Wetterling’s newspaper connections mattered

There is nothing more compelling at a newspaper convention than Patty and Jerry Wetterling telling their story to 300 journalists.

The Jan. 27 luncheon at the Minnesota Newspaper Association convention offered an almost surreal look at the connection between news and family tragedy, and ultimately a closure that was healing for the Wetterling family.

There were connections that mattered. The Wetterlings recently connected with Mike Jacobson, president of the Minnesota Newspaper Association and owner of the Paynesville Press. This was the small town newspaper that covered Jacob Wetterling’s abduction in 1989 and whose archives helped solve the case.

Wetterling’s killer, Danny Heinrich, was a resident of Paynesville.

The Wetterlings also knew John Bodette, the editor of the St. Cloud Times, who was honored at the MNA convention with its most prestigious award, the Al McIntosh Award, just before the Wetterlings spoke.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar also spoke at the luncheon and noted her longstanding close relationship with the Wetterlings.

Patty Wetterling has known Jacobson recently and Bodette for years as they were the first news media to cover Jacob’s disappearance. She addressed both of them and the other 300 journalists in the room.

“I do want to thank you,” she said. “I do love what you do.” The local media and the media all over Minnesota, Wetterling said, helped bring Jacob home. The attention they gave to the 27-year-old case, she said she believes, put attention back on authorities to revisit and solve it.

She had special fondness of the print media in this age of the internet and online news.

“The print media allowed us to sit down, talk from our heart. We didn’t have to worry about sound bites. You helped.”

Jacobson’s family paper, with hard copy archives, was an instrumental resource in solving the case. A blogger went back to those archives and helped find a dozen or so other victims, one of whom’s case provided the DNA to link Heinrich to the murder.

Print archives were invaluable and not easily replaced, Wetterling said. “I doubt they’re going to go to the tweet archives.”

The Wetterlings went on courageously to describe what they went through for eight days between the time they were told there was a break in the case to the court hearing that described in detail how Jacob was murdered. Because Heinrich was so volatile and prosecutors worried he would go back on his deal to confess, even the Wetterling’s closest family members could not know the details until they were described in court.

Once the Wetterlings had agreed to the plea deal, there was a rush for prosecutors to get the signed papers back to court proceedings and bring the case before a judge, again before the volatile Heinrich could back out.

“This was our chance,” said Patty.

The Wetterlings were asked if they wanted to go the site of where Heinrich told authorities Jacob was buried. They said yes. On the drive to the Paynesville burial site they called their other children and for the first time told them what was happening.

Then the roller coaster began. At first, there were inconsisistencies with the remains found at the site. The jacket they found didn’t have Jacob’s name on it. Patty was sure the one he was wearing that night did have his name on it. The remains at first were those of an animal. The Wetterlings waited in pain for more news over a couple of days.

Then they heard again from investigators who found Jacob’s soccer shirt with his name and found other remains that were human. Closure. Finally.

One of the biggest hurdles to the deal was for the Stearns County prosecutor to agree not to prosecute Heinrich for the abduction or other crimes. “That wasn’t easy for her to do,” Patty said.

The rest is history that will reside not only in the archives of the Paynesville Press, but archives everywhere. Incredibly, Patty and Jerry look to the good that has evolved from the case.

Local teams all sported No. 11 jerseys in memory of Jacob. The Twins followed with a commemorative patch on their jerseys and the Vikings followed with a fundraiser. Other Minnesota High School teams sported the No. 11 also.

Patty Wetterling’s first community meeting after the case ended was in Springfield, a small town of 2,000 people in Brown County. She lauded the kids for coming up with positive messages. One of them was “Be gentle with others.” Said Wetterling: “That’s the spirit we’re fighting for.”

In the end, Wetterling said the journalism in Minnesota she came in contact with was kind and gentle and caring and sensitive, noting it’s not like that everywhere.

The family is still healing from this closure, she said, and appreciates that the news media has been considerate of the nearly three decades of suffering they have endured, and not only helped tell the story, but also brought about positive change.

“Thanks for giving us a safe space to begin healing,” she said.

Of course, the topic of the public’s trust of the media came up more than once during the convention, and how the nation’s leader was calling the media “very dishonest” at every opportunity.

We suspect he hasn’t heard Patty Wetterling’s story, or the hundreds of thousands of stories like this that play out every day in American journalism highlighting the special place journalists play in building our communities but also in helping heal them.

Joe Spear is editor of The Free Press. Contact him at jspear@mankatofreepress.com or 507-344-6382. Follow on Twitter @jfspear.

 

 

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