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

When he was snatched by a masked gunman on Oct. 22, 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was at the age when most boys begin thinking it might be OK to like girls. The possibilities were endless on the crisp evening that Jacob, his brother and his best friend hopped on their bikes and pedaled to a convenience store near their home in St. Joseph, Minnesota, a rural town about 70 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

Whatever dreams lived in Jacob’s head were snuffed out on that date, a painful milestone date for parents across Minnesota.

Parents who lived in Minnesota at that time often remark, “I know where I was when I first heard Jacob was kidnapped.” His abduction was a defining moment that would dramatically change how parents kept tabs on their children, neighborhood relationships and even federal policies.

Jacob Wetterling’s abduction “ended an age of innocence for central Minnesota and beyond and had a dramatic impact on how parents raised their children,” Sterns County Sheriff John Sanner said in a statement earlier this year.

Many of the details in this tragic story of an innocent life snuffed out were only revealed a little more than a month ago, when Jacob’s murderer confessed in excruciatingly painful detail how Jacob’s last hours were spent. Until then, there was no evidence that Jacob had died, and many clung to hope that he would one day be found alive.

About This Patch Special Report
This week, 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)