Patty Wetterling.Photo:Andrea Ellen Reed
Andrea Ellen Reed
Nearly 21 years after her 11-year-old sonJacobwas abducted at gunpoint in 1989 while riding his bike home from a video rental store,Patty Wetterlinghad begun to fear that police might never solve the case—then part-time bloggerJoy Bakergot involved.
“Without her work, this wouldn’t have been solved,” Patty says in an interview in this week’s issue of PEOPLE.
By 2015—six years after Joy began writing about the case that took place in St. Joseph, Minn.—police had arrestedDanny Heinrich, a 53-year-old plywood factory worker who laterconfessedto kidnapping, molesting and murdering the boy.
The behind-the-scenes story of the two women’s friendship and how the authorities finally cracked the case that had been languishing for nearly three decades is told in a new book—Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope—that was released on Oct. 17.
For more on the Jacob Wetterling case,subscribe now to PEOPLEor pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands now.
From the very beginning, Jacob’s shocking disappearance made headlines around Minnesota and the nation.
It happened on a pitch black, moonless autumn night near his rural Minnesota when Jacob, along with his younger brother Trevor and best friend, Aaron Larson, were pedaling their bikes with a bag of candy and a VCR tape ofThe Naked Gun.
Jacob Wetterling.Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society Press
Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society Press
By the time the boys arrived home and police were summoned, Jacob and the man had vanished into thin air.
The Wetterling family in 1988. From top left, Jerry, Patty and Amy. From bottom left, Carmen, Trevor and Jacob.Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society Press
“From that day on I just held on to hope,” recalls Jacob’s mom, Patty, who remained convinced that her son would one day reappear, allowing the family to put the nightmare behind them. “I had dreams about him coming home and how we would heal and all the things we would do.”
But that never happened. Up untilHeinrich’s confessionin 2016, the now-74-year-old mother of three grown children turned her grief into action.
Patty on the first anniversary of Jacob’s disappearance at a tree planted in his honor.Stearns History Museum/Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society
Stearns History Museum/Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society
Despite exploring thousands of leads and looking at hundreds of suspects, investigators eventually appeared to hit a dead end and Patty feared the case “might never be solved.”
And then in 2010 Joy—a mother of two teenage boys and a former ad agency owner who lived 45 minutes away from Patty—started writing about Jacob.
“If it had just been me, a blogger mom from New London, Minn., I don’t think investigators would have paid any attention to what I wrote,” explains Baker, who watched as police began following up on the leads she unearthed. “But they had to listen to Jared because he was a victim.”
Despite initially being skeptical, even Patty became a supporter of Baker’s efforts. “I’d never read a blog and had no idea what it was,” she admits. “But I soon realized she was asking questions nobody had.”
By 2015, the state’s crime lab re-tested the clothing that Scheierl was wearing during his alleged assault decades earlier and linked the DNA they found to Heinrich. In a 2016 plea agreement, he confessed to abducting, molesting and killing Jacob, and received a 20-year prison sentence—though it’s unlikely he’ll ever be released.
The site where Jacob’s remains were found.Tim Gruber/The New York Times/Redux
Tim Gruber/The New York Times/Redux
Finally learning what had happened to her son all those years ago proved devastating to Patty and her family. “It was a really dark, horrible time for us,” she says.
Joy Baker and Patty Wetterling.Andrea Ellen Reed
But she admits to being forever indebted to Joy for the work she did to put her son’s killer behind bars. “I went from asking, ‘Who the hell is Joy Baker?’ to her becoming one of my closest friends. She’s been a gift to our family and we’re so very grateful.”
source: people.com
