Update: September 3, 2016 … Dan Rassier Exonerated

Danny Heinrich Confesses to Jacob Wetterling Kidnapping, Assault, and Murder

Danny Heinrich in federal court confessing to the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling. (Sketch: Nancy Muellner / KARE 11)

On Friday, July 2, 2010 Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner described 54-year-old music teacher Dan Rassier as a “person of interest” in the abduction of Jacob Wetterling at the end of the Rassier driveway on the evening of Oct. 22, 1989.

Dan Rassier

In a telephone interview with the St. Cloud Times, Rassier said investigators have interviewed him “numerous times” about Jacob’s disappearance. He told the Times he has submitted to a polygraph test, hypnosis, and DNA sampling.

As reported by the Times, Rassier said, “I had absolutely nothing to do with anything with Jacob. … “I didn’t do it. I had nothing to do with it.” (“Sheriff: Rassier ‘person of interest’ in Wetterling case” by Kari Petrie and David Unze, St. Cloud Times, July 3, 2010)

News media stake out the approach to the driveway of the Rassier farmstead in St. Joseph Township, Minn., July 1, 2010. The entrance to the property is blocked by a Stearns County Sheriff’s Department squad car during an excavation and warrant search in which “a number of items” were seized, according to Sheriff John Sanner. (Photo: Aubrey Immelman)

According to Rassier, the negative media exposure has made him the subject of threatening e-mails and death threats, which he has reported to law enforcement authorities.

Stearns County sheriff’s deputies control access to the Rassier farmstead in St. Joseph Township, Minn., while search warrants are being executed on the property in the Jacob Wetterling kidnapping investigation, July 1, 2010. (Photo: Aubrey Immelman)

————————————————————

Criminal Investigative Analysis

On the face of it, investigators’ working theory — that Jacob was taken by an opportunistic offender on foot — seems plausible. The abduction site is in an isolated rural area on a dead-end road; it’s unlikely that a planful, premeditated offender would have trolled the area for a victim.

Dan Rassier, the “person of interest,” certainly had the opportunity — being home alone at the time of the abduction and plausibly having observed Jacob, his friend Aaron Larson, and his brother Trevor passing his home (on their way to the nearby Tom Thumb convenience store to rent a video) and knowing they would have to return the same way.

But while Rassier may have had the opportunity, his motive for taking Jacob is unclear. The conventional wisdom in nonfamily stranger abductions is that the motive invariably is sexual. However, I’ve been unable to find any evidence that Rassier is a pedophile or a sex offender.

Sidebar: St. Cloud Times online reader comments

guitar01 wrote:
I’ve known Dan my whole life, I took lessons from him a few years and he is a good friend of mine. I have been in contact with Dan since Thursday and him [sic] and his family are going through HELL. Imagine if it was you that was being accused of the crime and had death threats against you? How would you feel? I wish the media would stop portraying Dan as being a criminal. Dan is innocent untill [sic] proven guilty, END OF STORY!
7/3/2010 11:54:50 AM

odiewitch wrote:
I also had Dan Rassier as a band teacher. I had group and private lessons with him from 5th grade until 10th grade. He never did or said anything that made me feel uncomfortable. I still find it hard to believe he could of [sic] had anything to do with this crime. I pray for the families of the Wetterlings and for the Rassiers. Remember in this country you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty not the other way around.
7/3/2010 12:18:58 PM

littlerockpj wrote:
To student commenting that he was a good teacher: As a teacher I have found students are good judges of character. Teaching music is hard and if students do not complain about a music teacher, he’s unusually good, since many think music teachers are odd. The fact that students speak well of him and the school did not have complaints makes me think there is more to the story. […] I want Jacob’s abductor caught, but I certainly agree that a person in America is innocent until proven otherwise, and so many people seem to be rushing to judgement or taking their personal unhappiness out on law enforcement. If he is innocent, let’s hope that this story will not tarnish his reputation.
7/3/2010 3:39:25 PM

Considering Rassier’s extensive contact with juveniles in the course of three decades as a music teacher, it’s notable that there have been no known reports of sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior.

Furthermore, linkage analysis suggests that Jacob likely was taken by the same offender who kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and later released 12-year-old Jared S. nine months earlier in nearby Cold Spring, where Rassier works as a teacher.

Sidebar: Topical report

KARE 11 Investigates: Coincidence in the Wetterling Case (May 5, 2004)

Jared S. and Jacob Wetterling (Image: KARE-11)

I have information on good authority that DNA evidence was collected from the Cold Spring assault, and — given that Rassier submitted to DNA sampling as long ago as 2003 or 2004 — one would think that if he was a match, he would have been charged with the assault on Jared (Minnesota has a DNA statute-of-limitations exception for rape) and that a strong circumstantial case could have been made in charging him with the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling.

Furthermore, Jacob isn’t the only young male to have gone missing from the area. On Nov. 9-10, 2002, St. John’s University student Joshua Guimond vanished without a trace from the college campus, approximately 6 miles distant from theWetterling abduction site. He has never been found.

According to FBI statistics, there are approximately 50 serial killers at large at any one time in the United States. Assuming, as a rule of thumb, that approximately 10 percent of those offenders are homosexuals targeting male victims, a rough estimate of the number of such offenders on the loose is five. Given the low population density of rural Stearns County where Jacob and Josh disappeared, it’s statistically improbable that two different offenders could be responsible.

Indeed, it would strengthen the circumstantial case against Rassier in Jacob’s abduction if he is unable to provide an alibi for the night Josh disappeared from St. John’s.

On April 28, 2003 — five months after Josh’s disappearance — the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department released information that it “received a call from an individual stating that they were driving off campus, just after midnight, on the night Joshua Guimond disappeared and that they saw someone jogging towards campus on County Road 159 wearing bright colored jogging clothing.”

Coincidentally, Wetterling suspect Dan Rassier is an avid road runner and one of his routes passes through the St. John’s campus (from the Rassier farm through St. Joseph on Co Hwy 2 to St. John’s University along Co Rd 51 and back to St. Joseph past the Abbey Church, St. John’s Prep School, the I-94 footbridge, and Hwy 75).

In a further coincidence, Josh played the euphonium and did some tutoring in brass instruments, which happens to be Rassier’s teaching specialty. It’s important that law enforcement authorities account for Rassier’s whereabouts on the night of Josh’s disappearance. If he is cleared in the Guimond investigation, it’s arguably less likely that he had any involvement in Jacob’s kidnapping.

On the face of it, Rassier doesn’t seem to be a compelling match for the kind of offender profile one would expect in the Wetterling case:

Rassier is an elementary school band teacher and has worked for the Rocori school district since 1978, Superintendent Scott Staska said. …

“We’ve had no complaints” about Rassier. Students call him “Mr. Be-Bop,” Staska said.

“You don’t get nicknames like that without being well liked by the kids,” he said. …

Ralph Bell, a former [St. Joseph] Newsleader editor, wrote the 2008 profile of Rassier.

Bell said Rassier struck him as “a sweet guy, soft spoken, smiling” …

(Pioneer Press, July 2, 2010)

Whatever the case, until he is charged with and convicted of a crime, it’s important that Rassier be accorded the presumption of innocence as the investigation proceeds and that members of the public desist from harassing Rassier or taking the law into their own hands.

——————————

Related reports

Profiler Offers Insight Into Wetterling Investigation

By Ryan Ruud
KSTP.com
July 2, 2010

With more questions than answers, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS sat down with a nationally-known criminal profiler for some insight into the sudden flurry of activity near the Jacob Wetterling abduction site.

Pat Brown has been investigating cold cases for more than a decade.

She has not, however, worked specifically on the Jacob Wetterling case.

Her perspective is unique nonetheless.

Brown says a telltale sign of who may have taken Jacob is the fact the abductors’ face was covered by a mask.

After all these years Brown says three things would give this case new life: New DNA evidence, a confession, or a body.

——————————————————————————————————————

Jacob Wetterling abduction: Dan Rassier, local elementary band teacher named “person of interest” (July 3, 2010)

Jacob Wetterling abduction case: Person of interest, Dan Rassier, in 2004 news interview as “unnamed suspect”? (July 9, 2010)

——————————————————————————————————————

Authorities Still Tight-Lipped On Wetterling Hunt

By Caroline Lowe
WCCO
July 6, 2010

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. (WCCO) — Nearly a week after one of Minnesota’s most well-known kidnapping cases suddenly made headlines again, authorities are still tight-lipped about what they will say publicly about what prompted their latest search.

For two days, state, local and federal investigators searched a farm site near the spot where Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989. It is also a half mile from his home in St. Joseph, Minnesota.

They even brought in a backhoe which produced six loads of dirt that was hauled away in a truck for forensic analysis.

Sources tell WCCO the farm site is where they had found the last trace they could find of the eleven-year-old boy. Back in 1989, a police dog picked up Jacob’s scent just inside the property and sources say it disappeared a couple hundred feet away. Sources also say a mold was made of Jacob’s footprint on the site back then.

Investigators are expected to spend a couple weeks having the dirt taken from the site analyzed, trying to determine if it will provide any further clues to what happened to Jacob.

The Stearns County Sheriff told the St. Cloud Times one of the residents of the farm, Daniel Rassier, is a “person of interest” in the case. His family told WCCO he had nothing to do with Jacob’s disappearance.

————————————————————————————————

Investigators Sift Dirt Connected to Wetterling Case

By Kari Petrie
St. Cloud Times
July 23, 2010

Investigators continue to sift through dirt as part of the investigation into the Jacob Wetterling abduction.

Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner said the work could go into next week. Investigators took six truckloads of dirt and other items from a farm at 29748-91st Ave. in St. Joseph Township during a two-day search earlier this summer.

The dirt is being processed at the Stearns County Public Works Building in Waite Park. Dozens of investigators sifted the dirt through screens Thursday morning. …

The FBI and the BCA are assisting in the investigation.

Full story

—————————————————————————————

Wetterling Investigators Send Items for Testing

By Kari Petrie
St. Cloud Times
July 27, 2010

Authorities on Monday finished sifting through six truckloads of dirt that are part of the Jacob Wetterling abduction investigation.

Items of interest were found and will be sent to forensic labs for additional testing, according to the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office.

On June 30 and July 1, investigators executed four search warrants at a farm at 29748-91st Ave. in St. Joseph Township. Authorities took the truckloads of dirt and several other items from the farm.

The sheriff’s office has not identified what those items are.

The search breathed new life into the 21-year-old investigation of Wetterling’s disappearance. …

Full story

——————————————————————————————————————

Exclusive New Details in the Jacob Wetterling Abduction Case

By Cory Kampschroer
KSTP.com
September 28, 2010

Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner said today tests done at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension have not uncovered any new substantial leads in the case, but the case remains under investigation.

Investigators seized several items during this summer’s search of the rural 158-acre St. Joseph farm.

Just as soon as law enforcement officials starting digging up the farm belonging to Daniel Rassier’s parents, Bob and Rita Rassier, we began uncovering new facts about the investigation.

The Stearns County Sheriff has confirmed Daniel Rassier is a person of interest in the Jacob Wetterling abduction. However, Rassier told KSTP.com he had nothing to do with the abduction of Jacob Wetterling.

While police are not revealing exactly what was taken from the property during the two day search that started June 30th, sources have told KSTP.com exactly what was seized.

During the search of the outbuildings and property, investigators removed six truck loads of dirt and ash.

The dirt and ash was taken to a nearby public works building, where investigators sifted through it looking for any evidence in connection with the Jacob Wetterling abduction.

KSTP.com has learned investigators did recover clothing articles and animal bones in the dirt and ash taken from the farm. Some of those items were sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab for testing.

Sources tell KSTP.com, investigators removed several items from the farm, including a lawn chair, the base of a patio umbrella stand and a cedar chest. The items had been stored in an area above a four stall garage on the Rassier property.

We have also learned investigators seized a box from Daniel Rassier’s bedroom containing news clippings and articles about the Jacob Wetterling abduction. That box also contained part of Rassier’s journal.

Sources have confirmed to KSTP.com, during this summer’s two-day search, investigators did not have a search warrant for the farm house, but rather just for the outbuildings and property. However, during that first day of the search investigators found enough evidence to go back to a judge and get a warrant for the farm house itself.

This is the third time the Rassier family farm has been searched, the first was immediately after the abduction, the second time was 6 years ago when investigators examined Daniel Rassier’s computer.

Sources also confirm part of the reason why the farm was searched again this summer, was because new investigators took on the case and discovered evidence that had not been examined before. Another reason why investigators converged on the farm this summer is because of advances in technology.

The K-9 searching the Rassier farm was flown to St. Joseph from Louisiana. The K-9 works very closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

We have also learned about a meeting between Daniel Rassier and Patty Wetterling within the past 10-months. Sources tell KSTP.com Wetterling requested a meeting with Daniel Rassier and asked him if he abducted Jacob.

Wetterling also asked Rassier if he had been playing a joke on the three boys and the joke went too far. During the meeting, Rassier told Wetterling what he saw the night Jacob went missing and again told her he had nothing to do with her son’s disappearance. …

Read the full story at KSTP.com

————————————————

Update: October 29, 2015

Dan Rassier likely is an innocent party caught up in the Wetterling investigation.

On Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015 law enforcement authorities named 52-year-old Danny James Heinrich of Annandale, Minn., as a “person of interest” in the October 1989 abduction of Jacob Wetterling. Heinrich has been arrested on child pornography charges.

During a news conference in Minneapolis detailing the charges against Heinrich, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger and other officials stressed that Heinrich has not been charged in relation to the Wetterling abduction or the kidnapping and sexual assault of a Cold Spring boy named Jared nine months earlier in 1989.

However, forensic analysis established a DNA match between Heinrich and trace evidence on the clothing worn by Jared, the Cold Spring boy, on the night of his kidnapping and sexual assault in January 1989.

Furthermore, investigators have long suspected a link between the cases of Jared and Jacob and it is probable circumstantial evidence in the Wetterling case points to Heinrich as the likely offender in Jacob’s kidnapping.

News and updates at the St. Cloud Times

————————————————

Update: November 6, 2015

1st Person of Interest in Wetterling Abduction Wants His Name Cleared

By Esme Murphy
WCCO
November 5, 2015

Authorities continue to ask for more information about Danny Heinrich, the man identified as a person of interest by law enforcement in the Jacob Wetterling case a week ago Thursday.

But there was another person of interest named publicly in 2010. Dan Rassier is a school band teacher, and Wetterling was abducted at the end of his quarter-mile-long driveway.

Rassier became the prime suspect in 2004 when authorities finally identified a set of tire tracks at the abduction scene. The driver of that car was ruled out. That is when authorities confronted him. …

Rassier was never told what was revealed last week — that on his driveway there was another set of tire tracks and a footprint that was a match to Heinrich. Rassier now wants his name cleared.

He says investigators confronted him in 2004, asking him to confess. He says things got a lot worse in 2010 when he was as a person of interest. Authorities said there was probable cause for a search warrant to dig up his farm. …

WCCO showed Rassier the documents made public last week, which show that back in 1989 and 1990, Heinrich was a suspect in the Wetterling case, the unsolved sexual assault and kidnapping of a Cold Spring boy and a series of unsolved attacks on boys in Paynesville.

“Twenty-six years they had this information. Twenty-six years, and now? You got to be kidding,” Rassier said.

He wonders why the investigation shifted in 2004 to the theory of a kidnapper on foot, when investigators knew there was another set of tire tracks and a footprint that matched Heinrich. …

Rassier told authorities in 1989 that at 9 p.m. — about the time of Wetterling’s abduction — he was upstairs when he saw a small dark blue or black car drive up quickly and turn around in his driveway, and that there may have been a child or a small woman in the passenger seat.

He says while the make of the car he saw is similar to Heinrich’s Ford EXP, the color blue is brighter. …

Heinrich stands 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 190 pounds — a build that matches the victims’ descriptions of the attacker. Rassier is 6 foot 1 and weighs 170 pounds. …

Read the full story and watch video at WCCO

————————————————

Update: November 7, 2015

Dan Rassier’s Alibi

Excerpt from pages 265-266 of Robert M. Dudley’s book It Can’t Happen Here: The Search for Jacob Wetterling:

A significant problem for investigators is that for nearly fifteen years they expressed the belief that Jacob’s October 1989 case was related to Jared’s Cold Spring, [Friday] January [13] 1989, case. Investigators have also suggested that Rassier was a suspect from the very beginning of the Wetterling investigation.

What is puzzling about that assertion is that Rassier has a solid alibi for the night Jared was assaulted. Rassier would often play the trumpet with Betty Wolf when she performed a solo show without her polka band, The Deutschmeisters. Such was the case on the night of [Friday] January 13, 1989. On the night that Jared was abducted and assaulted, Dan Rassier was playing a music show with Betty Wolf at the American Legion in Eden Valley, a half-hour away from St. Joseph.

If Rassier could not have been Jared’s assailant then it seems contradictory that for so many years investigators were certain of a link between the two cases, and that they considered Rassier a suspect from the beginning of the Wetterling investigation.

—————————————————

Update: September 10, 2016

Wetterling Search Warrants Unsealed

Investigators used digging equipment and dump trucks to search Dan Rassier’s property in July 2010 for evidence in the Jacob Wetterling investigation. (Photo: Kimm Anderson / St. Cloud Times.com)

By David Unze
St. Cloud Times
September 9, 2016

Investigators in the Jacob Wetterling case had his mother wear a recording device in 2009 to try to get Dan Rassier, who lived near the abduction site, to disclose information about the abduction of the 11-year-old St. Joseph boy in 1989.

That and other details about why authorities named Rassier a “person of interest” in Jacob’s abduction are contained in search warrants that were unsealed Friday. Those warrants were sealed in 2010 when investigators searched the Rassier property and dug up parts of his family farm, looking for evidence.

The case was solved and Rassier’s status as a person of interest ended when Danny Heinrich admitted in court Tuesday that he sexually assaulted Jacob before shooting him twice and burying his body in rural Paynesville, all within hours of the Oct. 22, 1989, abduction.

Rassier lived with his parents at the farm near where Danny Heinrich abducted Jacob in October 1989. Although Heinrich was an early suspect in the case, investigators in 2009 had turned their attention to Rassier.

Patty Wetterling, Jacob’s mother, confronted Rassier at a health club in St. Cloud while wearing a wire.

She asked Rassier about a vehicle he said had been down his driveway that night, a vehicle he repeatedly told investigators must have been involved in the abduction. But investigators had by that time ruled out the use of a vehicle in the abduction, and they were accusing him of abducting Jacob at the end of the Rassier driveway.

Heinrich this week admitted that he drove a blue car, just as Rassier had told investigators, into the Rassier driveway that night to wait for Jacob, his brother and a friend to return home from the Tom Thumb store.

The search warrants show that investigators relied on statements Rassier made under hypnosis, on things he said to Patty Wetterling when she was wearing that wire and on comments Rassier made to investigators, who he thought had bungled the case, to get warrants to search the Rassier farm.

Another warrant, obtained to search the Paynesville farm where Jacob’s remains were found, indicates that an unnamed “source of information,” who had access to Heinrich since he was taken into federal custody last year on child pornography charges, told investigators that Heinrich had confessed to killing Jacob. That information was the catalyst for plea negotiations that led to the recovery of Jacob’s remains. That “source of information” was not identified in the search warrants. …

Rassier’s parents were in Europe at the time of the abduction, meaning he was alone in the home near the abduction site. The Rassier property was searched six days after the abduction, and investigators didn’t take any evidence.

When he was interviewed in 1989, Rassier described seeing a smaller, dark blue car come into his driveway that evening, turn around and leave. He said he might have seen Jacob in that vehicle. Heinrich was driving a blue car around the time he abducted Jacob.

Rassier said it was the second vehicle that had come into his driveway that day, turned around and left. He said the vehicle caused his dog to bark. Neither Aaron Larson nor Trevor Wetterling, the boys who were with Jacob when he was abducted, said they heard a dog barking during the abduction.

The search warrants indicate that a man named Kevin Hamilton told a St. Joseph police officer in 1989 that he heard about the abduction on a police radio scanner that he owned. He told the officer that he went to the abduction scene, drove up the Rassier driveway, turned around and left.

That statement apparently “did not get into the investigative file at that time,” according to the warrants.

Hamilton came forward again in 2003 and told investigators the same information. That changed the course of the investigation.

“It is believed that the Hamilton vehicle is the one described by Rassier as being in his driveway between 9 and 10 p.m.on October 22, 1989,” the warrant reads.

Investigators in 2004 came to believe that the abductor likely hadn’t used a vehicle. Rassier soon became a person of interest in the abduction.

Rassier agreed to be hypnotized and interviewed in late November 1989, in an effort for investigators to learn more about the vehicles that had been at his farm on the night of the abduction. That interview was video recorded.

Investigators in 2004 again watched that video, but from the new perspective that no vehicle had been used in the abduction.

“From this perspective, there were comments and reactions that Rassier made throughout the hypnotic interview that raised new questions as to Rassier being the suspect/abductor,” the warrants read.

For example, Rassier could provide a detailed timeline of events and his activities before and after the time of the abduction. When he was asked under hypnosis about the time of the abduction, he told investigators that he “lost track of time,” the warrants reads.

When discussing the vehicles that came up his driveway that night, Rassier began to cry and shake. He said that if a perpetrator wanted to get Jacob he “would have gotten him eventually,” according to the warrant documents.

Still under hypnosis, Rassier also said that when he saw investigators’ flashlights at his wood pile after the abduction had been reported, he commented that he “was very nervous and could not get dressed and that he was very scared and in big trouble.”

During the hypnotic interview, Rassier was asked if he knew Jacob and he said no, began crying and said he “didn’t think he would do this.” Investigators reported that Rassier would cry and shake when the abduction was mentioned during that interview, but that he would regain his composure when other subjects were discussed.

After viewing the videotape, investigators in 2004 interviewed Rassier again. They confronted him, accusing him of kidnapping Wetterling, according to the search warrants. They told him there was no vehicle used in the abduction. Rassier repeatedly told investigators that there was a vehicle in his driveway that night and it must have been involved in the abduction.

Rassier admitted that, if he had taken Jacob, he would have had “plenty of time and locations to dispose of him on his farm,” according to the warrants.

According to the warrant documents, investigators believed he mocked them, accusing them of botching the case, in part by not searching his residence until four or five days after the abduction. …

Investigators interviewed Rassier’s parents in February 2004. His parents said that Dan Rassier had mocked the investigators and told his father that “even if I did do it, I had all kinds of time to get away with it.”

Patty Wetterling wore a wire in 2009 to talk to Rassier.

She asked him what happened to Jacob, and Rassier told her that the driver of the car must have been the person who did it. He told her he had a fear that law enforcement had made him feel guilty, and that if someone else knew that, they could come onto his property and bury Jacob’s body in an attempt to frame him. …

Investigators believed Rassier thought he had a “double personality” and would refer to things that his other personality had done.

The warrants also seem to rely on the investigator’s perception that Rassier lacked a social life, the fact that he taught kids of Jacob’s age and on a comment he made in a newspaper article. Rassier is an avid runner, and he commented to a newspaper reporter that he runs “to suppress pain.”

Investigators believed that Rassier was either running from a painful experience or that the pain “may be associated” with the Wetterling abduction.

One of the search warrants unsealed Friday was requested after the digging and search of the Rassier property had begun. Specially trained dogs had alerted on items at the farm, indicating the presence of possible human remains. That led to investigators requesting a search of the Rassier house.

Full story and reader comments at the St. Cloud Times

View the search warrant for the Rassier farm, executed June 28, 2010. (Warning: Document contains graphic detail and sexually explicit descriptions of crimes)

—————————————————

Update: September 13, 2016

Wrongly Suspected, Wetterling Neighbor Says Cops Treated Him Unjustly

By Martin Moylan and Brandt Williams

September 10, 2016

Daniel Rassier, a man wrongly suspected of abducting Jacob Wetterling, says he plans to sue law enforcement authorities for how they treated him.

A Wetterling family neighbor and St. Joseph, Minn., music teacher, Rassier says police treated him like a murderer for years before another man, Danny Heinrich, confessed Tuesday to abducting, molesting and killing 11-year-old Jacob in 1989.

Rassier says he was mistreated by many parties.

“The suit is going to involve many agencies,” he said in an interview. “It’s going to involve a certain TV news station, a certain reporter. It’s going to involve the BCA (Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension), probably the FBI because they were part of it, and obviously the Stearns County Sheriffs Department.”

Court documents show how authorities tried to build a case against Rassier, digging up his yard, secretly recording him, looking into his love life and otherwise probing deeply into his affairs. At one point, authorities had Patty Wetterling wear a recording device and ask Rassier if he knew what happened to Jacob. …

Rassier said law enforcement authorities’ treatment of him was a “blatant, horrific, miscarriage of justice — just completely insane that they could even think that I did something like this.”

Rassier said law officers twisted his words and miscast his actions, trying to blame him for the crime. …

Rassier says authorities botched the investigation and he finds it hard to trust law enforcement officials anymore. …

Full story at MPR News

—————————————————

Related reports on this site

“In the Dark” Podcast — How Law Enforcement Mishandled the Jacob Wetterling Investigation (Sept. 13, 2016)

Close look at quality of investigation reveals trail of failures

Dan Rassier Teaching Concerns (Aug. 28, 2010)

Rocori Middle School. (Photo: Ambar Espinoza / MPR)

Jacob Wetterling: Rassier Search (July 1, 2010)

Squad cars and other law enforcement vehicles parked in the farmyard on the Rassier property in rural St. Joseph, Minn., Wednesday, June 30, 2010. (Photo credit: Kimm Anderson / St. Cloud Times)

Josh Guimond: New Developments (May 24, 2010)

Josh Guimond (Photo credit: KMSP-TV Fox 9)

Jacob Wetterling Freedom Walk (Dec. 21, 2009)

On Sunday, Dec. 19, 2009, the third and final day of Jacob’s Freedom Walk for Missing and Abducted Children, Vietnam vets, led by Mike Clark and Jerry Wetterling, are met by Jacob’s mother Patty Wetterling upon arriving at the site where 11-year-old Jacob was abducted on Sunday, October 22, 1989, about half a mile from the Wetterling home in rural St. Joseph, Minn. After a prayer, three rifle rounds are fired as the universal symbol of letting the lost or missing know they’re being searched for.

Guimond: “Justice for Josh” March (Nov. 9, 2009)

On Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, Guimond family members and supporters led by Josh’s grandfather, Bob Guimond, approach St. John’s University along County Road 159 to commemorate the 7th anniversary of Josh’s disappearance from campus, following which they delivered an urgent petition for stepped-up efforts in the investigation to the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department.

Missing Person Joshua Guimond (Nov. 7, 2009)

Jacob Wetterling 20 Years On (Oct. 22, 2009)

A photo of Jacob Wetterling from 1989, the year he was taken (left), and an age-adjusted image of what he may have looked like at age 29 (right).

Jacob Wetterling Celebration (Oct. 16, 2009)

Patty Wetterling sings with Red Grammer during the “Celebration of Children” concert at the College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Oct. 17, 2009. (Photo credit: Adam Hammer / St. Cloud Times)

Wetterling Friend Shares Story (Apr. 28, 2009)

U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Aaron Larson poses with his fiancée Jackie Tentinger and 2-year-old son, Anikan, as he arrives home April 17, 2009 in Slayton, Minn., after a year-long deployment in Iraq. As an 11-year-old boy in St. Joseph, Aaron was with his best friend Jacob Wetterling when Jacob was kidnapped by a masked gunman on Sunday, Oct. 22, 1989. (Photo credit: Justine Wettschreck — Daily Globe /Associated Press)

Jacob Wetterling Lead Unravels (Jan. 7, 2009)

Vern’s Barber Shop in St. Francis, Wis.
(Photo: John Klein / Journal Sentinal)

—————————————————————————————————

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — July 3, 2009

Sarah Palin Personality Profile

Click on image for larger view

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the occasion of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s sudden resignation from office, I featured my research on Palin’s personal psychology, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics.