Danny Heinrich Regrets Killing Jacob Wetterling: Attorney

Danny Henrich, the man who confessed to abducting and murdering 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling on October 1989, now regrets killing the boy, according to his attorney. Heinrich lead investigators to Jacob's remains in a rural Minnesota town in September.

Court documents say Heinrich has replayed that October night "in his head a thousand times" and wishes he never took the boy’s life, Star Tribune reported.

Danny Heinrich, 53, is expected to be sentenced Monday to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography. Heinrich's guilty plea was a part of deal prosecutors struck in order to get him to confess the details of Jacob's murder. Because of the plea deal, though Heinrich confessed to killing Jacob, he was not charged with murder.

"It is not expected that this information will make anyone feel sympathy for Danny Heinrich, nor should they — he killed an innocent boy," writes attorney Reynaldo Aligada Jr. in a court memo.

But Aligada added that Heinrich has "shed countless tears for Jacob and his family."

Patty Wetterling's response

“I am glad to hear he feels remorse,” Patty Wetterling, Jacob's mother, wrote in a statement issued by her attorneys. The statement also says this is the first the Wetterling family has heard of Heinrich struggling.

"He may have 'shed countless tears' but not one tear was shed when he stood in the courtroom telling us what he did to Jacob," Patty added.

"The only way [Heinrich] can know the magnitude of the pain he has caused is to allow himself to feel for someone other than himself."

"I hope he feels that every day just as we have had to feel the loss and the pain of losing Jacob every moment of every day."

The Jacob Wetterling Story: A 5-Part Patch Special Report

Last month, Patch released our five-part special report about the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling and other missing children in Minnesota and the Midwest.

• The Jacob Wetterling Story: What Went Wrong (Part 1 in a 5-Part Series)
• The Jacob Wetterling Story: Are Parents Too Cautious (Part 2 in a 5-Part Series)
• The Jacob Wetterling Story: America’s First ‘Milk Carton Kids’ (Part 3 in a 5-Part Series)
• The Jacob Wetterling Story: A ‘Cluster’ of Abuse in Paynesville (Part 4 in a 5-Part Series)
• The Jacob Wetterling Story: Missing Kids Today (Part 5 in a 5-Part Series)

Henrich's plea deal

Heinrich won't be charged for killing Jacob because of a complex plea deal he struck with prosecutors.

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.

According to the Pioneer Press, 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 Heinrich must plead guilty to a child pornography charge and admit that he abducted and assaulted Jared Scheierl in Cold Spring, Minnesota, nine months before he killed Jacob.

Without Jacob’s body, prosecutors weren't able to pursue murder charges against Heinrich. Until Heinrich led investigators to Jacob’s body, the only physical evidence authorities had against him were tire tracks and a shoe print, but they weren’t scientific matches. There wasn’t even evidence proving that Jacob had died at all.
Heinrich can't be charged in Scheirel's case because the statute of limitations has expired, but the plea deal required Heinrich to publicly confess to the assault of the boy.

In January 1989, nine months before Jacob was abducted, Heinrich abducted the Scheierl boy in Cold Spring, another small Stearns County town about 10 miles from St. Joseph. Jared was walking home from an ice rink when a man who later turned out to be Heinrich forced him into a car, sexually assaulted him and eventually let him go.

Image via MissingKids.Org, used with permission