Unsealed court documents detail search for Jacob Wetterling

Newly unsealed documents from Stearns County shine new light on the long and frustrating search for 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling, who was abducted not far from his rural St. Joseph, Minn., home in October 1989.

The documents, unsealed Friday, detail the 2010 search of property belonging to one of the Wetterling family’s neighbors, as well as searches of property for the boy’s actual killer — Danny Heinrich of Paynesville, Minn. — and a Paynesville sex offender and acquaintance of Heinrich’s.

Jacob was abducted in front of the home of Daniel Rassier, a local music teacher. For almost 30 years, Rassier faced intensive, embarrassing scrutiny because he lived nearest to the spot where Jacob disappeared. Over the years, authorities searched Rassier’s home, rifled through his computer, collected his DNA and dug up his yard. They interviewed his parents and a woman he dated. They tailed him as he went about his daily routine and interviewed him under hypnosis.

http://www.startribune.com/unsealed-court-documents-detail-search-for-jacob-wetterling/392899791/