20 Years Later, Jodi Huisentruit Search Has Never Ended

[Zoneboy]

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Jodi Huisentruit overslept on the day she disappeared.

On June 27, 1995, when a co-worker at the TV station where she worked in Mason City, Iowa, called to check on her, the 27-year-old Long Prairie, Minn., native said she would be racing to the station and be there in time for her 6 a.m. broadcast.

It was the last anyone heard from Huisentruit.

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, her family, police and a dedicated team of journalists and retired cops continue the quest to solve the cold-case mystery.

"I thought for sure it would be solved within five years. But it just kept going on and on and on, and now it's been 20 years," said JoAnn Nathe, who said the memories of her younger sister haunt her every day.

"We just want to find her. We want to know what happened."

For months, the case dominated the headlines in the Upper Midwest. How could a TV news anchor disappear from a small town in Iowa without a clue?

Mason City police have received thousands of tips on Huisentruit's disappearance over the years, and they continue to trickle in. Police Lt. Rich Jensen said the department still gets one to three a month.

"We expect that with the 20th anniversary, we will get more," Jensen said. "It's like any anniversary -- it stirs people's emotions. We're waiting for the call. We're hoping that there will be a day we're in the courtroom, and somebody will be held accountable."

Huisentruit arrived at CBS affiliate KIMT-TV in Mason City after stints at stations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Alexandria, Minn. She hoped to someday land a TV job in the Twin Cities.

Nathe suspects her sister overslept that morning because she was worn out from playing in a golf tournament the previous day. "Maybe she was just exhausted," said Nathe, who lives in Sauk Centre, Minn.

It was Huisentruit's assistant producer, Amy Kuns, who called her when she didn't arrive at the station.


Kuns said she called two or three times but never got an answer after the first phone call. She ended up producing the show and going on air herself.
"My first gut reaction was just to be mad," said Kuns, who now lives in Clear Lake, Iowa. "I'm like, 'Where the hell is she?' ... I thought she had just gone back to sleep and wasn't answering her phone. Never in a million years did I envision abduction."

Authorities believe someone grabbed Huisentruit shortly after 4 a.m. as she went to her red Mazda Miata in the parking lot of the Key Apartments. Neighbors said they heard a scream about that time and saw a white van in the parking lot.

Police found Huisentruit's red high heels, blow dryer, hair spray and earrings strewn across the lot.

Her bent car key lay on the ground near the Miata, and police believe the young woman was unlocking her car door when she was taken.
An unidentified partial palm print was found on her car, but there were no other substantial clues.

Jensen said Huisentruit's abduction rocked Mason City, a community of 27,700 people.

"People here have a real connection with the local media," the police lieutenant said. "They would turn on the news, in the morning or at noon, and there she was. They didn't know her personally, but they knew her."

A team of journalists and retired police officers -- called FindJodi.com -- is hoping renewed attention on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance will help crack the case.

The team includes former WCCO-TV reporter Caroline Lowe and retired Woodbury police Cmdr. Jay Alberio. The two met last month at Alberio's house in Woodbury to compare notes on convicted serial rapist Tony Dejuan Jackson, someone they believe should be a "person of interest" in the case.

Jackson was 21 at the time of Huisentruit's disappearance and living just two blocks from KIMT-TV -- a fact Lowe and Alberio say can't be overlooked.

"We don't know if he is involved," said Lowe, who worked on the WCCO-TV I-Team investigation on Jackson. "We, to this day, don't know, but if you think of a person living that close who is capable of very violent stuff, he had to be investigated.



Sitting at a computer in Alberio's home office, the two scrolled through a Minneapolis police transcript of an interview with a woman Jackson was convicted of sexually assaulting in 1997. They were searching for a clue that could connect Huisentruit to Jackson, who is serving a life sentence at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Rush City for raping three women that year in Cottage Grove, Inver Grove Heights and St. Paul.

"One of the questions that the detective asked the victim was: 'When you woke up, did he say anything to you?' " said Alberio, who investigated Jackson in connection with a sexual assault in Woodbury. "He said, 'Damn, I thought I killed you,' like he meant to, and he was disappointed that he hadn't."

When Alberio learned Jackson had lived in Mason City, he alerted Mason City police.

"We sent them a file down and said, 'You've got to look at this guy,' " he said. "Based on his m.o., his pattern, we felt that he needed to be looked at."

"You don't wake up one morning and become a serial rapist," Lowe said. "What had gone on before? And one of the cities that popped up was Mason City."

She said that after stories about Jackson's assaults appeared in the media, other possible victims stepped forward.

"We heard from two women in Iowa, including one (in Worth County) that police were skeptical was even a rape," Lowe said. "They went back into their property room and took out a towel that she said had been used during the rape, and Tony's DNA was on there."

While living in Mason City, Lowe said, Jackson attended North Iowa Area Community College and put on a talk show at the Multi-Cultural Student Union.

"One of the things we hoped to find, but never did, was whether we could actually put him at KIMT. Did he ever visit there?" she said. "You look for those connectors. I haven't found it yet, but you never know when one person might have seen something."

In 1996, Jackson was charged with domestic violence in Muscatine, Iowa, but the charges were later dismissed.

"After the charges were dropped, he got his gun back," Lowe said. "Police say he used that same gun in several sexual assaults in the Twin Cities, so you can see why we say he needs to be looked at."

Despite Lowe's and Alberio's suspicions -- and a rap song Jackson made while in the Ramsey County Jail referring to a body buried in Tiffin, Iowa -- Mason City police say no link between the convicted rapist and Huisentruit has ever been found.

"Maybe there is something that eliminates him; we just don't know what it is," Lowe said. "We're not locked into any one person. We're there to keep digging. We're going to continue her journey until we have answers."

Lowe, who now works for KSBY-TV in San Luis Obispo, Calif., recently moved to a part-time investigative reporting job to have more time for her volunteer work on unsolved crimes. She keeps a photo of Huisentruit on her desk next to a photo of Jacob Wetterling, the 11-year-old Minnesota boy abducted at gunpoint in 1989 in St. Joseph.

"I'll be working on this until it's solved," Lowe said.

News anchor Josh Benson, co-founder of the FindJodi.com website, became interested in the Huisentruit case after he went to work at KAAL-TV in Austin, Minn., in 2002. Benson and his news director, Gary Peterson, started the website in 2003.

"We hated the idea of somebody disappearing off the face of the planet and not having any answers," said Benson, now a news anchor for WFLA-TV in Tampa, Fla. "There are tragedies every day, but when you just don't have an answer, when you can't put closure to it, that's probably the worst hell anybody could go through."

But Benson said the FindJodi.com team is "working against the clock."

"The biggest problem is time," he said. "People are passing away -- people who had details regarding the past. We have to get this thing figured out. It just gets harder and harder, and we just don't want to see a 21st anniversary."

Benson hopes Saturday's anniversary, which includes a "Finishing Jodi's Journey" walk from a church near Huisentruit's apartment complex to KIMT-TV, will help revive interest in the case.

"Anniversaries always serve as a way to get people reinvigorated," Benson said. "People start to remember things again.

"Take a look at some of these cases that are being solved thanks to technology and thanks to social media and thanks to people just putting a renewed focus into them."

Benson mentions the case of Cassandra Rhimes, a Minneapolis woman missing for nearly three decades. Her remains were found in May 2014 in Gooseberry Falls State Park in northern Minnesota and identified last month.

"If you just keep fighting and working on it, somebody slips at some point, or somebody dies and leaves a clue, or something happens where someone says, 'Hey, we're too far away from when it happened. I'm in the clear,' and they screw up," he said. "We're waiting for the big screw-up, or to connect the dot that is just sitting there waiting to be connected."

Nathe remembers her sister as the light of her family's life -- someone who liked to play golf, bicycle, boat and in-line skate, who loved to travel and spent college summers working the golf beverage cart at Madden's on Gull Lake in Brainerd, Minn. Someone who made people laugh.

"She brought so much joy to the family," Nathe said. "She was just our sunshine."

Nathe said it breaks her heart that their mother, Imogene, died last December at age 91 without knowing what happened to Jodi.

"She so wanted to find Jodi."

Mary Divine can be reached at 651-228-5443. Follow her at twitter.com/MaryEDivine.


WALK FOR JODI

"Finishing Jodi's Journey," a walk to remember missing TV news anchor Jodi Huisentruit, will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at Riverside Friends Church in Mason City, Iowa. Participants will walk from the church, which is across the street from the apartment complex where Huisentruit lived, to KIMT-TV, the TV station where she worked. For more information, contact team@findjodi.com or call 970-458-JODI.



IF YOU GO

"Finishing Jodi's Journey," a walk to remember missing TV news anchor Jodi Huisentruit, will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at Riverside Friends Church in Mason City, Iowa. Participants will walk from the church, which is across the street from the apartment complex where Huisentruit lived, to KIMT-TV, the TV station where she worked. For more information, contact team@findjodi.com or call 970-458-JODI.

[Victoria81]

I remember this segment and the 20/20 one. This always scared me. Seems like someone would have seen or heard something..

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by Victoria81

I remember this segment and the 20/20 one. This always scared me. Seems like someone would have seen or heard something..

They did. They heard a scream.

I'm not sure if there will ever be an eyewitness. The abduction took place at 4am in a tiny town in the Midwest. The majority of the tiny population was in bed...

It bothers me. This is in my personal "Top 10" of UM cases.

[Victoria81]

Mine too and I didn't remember the scream! Wow.

[mikewho]

This case is such a mystery with very little clues and maybe just an ear witness. Hopefully they will solve it. Were there any foreign fingerprints found on her car or keys etc?

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by mikewho

Were there any foreign fingerprints found on her car or keys etc?

I haven't read all that has been discussed in this case but my best guess is that Jodi's fingerprints would be the only ones on the keys unless someone else had a reason for using them such as a mechanic. If the alleged kidnapper wasn't wearing gloves, there would no reason to touch the keys unless he wanted to steal the car and that would require an accomplice if in fact a white van was involved. The way I see it as that the person or persons had only one interest and that was Jodi, not the car.

[WishfulDreamer]

Here's hoping this will be solved soon, hopefully before the 21st anniversary.

The older man mentioned in the Disappeared segment is an interesting factor. I'd like to know if they ever got a palm print from him, but I doubt it.

[wonderwall]

Part of me wonders if it was a random act of violence, but I think somebody was waiting for her. But then again, she slept in and came outside late, but I guess somebody waiting would have known she would need to come out eventually.

I think the theories around the older man are interesting, but I also find it intriguing she was investigating the death of a friend she believed to be murdered but was ruled a suicide. Maybe she uncovered something?

I have the book about her (Dead Air), but I haven't been able to finish it due to grad school. Maybe I will try to start it back up. Hope some day there is closure on this one.

[MissFit29]

I still think it was the male friend that was a little older than Jodi....it seemed like he was more interested in her than she was in him. I think there's an article in another thread that said he named his boat after her. That was a red flag for me.

[JC1957]

Originally Posted by MissFit29

I still think it was the male friend that was a little older than Jodi....it seemed like he was more interested in her than she was in him. I think there's an article in another thread that said he named his boat after her. That was a red flag for me.

Didn't he move away from the Mason City area shortly thereafter (to Arizona maybe?) And doesn't he refuse to talk to the media about the incident?

[WishfulDreamer]

Originally Posted by JC1957

Didn't he move away from the Mason City area shortly thereafter (to Arizona maybe?) And doesn't he refuse to talk to the media about the incident?

He also started speaking about her in past tense when she had been missing for less than a day.

If you view the disappeared episode (on the forbidden site), it talks about how he liked her romantically while she viewed him as a friend. He was also extremely hostile toward Jodi's sister when she asked innocent questions.

I view him as a suspicious individual. He would have known Jodi's schedule, and they layout of her apartment complex. The segment mentions that Jodi and her friends liked to get men to buy them drinks and would be flirtatious. I think, unfortunately, he may have latched on and developed an obsession for her. It also could have been another person whom she didn't know, but this guy bugs me.

[JC1957]

Originally Posted by WishfulDreamer

He also started speaking about her in past tense when she had been missing for less than a day.

If you view the disappeared episode (on the forbidden site), it talks about how he liked her romantically while she viewed him as a friend. He was also extremely hostile toward Jodi's sister when she asked innocent questions.

I view him as a suspicious individual. He would have known Jodi's schedule, and they layout of her apartment complex. The segment mentions that Jodi and her friends liked to get men to buy them drinks and would be flirtatious. I think, unfortunately, he may have latched on and developed an obsession for her. It also could have been another person whom she didn't know, but this guy bugs me.

Yeah, he bugs me too. A lot. I think the authorities need to investigate this guy much further. Also I think who ever did this had help. One person most likely could not have pulled this off so quickly and got away before being spotted by the neighbors.

[dynoguy88]

The neighbor might have had a crush on her, but I have my doubts it was him. I always thought the simplest and most plausible explanation was some resident nut that watched her on the news every day became obsessed with her and ended up abducting her, plain and simple.

It would have been extremely easy for an obsessed fan to take her. She lived in a very tiny apartment complex that was not gated. Anyone could come and go from that building as they pleased. The news station she worked at was not remote. A stranger could easily stake it out, follow her home one day so he knew where she lived and what her routine schedule was. Her having to leave for work at 3:00 in the morning every day made her a sitting duck because the chances of any witnesses being awake at that time of morning are slim. Sadly, all of these factors would have made it easy to pull off an abduction. The fact that she overslept that morning by an hour did not dissuade this man. He was patient and waited for her. THAT'S how obsessed he was with carrying out his plan.

I believe this is why there has been no major leads, or anything real of note for the last 20 years. Because the police never had a starting point to investigate, outside the neighbor.

[WishfulDreamer]

Originally Posted by dynoguy88

Her having to leave for work at 3:00 in the morning every day made her a sitting duck because the chances of any witnesses being awake at that time of morning are slim. Sadly, all of these factors would have made it easy to pull off an abduction. The fact that she overslept that morning by an hour did not dissuade this man. He was patient and waited for her. THAT'S how obsessed he was with carrying out his plan.

I also think this possibly helped him grab her more easily. Jodi was very guarded and concerned for her safety. I imagine that she looked over her shoulder a lot when walking to her car in the dark. But that morning, because she was late and didn't feel well, I bet she just hurried to her car without really looking around, allowing him to sneak up on her from behind.

[dynoguy88]

Originally Posted by WishfulDreamer

I also think this possibly helped him grab her more easily. Jodi was very guarded and concerned for her safety. I imagine that she looked over her shoulder a lot when walking to her car in the dark. But that morning, because she was late and didn't feel well, I bet she just hurried to her car without really looking around, allowing him to sneak up on her from behind.

Her car was parked barely 20 feet from her front door....



...that means he had to have waited by that door for her for almost the entire hour. He had a window of probably no more than ten seconds to grab her. THAT was how dedicated he was to getting her, which is creepy on a whole new level.

Honestly, I'm surprised there are not more cases like Jodi. Two years ago, I did an internship at one of the local new stations in downtown Detroit and I got to personally meet several news anchors. I considered them such huge celebrities because I saw them on TV every day. I was surprised to learn that most of them don't live in huge mansions or in elegant gated communities. The majority of them live in your typical middle class houses or apartment complexes like Jodi did. And being local celebrities, word of mouth has to travel fast of where you live or the typical hangouts you're usually seen at. Creepy stalkers are going to have easy access to you. So that has to be a sad reality check in the back of your head if you decide to go into journalism.

Sadly, Jodi was a perfect target in an awful situation for some creepy stranger she probably never met. It's very tragic.