Random Disappearance of Jacob Wetterling Exposed A National Crime Crisis (14 items)

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  (#3) The Police Made Mistakes From The Beginning

  The decision to call the search off mere hours after Jacob's disappearance, without having interviewed all of the neighbors, likely cost the boy his life. Data shows 88.5% of child abduction victims are killed within the first 24 hours of being kidnapped. What the police do in those early hours is critical, and most experts say the most important initial step is canvassing the neighborhood.

  According to Vernon Geberth, a law enforcement trainer, author, and former NYPD lieutenant:

  I can tell you that every major case that I was in charge of in the city of New York that resulted in a successful conclusion was based on a good neighborhood canvass, where people were asked to report anything, even though they didn't think it was important. It turned out to be important.
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  (#10) It Wasn't Just The Fault Of The Sheriff's Office

  It wasn't just Stearns County Sheriff's Office that made mistakes. The FBI and a range of other law enforcement agencies dropped the ball, as well. But are authorities entirely to blame, or was the country unprepared for crimes like these on a fundamental level?

  At the time, things like AMBER Alerts did not exist, and the country lacked the kind of federal laws necessary to deal with such rare crimes effectively. Finding sex offenders was a nearly impossible task.

  Before Jacob disappeared, no national registry existed to help states monitor the location of sex offenders. The 1994 Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act created this, while AMBER Alerts came into play in 1996.
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  (#4) Another Boy Was Nearly Abducted Before Jacob

  One of the many residents that police failed to question that night was Jacob's friend Adam Klaphake. A few years before Jacob's kidnapping, an unknown person grabbed Adam and threw him to the ground. Then, a couple of months before Jacob was taken, someone followed Adam in a car matching the description of the abductor's vehicle. Adam himself saw the connection, but when he approached the Stearns County Sheriff's Office in 2004, they didn't investigate further.

  "I remember leaving out of there just so angry because they weren't listening to anything I had to say," Adam said.
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  (#8) Officials Failed To Thoroughly Investigate Danny Heinrich's Past Crimes

  Danny Heinrich had a lengthy criminal history. In the mid-1980s, boys reported a strange man grabbing them off their bikes and sexually assaulting them at night in downtown Paynesville, MN, only a few blocks away from where Heinrich lived. The boys spoke of a stocky man with a raspy voice - the same physical description Jared Scheierl gave about his kidnapper. The man even asked the same questions as he did Trevor, Aaron, and Jacob before taking the latter. 

  When Kris Bertelsen, one of the people attacked as a boy, heard about Jacob, he recognized the similarities immediately:

   I remember thinking, 'Was this the same guy? Could it be? Is it possible? How does this happen?'
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  (#1) Jacob Was Taken On His Way Home With Friends

  On October 22, 1989, 11-year-old Jacob, his best friend, Aaron, and his brother, Trevor, biked to a video rental store about 15 minutes from home. Heading back around 9 pm, the boys rode through a dark part of the area. They were nearly home when they passed a long, gravel driveway and heard rustling sounds. The next thing the boys knew, a masked man held them at gunpoint.

  After asking for their ages, the man let Trevor and Aaron go, but kept Jacob. He drove him a short distance from the area, where he assaulted and fatally shot the boy.  
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  (#5) After Calling Off The Search, The Police Enlisted The Country's Help

  After calling off the search the first night, police reached out to the public and the media almost immediately, instead of keeping the case local. News of Jacob's disappearance quickly captured the attention of the country, much to the chagrin of state crime bureau agent Dennis Sigafoos. He told the lead investigators it was the wrong approach and stressed how it took officers and resources away from other parts of the investigation.

  "We're focusing on things hundreds of miles away at times," Sigafoos says. "Nobody [was] even looking at the neighborhood, from what I saw."

  When law enforcement asked people to call in leads, they were inundated with thousands from all over the country. By August 2016, they'd received over 50,000 tips. Not one of them led anywhere, and many were just lies.

  "It appeared to me that because of the volume of the news and the leads coming in, that the case was lost right there," Sigafoos recalls.

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