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Monday, October 22, 2012
The Jacob Wetterling Resource Center is asking people to leave their porch lights on to honor the St. Joseph boy abducted 23 years ago today Jacob was 11 when he was abducted on Oct. 22, 1989, by a masked gunman along a rural road. He hasn't been seen since and the case remains unsolved.
The Jacob Wetterling Resource Center is asking people to leave their porch lights on to honor the St. Joseph boy abducted 23 years ago today
Jacob was 11 when he was abducted on Oct. 22, 1989, by a masked gunman along a rural road. He hasn't been seen since and the case remains unsolved.
Every Oct. 22, the resource center that bears his name asks individuals to leave a porch light on to rememb
— with Dolly Russo.Jacob was 11 when he was abducted on Oct. 22, 1989, by a masked gunman along a rural road. He hasn't been seen since and the case remains unsolved.
Every Oct. 22, the resource center that bears his name asks individuals to leave a porch light on to rememb
er Jacob. This year, the center is also asking people to honor all missing children by talking to others about child safety.
The resource center was founded in 1990, originally as the Jacob Wetterling Foundation. It merged with the National Child Protection Training Center in 2010 with the goal of ensuring every child grows up safely.
All Jacob Wetterling wanted to do was rent a video. At age 11 he was savvy enough to know that if mom said no, dad just might say yes.
Jacob’s parents, Jerry and Patty, had left their house in St. Joseph, Minn. to attend a dinner party in nearby Clearwater Minnesota . Jacob stayed behind to watch over his two younger siblings, Trevor, 10, and Carmen, 8. Jacob’s friend, Aaron Larson, age 11, joined the group.
It was a warm and overcast Sunday night in St. Joseph, population 2,200. Trevor Wetterling was the first to telephone about getting permission to go rent a video from the Tom Thumb convenience store. Trevor figured he had a chance of getting mom’s okay. The store was only a ten-minute bike ride away, and besides, it wasn’t even a school night because of a teachers’ conference the next day. Trevor’s pitch failed. Patty Wetterling was worried about drivers not being able to see the boys on the dark stretch of country road.
Now it was Jacob’s turn. He called his dad. The boys had revised their plan. Trevor would carry a flashlight, Aaron would wear a white sweatshirt and Jacob would wear his father’s orange reflective jogging vest. And a 14-year-old neighbor would babysit for Carmen. The plan seemed sound to Jerry.
More important perhaps was that Jerry knew October 22, 1989 had been a tough one for Jake. His son had skated poorly at hockey tryouts for his youth league in nearby St. Cloud.
Later, Jerry Wetterling would recall a moment from that day that could lend support to the stalker theory. That afternoon, Jerry and his two sons were skating at the hockey tryout. There were about 20 spectators. Suddenly, Jacob slipped out of sight. “It was very strange but very real,” Jerry remembered. “I had this sense of danger for Jacob. I can almost point to the spot on the ice where it happened to this day.” Jerry found Jacob, and the ominous feeling soon passed, but in retrospect, he said, “It prompted me to wonder if possibly the abductor had been in the ice arena at that time, in a sense looking at Jacob or stalking him.”
Renting a comedy might be just the thing to lift Jacob’s spirits. Jerry decided to allow Jacob and Trevor to ride to the Tom Thumb. It was the first time the two boys had permission to ride after sundown.
About halfway through their mile-long trip, Aaron heard a rustle in the tall grass by the road: ”A little shiver went through me,” he said. “I didn’t know if it was a person or an animal, but I kind of sped up. I don’t know if Trevor or Jacob even heard it. … It was just a strange noise that shouldn’t be there.” Not wanting the others to know he was scared, he said nothing.
They arrived at the store near 9 p.m. For 10 or 15 minutes, they studied the videos, renting “Naked Gun” because their first choice, “Major League,” was checked out.
After buying some candy, the boys headed home. At about 9:15 p.m. Jacob, Trevor and Aaron were making their way back from the store, videotape in hand. The older boys were on bikes; Trevor was on a push scooter. As they approached a particularly dark stretch of the road (near the same spot where Aaron had heard the strange noise), where a long gravel driveway led to a farm, suddenly the flashlight held by Trevor picked up a figure moving from the driveway into the road in front of them. Uncertain, the boys slowed. “Stop!“ ordered a burly man with a harsh, raspy voice who stood before them pointing a pistol. “Turn off that flashlight. I have a gun.” The boys saw that his face was covered by black nylon stockings.
“The first thing I remember was the flash of the gun, and a guy saying, ‘Stop, I have a gun,’” Aaron recalled. “I caught my breath. I thought it was a high school kid pulling a joke on us. … Then it hits you: this is happening, it’s no joke.”
Then the man ordered the boys to dump their bikes and scooter and to lie face down in the ditch along the road. Aaron remembers his heart “going 1,000 beats a minute,” but having no clue what was happening. “You didn’t hear about people being kidnapped or abducted. It didn’t cross my mind.”
He first leaned down, looked closely at Trevor’s face and demanded his age. “Ten,” Trevor said. The man then asked Aaron the same question “eleven,” Aaron answered. Brandishing the gun, the man turned to Jacob and ordered him to give his age. Jacob said that he was 11.
Then the gunman demanded that Trevor get up and run as fast as he can into the woods. Trevor was not gone that long, maybe 10 seconds when the man waved his pistol at Aaron and yelled, “Run to the woods as fast as you can, and don’t look back or I’ll shoot!”
Aaron ran as fast as he could to catch up to Trevor. After running 100 yards, Aaron looked back — and saw nothing but darkness (other accounts of the story say Aaron witnessed the gunman grab Jacob by the elbow of his red St. Cloud hockey jacket, leading him away into the darkness).
Frantic, the boys ran to the Wetterling house. The babysitter called her father, who called 911.
TEN MONTHS EARLIER: Jared’s story begins on a winter night in Cold Spring, Minnesota. It was Friday, January 13, 1989 (9:45 p.m). Jared was just 12 years old when he began the four block walk back to his home from the hockey rink where he had been skating with two friends when a man pulled up alongside him on the road and asked for directions.
As Jared was giving those brief instructions the man stepped out of the vehicle, approached him from behind, then proceeded to grab Jared by the shoulders and forced him down into the backseat of the car (he also forced Jared to pull his winter cap down over his eyes). Although Jared did not see a gun, the man claimed he had one and stated that he “wasn’t afraid to use it”.
The man drove Jared about 5 miles to an area north of Richmond where he molested him for 3 hours. (Jared was later able to lead authorities to the location where he was sexually assaulted when he recognized a distinctive light at a nearby farm. “Where you see the silo there, there was a distinguished light I remember from that night while I was looking out the window,” Jared recalled. ) After the assault, the man took Jared’s blue jeans and his underwear and left the boy to put his snow pants over the naked lower half of his body.
While driving him back to town, the abductor kept questioning Jared about whether or not the boy could identify him.
Jared says once back near town, the man pulled him from the back seat and told him to run.
“And don’t look back or he threatened to shoot, ” Jared said. “I did as I was told.”
The man drove Jared about 5 miles to an area north of Richmond where he molested him for 3 hours.
Jared’s mother, also spoke about that January night: “When he walked in the door, I knew something was wrong just by the way he looked – in shock, pale and stuttering,” she remembers. “He kept trying to say ‘a guy, a guy,’ and he kept saying that. And he finally got that out and I said, ‘Jared, we need to talk. Police were at Jared’s home within minutes after his return. He was taken to a local hospital for tests throughout the night.
During the 3 hour ordeal, Jared did see the mans face and was able to give a description which produced a sketch. The drawing of the prime suspect resembled an earlier sketch of a man wanted for questioning for following or otherwise bothering youngsters in the area.
In the Cold Spring incident, the suspect was described as being 40 to 50 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall with husky shoulders. He spoke with a low, raspy voice in a bold, authoritative manner. The man wore a green military-style camouflage shirt and pants, black boots, a gray vest and a brown baseball cap. He drove a dark blue, newer model four-door car similar to a Chevrolet Celebrity.
READ MORE AT: http://
Julie Nelson interviews Wetterling 'person of interest'
For 21 years Dan Rassier has lived under a cloud of suspicion. He has been called, by police, a person of interest in the Jacob Wetterling case.
Julie Nelson sat down with the 54-year-old, who lives with his parents on the family farm in St. Joseph. Rassier described himself as an avid runner and hard worker.
"I keep myself very busy and on task, probably too much of the time," said Rassier.
Rassier has also been busy over the years defending his innocence in connection to Jacob Wetterling's disappearance.
"Why do you think they've kept you as a person of interest for so long in the Jacob Wetterling case?" asks Nelson.
"I'm single, living at home with my parents, some people see that as a mark of failure," said Rassier. "I don't have a good alibi," he added.
Rassier was home alone on October 22, 1989, the night a masked gunman appeared by the mailbox of the Rassier farm and ordered Jacob off his bike. Rassier remembers that day.
"One of my memories is it was just a splendid day for running," he said.
Rassier claims that is what he did the day Jacob went missing. He also says he was updating the index cards he used to organize his record collection.
"I was typing on those cards basically most of the day, if I wasn't outside running," said Rassier.
He doesn't remember what time he went to bed, but says he does remember waking up to the family dog barking.
"And being alone and thinking, well, I better check this out, and there are flashlights in the woods by our woodpiles. I really pretty much panicked. I had no idea what was going on," said Rassier.
Much has been made of what Rassier did after that. Some news reports said he just went back to bed. Rassier, however, says he went outside, grabbed a flashlight, and searched all the outbuildings on the farm.
"I did quite a bit of searching...Did I sleep? I did eventually go to sleep but at that point it was like, what can I do? I remember getting back out of bed and going, wow, now they're down in the gravel pit with a spotlight and thinking, Should I go down there? But, I didn't. I regret that."
The next day investigators pulled Rassier, a music teacher in the Rocori School District, out of his classroom.
"When they checked my car out I remember thinking, Wow, maybe I'm not a witness," he said.
"What did you think when you realized they're looking at me?" asked Nelson.
"I remember thinking, well, they have to check me out. I mean, that's alright, yeah," said Rassier.
Twenty-one years later and police are still checking out Dan Rassier. He says he willingly submitted a DNA sample, took a lie detector test, and even underwent hypnosis. He does not know the results of those tests, but knows his family thinks he's been too forthcoming.
"Part of my problem, and my family would agree with this, is I've been too willing to give them information," he said.
"And your reason for that is?" asked Nelson.
"I have nothing to hide and I want them to solve the case," he replied.
"Did you have anything to do with Jacob's disappearance?" asked Nelson.
"The easy answer is to say, I have absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling. I can't even believe it's being talked about 21 years ago. I've been trying to help solve the case for 21 years. My problem is I cannot prove with physical evidence and witnesses that I did not do it," said Rassier.
Tuesday at 10 p.m.
Dan Rassier talks about his face to face conversation with Jacob's mother Patty Wetterling.
"She wanted to have really direct answers eye to eye with me. As you know about me, I like to joke around and was it a prank that went bad, close to Halloween? And, I assured her, no. I think she asked that a number of times. 'Did you do it?' and the answer is, no. No. No."
View Part Two: Julie Nelson's conversation with Dan Rassier at:http://www.kare11.com/
The resource center was founded in 1990, originally as the Jacob Wetterling Foundation. It merged with the National Child Protection Training Center in 2010 with the goal of ensuring every child grows up safely.
All Jacob Wetterling wanted to do was rent a video. At age 11 he was savvy enough to know that if mom said no, dad just might say yes.
Jacob’s parents, Jerry and Patty, had left their house in St. Joseph, Minn. to attend a dinner party in nearby Clearwater Minnesota . Jacob stayed behind to watch over his two younger siblings, Trevor, 10, and Carmen, 8. Jacob’s friend, Aaron Larson, age 11, joined the group.
It was a warm and overcast Sunday night in St. Joseph, population 2,200. Trevor Wetterling was the first to telephone about getting permission to go rent a video from the Tom Thumb convenience store. Trevor figured he had a chance of getting mom’s okay. The store was only a ten-minute bike ride away, and besides, it wasn’t even a school night because of a teachers’ conference the next day. Trevor’s pitch failed. Patty Wetterling was worried about drivers not being able to see the boys on the dark stretch of country road.
Now it was Jacob’s turn. He called his dad. The boys had revised their plan. Trevor would carry a flashlight, Aaron would wear a white sweatshirt and Jacob would wear his father’s orange reflective jogging vest. And a 14-year-old neighbor would babysit for Carmen. The plan seemed sound to Jerry.
More important perhaps was that Jerry knew October 22, 1989 had been a tough one for Jake. His son had skated poorly at hockey tryouts for his youth league in nearby St. Cloud.
Later, Jerry Wetterling would recall a moment from that day that could lend support to the stalker theory. That afternoon, Jerry and his two sons were skating at the hockey tryout. There were about 20 spectators. Suddenly, Jacob slipped out of sight. “It was very strange but very real,” Jerry remembered. “I had this sense of danger for Jacob. I can almost point to the spot on the ice where it happened to this day.” Jerry found Jacob, and the ominous feeling soon passed, but in retrospect, he said, “It prompted me to wonder if possibly the abductor had been in the ice arena at that time, in a sense looking at Jacob or stalking him.”
Renting a comedy might be just the thing to lift Jacob’s spirits. Jerry decided to allow Jacob and Trevor to ride to the Tom Thumb. It was the first time the two boys had permission to ride after sundown.
About halfway through their mile-long trip, Aaron heard a rustle in the tall grass by the road: ”A little shiver went through me,” he said. “I didn’t know if it was a person or an animal, but I kind of sped up. I don’t know if Trevor or Jacob even heard it. … It was just a strange noise that shouldn’t be there.” Not wanting the others to know he was scared, he said nothing.
They arrived at the store near 9 p.m. For 10 or 15 minutes, they studied the videos, renting “Naked Gun” because their first choice, “Major League,” was checked out.
After buying some candy, the boys headed home. At about 9:15 p.m. Jacob, Trevor and Aaron were making their way back from the store, videotape in hand. The older boys were on bikes; Trevor was on a push scooter. As they approached a particularly dark stretch of the road (near the same spot where Aaron had heard the strange noise), where a long gravel driveway led to a farm, suddenly the flashlight held by Trevor picked up a figure moving from the driveway into the road in front of them. Uncertain, the boys slowed. “Stop!“ ordered a burly man with a harsh, raspy voice who stood before them pointing a pistol. “Turn off that flashlight. I have a gun.” The boys saw that his face was covered by black nylon stockings.
“The first thing I remember was the flash of the gun, and a guy saying, ‘Stop, I have a gun,’” Aaron recalled. “I caught my breath. I thought it was a high school kid pulling a joke on us. … Then it hits you: this is happening, it’s no joke.”
Then the man ordered the boys to dump their bikes and scooter and to lie face down in the ditch along the road. Aaron remembers his heart “going 1,000 beats a minute,” but having no clue what was happening. “You didn’t hear about people being kidnapped or abducted. It didn’t cross my mind.”
He first leaned down, looked closely at Trevor’s face and demanded his age. “Ten,” Trevor said. The man then asked Aaron the same question “eleven,” Aaron answered. Brandishing the gun, the man turned to Jacob and ordered him to give his age. Jacob said that he was 11.
Then the gunman demanded that Trevor get up and run as fast as he can into the woods. Trevor was not gone that long, maybe 10 seconds when the man waved his pistol at Aaron and yelled, “Run to the woods as fast as you can, and don’t look back or I’ll shoot!”
Aaron ran as fast as he could to catch up to Trevor. After running 100 yards, Aaron looked back — and saw nothing but darkness (other accounts of the story say Aaron witnessed the gunman grab Jacob by the elbow of his red St. Cloud hockey jacket, leading him away into the darkness).
Frantic, the boys ran to the Wetterling house. The babysitter called her father, who called 911.
TEN MONTHS EARLIER: Jared’s story begins on a winter night in Cold Spring, Minnesota. It was Friday, January 13, 1989 (9:45 p.m). Jared was just 12 years old when he began the four block walk back to his home from the hockey rink where he had been skating with two friends when a man pulled up alongside him on the road and asked for directions.
As Jared was giving those brief instructions the man stepped out of the vehicle, approached him from behind, then proceeded to grab Jared by the shoulders and forced him down into the backseat of the car (he also forced Jared to pull his winter cap down over his eyes). Although Jared did not see a gun, the man claimed he had one and stated that he “wasn’t afraid to use it”.
The man drove Jared about 5 miles to an area north of Richmond where he molested him for 3 hours. (Jared was later able to lead authorities to the location where he was sexually assaulted when he recognized a distinctive light at a nearby farm. “Where you see the silo there, there was a distinguished light I remember from that night while I was looking out the window,” Jared recalled. ) After the assault, the man took Jared’s blue jeans and his underwear and left the boy to put his snow pants over the naked lower half of his body.
While driving him back to town, the abductor kept questioning Jared about whether or not the boy could identify him.
Jared says once back near town, the man pulled him from the back seat and told him to run.
“And don’t look back or he threatened to shoot, ” Jared said. “I did as I was told.”
The man drove Jared about 5 miles to an area north of Richmond where he molested him for 3 hours.
Jared’s mother, also spoke about that January night: “When he walked in the door, I knew something was wrong just by the way he looked – in shock, pale and stuttering,” she remembers. “He kept trying to say ‘a guy, a guy,’ and he kept saying that. And he finally got that out and I said, ‘Jared, we need to talk. Police were at Jared’s home within minutes after his return. He was taken to a local hospital for tests throughout the night.
During the 3 hour ordeal, Jared did see the mans face and was able to give a description which produced a sketch. The drawing of the prime suspect resembled an earlier sketch of a man wanted for questioning for following or otherwise bothering youngsters in the area.
In the Cold Spring incident, the suspect was described as being 40 to 50 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall with husky shoulders. He spoke with a low, raspy voice in a bold, authoritative manner. The man wore a green military-style camouflage shirt and pants, black boots, a gray vest and a brown baseball cap. He drove a dark blue, newer model four-door car similar to a Chevrolet Celebrity.
READ MORE AT: http://
Julie Nelson interviews Wetterling 'person of interest'
For 21 years Dan Rassier has lived under a cloud of suspicion. He has been called, by police, a person of interest in the Jacob Wetterling case.
Julie Nelson sat down with the 54-year-old, who lives with his parents on the family farm in St. Joseph. Rassier described himself as an avid runner and hard worker.
"I keep myself very busy and on task, probably too much of the time," said Rassier.
Rassier has also been busy over the years defending his innocence in connection to Jacob Wetterling's disappearance.
"Why do you think they've kept you as a person of interest for so long in the Jacob Wetterling case?" asks Nelson.
"I'm single, living at home with my parents, some people see that as a mark of failure," said Rassier. "I don't have a good alibi," he added.
Rassier was home alone on October 22, 1989, the night a masked gunman appeared by the mailbox of the Rassier farm and ordered Jacob off his bike. Rassier remembers that day.
"One of my memories is it was just a splendid day for running," he said.
Rassier claims that is what he did the day Jacob went missing. He also says he was updating the index cards he used to organize his record collection.
"I was typing on those cards basically most of the day, if I wasn't outside running," said Rassier.
He doesn't remember what time he went to bed, but says he does remember waking up to the family dog barking.
"And being alone and thinking, well, I better check this out, and there are flashlights in the woods by our woodpiles. I really pretty much panicked. I had no idea what was going on," said Rassier.
Much has been made of what Rassier did after that. Some news reports said he just went back to bed. Rassier, however, says he went outside, grabbed a flashlight, and searched all the outbuildings on the farm.
"I did quite a bit of searching...Did I sleep? I did eventually go to sleep but at that point it was like, what can I do? I remember getting back out of bed and going, wow, now they're down in the gravel pit with a spotlight and thinking, Should I go down there? But, I didn't. I regret that."
The next day investigators pulled Rassier, a music teacher in the Rocori School District, out of his classroom.
"When they checked my car out I remember thinking, Wow, maybe I'm not a witness," he said.
"What did you think when you realized they're looking at me?" asked Nelson.
"I remember thinking, well, they have to check me out. I mean, that's alright, yeah," said Rassier.
Twenty-one years later and police are still checking out Dan Rassier. He says he willingly submitted a DNA sample, took a lie detector test, and even underwent hypnosis. He does not know the results of those tests, but knows his family thinks he's been too forthcoming.
"Part of my problem, and my family would agree with this, is I've been too willing to give them information," he said.
"And your reason for that is?" asked Nelson.
"I have nothing to hide and I want them to solve the case," he replied.
"Did you have anything to do with Jacob's disappearance?" asked Nelson.
"The easy answer is to say, I have absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling. I can't even believe it's being talked about 21 years ago. I've been trying to help solve the case for 21 years. My problem is I cannot prove with physical evidence and witnesses that I did not do it," said Rassier.
Tuesday at 10 p.m.
Dan Rassier talks about his face to face conversation with Jacob's mother Patty Wetterling.
"She wanted to have really direct answers eye to eye with me. As you know about me, I like to joke around and was it a prank that went bad, close to Halloween? And, I assured her, no. I think she asked that a number of times. 'Did you do it?' and the answer is, no. No. No."
View Part Two: Julie Nelson's conversation with Dan Rassier at:http://www.kare11.com/
10/22/2012: Clayton, New Jersey: Please share to help find Autumn Pasquale (age 12) missing from Clayton, New Jersey since 10/20/2012. Article: Police are searching for a missing girl from Clayton, New Jersey. Police say Autumn Pasquale, 12, was last seen leaving her home on W. High Street in Clayton on Saturday around 12:30 p.m. while riding on a white Odyssey BMX bike. The girl’s parents reported her missing at 9:30 p.m.
ALISSA DID MATTER! Prosecutor Jeff Wible and Judge J Scott VanDerbeck's actions showed that they didn't think so. Releasing her murderer in 77 DAYS showed us that Alissa did not matter to them. We are here to make sure Christy Shaffer pays for what she did to this beautiful child. We are here to say that SHE DID MATTER! ALISSA'S ARMY WILL NOT STOP UNTIL JUSTICE IS DONE!
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