Stearns County Sheriff Slams Wetterling Abduction Investigation

STEARNS COUNTY, MN - Stearns County Sheriff Don Gudmundson issued a searing condemnation of the investigation of the Jacob Wetterling abduction on Thursday, particularly the FBI involvement in the case. The sheriff held a press conference to release thousands of investigative files in the abduction case.

Gudmundson provided details on missed leads by the investigative task force and criticized how the FBI handled the investigation. He said the investigation "went off the rails" almost from the start.

"The task force was not only on the wrong path, but the wrong freeway," he said.

The sheriff also said the FBI should release its files on the abduction investigation, which he called the "most famous murder mystery in the history of Minnesota." Stearns County released more than 41,000 pages of the case file Thursday. The FBI pulled about 12,500 pages from the file after a judge ordered that they be returned to the agency.

"The right hand literally did not know what the left hand was doing. There are huge time gaps between interview, investigation, dictation and transcription," the sheriff said of the task force investigation. "Sometimes more than a month on important reports like search warrants. These time gaps are most prevalent in FBI reports.''

The remains of 11-year-old Jacob, who disappeared in the small Minnesota town of St. Joseph in 1989, were found 27 years later in Paynesville.

Here are some of the criticisms that the sheriff leveled against the task force.

• Daniel Heinrich, who confessed in U.S. District Court in 2016 that he abducted and murdered Jacob on Oct. 22, 1989, should have been the prime suspect much earlier in the investigation.
• Descriptions of the suspect in earlier abductions in the cities of Paynesville and Cold Spring fit Heinrich.
• Tire tracks taken from the Jacob Wetterling abduction scene fit tires on Heinrich's car.
• Shoes that Heinrich wore fit shoe prints taken from the abduction scene
• Investigators found that Heinrich kept a police scanner in his car. Boys abducted in earlier cases said the suspect had a police scanner in his car.
• Heinrich was a member of the National Guard. The boys said the suspect wore military-type clothing.
• The sheriff was highly critical of the FBI's involvement in the case, saying state and local investigators had more experience with homicide cases, but the FBI took control of the investigation despite their agents lack of experience. He called this the "most fatal flaw" in the investigation.
• Gudmundson said the investigative file had a thousand pages detailing irrelevant and redundant information. He added that manpower was squandered.
• Investigators found photos of partially clothed boys in Heinrich's trunk. "Inexplicably these photos are not confiscated," the sheriff said.
• Heinrich was part of a police lineup in 1990. A boy abducted in Cold Spring did not pick him out of the lineup. But none of the other abduction victims from Paynesville or the boys with Jacob when he was abducted were brought to the lineup.
• Heinrich was arrested at a bar in Roscoe in February 1990, a few months after Jacob went missing in October 1989. The sheriff said it was a "serious mistake" to arrest someone who has been drinking. He said Heinrich was believed to be drunk at the time of the arrest.
• In 1990, Heinrich failed a lie detector test, telling investigators he was nervous.
• For more than 20 years, there was no mention of Heinrich in the investigative files, the sheriff said.

"We can't change what's happened, but we can learn from it," the sheriff said.

“We believe you will find the most important information is in the first part of the files, where the investigation went off the rails,” Gudmundson said.

The sheriff asked retired detectives if they ever thought of going back and taking another look at Heinrich as a suspect. “Answer: No,” the sheriff added.

Former FBI agent Al Garber, who was head of the Wetterling task force, called Gudmundson’s comments on the investigation “unfair,” according to media reports. Garber took issue with Gudmundson's statements. "Don wasn't there. He didn't see the day-to-day operations," he said.

In October 2015, Heinrich was arrested and charged with possessing and receiving child pornography. These charges were pivotal to authorities striking a two-part agreement with Heinrich.

The first part of the deal with Heinrich was that he show authorities the location of Wetterling's remains and confess what he did to him. The second part was that he plead guilty to a child pornography charge and admit that he abducted and assaulted Jared Scheierl in Cold Spring, Minnesota, nine months before Heinrich killed Jacob.

Heinrich couldn't be charged in Scheirel's case because the statute of limitations had expired, but the plea deal required Heinrich to publicly confess to the assault of the boy.

As part of the deal, Heinrich did not face state murder charges in connection with Jacob’s death. The family approved the plea agreement, according to media reports.

The release of the investigative files were required by Minnesota law.

In June 2017, Jacob's parents, Jerry and Patty Wetterling, filed suit to keep portions of the file private that contained personal family information.

Wetterling's attorney, Doug Kelly, said at the time that Jacob's parents asked a judge to review a "less than three one-thousandths of 1 percent" of the investigation file.

Media organizations asked the court to deny the Wetterling's request. Among others, the request for a legal intervention against the Wetterlings' motion was filed by:

• The Minnesota Newspaper Association
• The Minnesota Broadcasters Association
• The Silha Center for Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota
• The Minnesota Coalition on Government Information
• Media organizations including KSTP, Minnesota Public Radio, and the Pioneer Press

In April, a Minnesota judge ruled in favor of the media.

The Wetterling family released a statement on Wednesday. Here is the statement:

"Tomorrow, the investigative file in the search for Jacob will be released. It is difficult for us to relive those dark days. With time, our family is healing and getting stronger and we appreciate all of the efforts to make things better for future victims of crime, their families and for all of us. Our hearts hurt for anyone who is pained or hurt from the release of this file. Clearly, changes are still needed.

Hug your children,

Tell them how unique and special they are,

Say a prayer

Light a candle

Hold hands

Be with friends and

Always hope."

RELATED STORY: The Jacob Wetterling Story: What Went Wrong

Sign Up For Patch's Daily Newsletter and Breaking News Alerts in Your Neighborhood

Image: MissingKids.Org, used with permission