you had children actors on the shows.

When we went through the tapes, investigators found hours of him at playgrounds, hours of him watching boys go by on their bikes. Very inappropriate.

The search yields no evidence directly linking Heinrich to Jared, Jacob, or any of the Painesville incidents. But there was something else found that troubled investigators.

He had, uh, tapes of news clippings from the Wetterling investigation. The Wetterling investigation.

So he was obviously concerned about the Wetterling case. Correct. This very well could be Jacob Wetterling's abductor.

What are you thinking?

A lot of it is thinking in your head, what do we now need to do so that we do this properly?

So we worked with the U.S. Attorney's Office to formulate a nexus to get federal charges for child pornography. Federal charges would carry more weight with more potential prison time. Which might help elicit some confession in a Wetterling case.

About 3 months after they searched Heinrich's home, investigators contact the Wetterlings to share their findings.

Patty and I were called down to the law enforcement center.

You could just feel an electric energy in the room.

We had made PowerPoint which talked about the Paynesville incidents, the DNA match with Jared's case.

And then we also went over some of the tire and shoe impressions with overlays.

They had Danny's shoes, and then they had the imprint on the driveway, and they just— it was like a slow-moving movie where they put one on top of the other, and visually it was a match. Visually. And they did the same thing with the tire. And they matched. And they matched, exactly. It was chilling. That whole presentation was absolutely chilling.

I was brought into a briefing room with the BCA, the FBI, Stearns County. Everybody's in the room. And it starts out with, uh, Jared, we got some good news, and we got some bad news. We got your guy. And I said, what's the bad news?

They couldn't charge him in Jared's abduction because statute of limitations had run out.

We can't try him. So you just take a deep breath. You're taking it in. It's in disbelief. I helped you get to this point. That there's statutes of limitations on any types of cases like this.

They warned us to not reveal to anybody what was going on because they wanted him arrested.

Got a call from Patty and she said, I don't think we're going to be able to film that thing tomorrow, there's something really big happening. And she said, you should turn on your TV.

Good afternoon.

Last night, FBI special agents working with the BCA, the Stearns County Sheriff's Office, and local police arrested Daniel James James Heinrich.

26 years roughly after the abduction, Danny Heinrich is arrested on child pornography charges.

We consider him to be a person of interest in the Wetterling abduction.

It was really the first major development in the case, really, since the day it happened.

Everybody in media wanted to know what was the Wetterling family's reaction to this huge news. And so they scheduled this press conference. They let me come into their home while they were preparing for that.

It brings back a lot of anxiety, a lot of beginning stuff, and I can't live in the dark all the time.

The emotions were, you know, high.

I know what I want to say. It's just how you say it. It's hard.

I think the clock says 12:13, so—

All right. This is my big idea. What's that? I said this is my big idea. I don't know if it's a good one or not, but, you know, whatever. I hate this long driveway. I love you. Thank you.

Love you, too.

We do see Patty and Jerry Wetterling coming down their driveway. You can see they still have the porch light on all the time.

Missing kids come home after long periods of time, and I will still always, always hope until we have our answers. Thank you.

After Danny Heinrich was arrested, Patty asked me to help write the book, and so we were really focusing on that.

We didn't know where Jacob was, so we just kept We had no idea what the ending was going to be.

The months are ticking by after the arrest, and it was sort of this new form of uncertainty.

You don't know if he's dead or alive. Correct.

Oh my goodness. This is it.

Just took the wind out of everybody's legs. Huh.

Finally, we found him.

Nearly a year after Heinrich's arrest, he's ready to make a deal.

Do you want justice, or do you want answers? It's like, I want Jacob.

Danny Heinrich would plead guilty to one count of child pornography in federal court and receive a 20-year sentence if he was able to show us remains or provide a credible confession.

He would either tell where Jacob was and what happened or give some convincing evidence and I was really troubled by that word. It's like, who does he have to convince? He's already convinced all of you. He has to convince me. Her agreeing to this would give us the keys to unlock the door to finally find Jacob Wetterling.

Where is Jacob? Now Danny Heinrich, the suspect in the boy's kidnapping, has led law enforcement to this quiet stretch of farmland in Paynesville. Would they finally be able to bring Jacob home?

We walked through that narrow strip of woods with him and eventually planted a few flags to show where the remains could have been.

When investigation began at the scene, they found a piece of red material that was sticking out above ground. Ended up being Jacob's hockey jacket.

Everybody just took a deep breath and it just took the wind out of everybody.

It's like, "Huh." I cannot describe it. Words. What it was like to all of a sudden just feel like, oh my goodness, I mean, this is it. We get this call saying that they had found Jacob's jacket. Your blood runs cold. It's like everything inside is screaming, no.

And we're driving up, it's a peaceful farm. We see the sheriff and Captain Pam Jensen, and they just come up and give us a hug and raise their hands in tears.

Why did you walk away?

Well, it's been a while since I thought about this case, and when we found him, it was very surreal. We realized that, you know, there was no more Jacob Hope.

It was incredibly sad, but at the same moment, there was something peaceful. Jacob was at peace. Jerry, for you?

Words couldn't do anything at that point. It finally Finally, we found him.

Jerry and I, you know, he drove to some little neighborhood on a side street and pulled over and said, "We have to call the— we got to call the kids." And that was the worst call in my life.

After obtaining Heinrich's confession, confession. Law enforcement then share the painful details with the Wetterlings.

The sheriff would tell us what, what they found out, what Danny said happened that night.

Heinrich said that he was in the St. Joseph area that Sunday night, and he saw the 3 boys going towards a convenience store, and he drove to the dirt driveway and he waited for them. He said that he walked Jacob back to his car, and he handcuffed Jacob, and that Jacob asked, "What did I do wrong?" He did nothing wrong.

You know, we're all sobbing, and it's like, "Stop, Sheriff. Can you not hear us?

You know, stop." He drove Jacob to the edge of Paynesville and got him out of the car and assaulted him.

Jacob said he was cold and and that just, that really stuck with me.

He didn't have any clothes on. As a parent, it's just heartbreaking.

Jacob said that he wanted to go home and started to cry.

Just wants, just wants to go home. And like was doing everything he asked him to do and just wanted to go home. And like, I can't imagine like the fear. Just let him go home.

And that's when he took out a gun that he had in his pocket and he fired once and Jacob didn't fall down and he pulled the trigger again.

Why did he have to kill him? Why? Two shots. It was just too much. Too much.

He went home for some period of time, came back, um, and took Jacob and took his remains and buried them.

Approximately a year later, he went back to the scene, and he noticed a little part of the red jacket was sticking up. At that point, he determined that he needed to move Jacob, basically walked kitty-corner across the state highway into a farm field, and that's where Jacob remained until— He told us about the location.

He had not killed anybody as far as you know. Why did he kill Jacob?

Finally, we know Danny Heinrich is the confessed murderer of Jacob Wetterling, and for that, he will spend the next 20 years in prison. Why did he kill Jacob? During the interview, he said that he had seen some red lights of a police vehicle going past, and he said that that contributed to his panic and may have influenced his decision to shoot Jacob.

I want to say, Jacob, I'm so sorry. It's incredibly painful to know his last days, last hours, last minutes. I also want to say one huge shout out to Jared and Joy. Jared had the courage to stand up and say, 'This happened to me.' I came here today to remember, uh, the spirit of Jacob.

As As part of the plea deal, Heinrich also admitted in court to Jared's abduction and assault. The case of the Painesville victims, we believe them. Heinrich was never charged in those 8 Painesville incidents.

And because of my anger with the statutes of limitations and the injustice, it just stopped working. It wasn't good. Depression caught up, alcoholism caught up with me. And, uh, one day I just stopped feeling sorry for myself because there's so many others, and who am I to sit there and say, "Woe is me"?

It was important for Jared Shirell to file a civil lawsuit against Danny Heinrich just to get some legal recognition of what he had done, holding somebody accountable.

So he and his lawyer worked hard for a number of years to get to the point where they were heading into the courthouse for the civil hearing.

We are finally coming to the day of the civil hearing here.

I used to work at the front desk at a hotel, so that's why I learned how to do that.

My ex-wife will be testifying today. It'll go good. As well as a friend of mine that was with me the night of my abduction, so kind of give a little more insight to this long journey. Just having that day in court changed my headlines, and then the next day, victim awarded $17.2 million.

He says he knows he won't likely see any of that $17 million judgment, but says that's okay.

I didn't lose. I wasn't denied justice. The pain and suffering was real, and it justified that.

My whole name is Jacob Urban Waterline. Happy birthday!

Hey, Jacob! Happy birthday! You've written a book, Dear Jacob.

Yeah. What led you to want to put your pain out there and to write about it?

Relive it. Everybody has stuff going on in their lives and they're trying to figure out how do you, how do you get through this. Part of me wanted to write to, to share some of what kept us going if it could help another family. But when I go out on the road and they, they show up because Jacob meant something to them and they, they still carry him in his heart and it changed the way they parent and it changed the way their parents parented and it's like he changed the world. It wasn't me, but it was the spirit of who this kid was and what he believed in. And it's still shining.

Dad, does that thing have sound effects?

I think Jacob's legacy is showing that all kids are really awesome and they need every bit of opportunity to flourish to express themselves and to fully do that in a safe way. How was work?

Well, I'm tired after a long day at work.

How would you describe where you are at this moment?

I am a believer in children, and I didn't want our own kids to live fearful, afraid of the world, afraid to go out and to play and to have fun. And so we fought for the world that Jacob knew. I refused to let the man who took Jacob take away anything more. You can't have my marriage. You can't have my kids. You can't have the world of innocence and believing in dreams and going after your full potential. That's really what I have fought for, and I still will. It's the kids.

David, I was struck by how this mom so remarkably was able to turn her pain into action. Patty Wetterling continues to advocate for child safety, honoring her son's memory.

In fact, Deborah, her book Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope, written with blogger Joy Baker, reveals even more of the story, and you can look into it there. Just an incredible story. That's our program for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

I'm David Muir.

And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night. One online predator unleashed hell on his targets.

An internet terrorist.

For the young female gamers he's hunting, there's no getting away.

It was unrelenting.

The cops They just need to figure out who he is and stop him before it's too late. How is he doing all of this? From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is You Are Next, available now on The Binge. Search for You Are Next wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.