Jacob Wetterling - Continuing Investigation

Continuing Investigation

The investigation into Jacob's abduction continues. In 2004, some new reports appeared in the local press. A long-held belief that the abductor got away in a car was abandoned. It was also revealed that ten months prior to the Wetterling abduction another boy had been kidnapped, placed into a car, and sexually assaulted before being released. The modus operandi was similar to that in the Wetterling case: the man used a gun and upon releasing the boy told him to run and not look back or else he would be shot. That incident occurred ten miles from the location where Jacob, his brother, and friend were stopped.

The Charley Project has sketches of a man believed to have abducted Jacob and sexually assaulted the other boy in 1989.

In early 2009, Milwaukee police discovered child pornography and an alleged video of Wetterling taken before the abduction in the home of Vernon Seitz, 62, of the St. Francis, Wisconsin area. Seitz had died in his house, but officers asked for additional assistance after the pornography was discovered. Along with the child pornography, articles involving missing children and maps of the cities from which those children had disappeared were found in Seitz's home. It also emerged that Seitz himself had been abducted and tortured in 1950, and family said he was thus concerned for Wetterling from personal history.

On June 30, 2010 investigators with search warrants descended upon a farm near the abduction site. "Items of interest" were found when hauling away six truckloads of dirt from the site to search for evidence. However, it was revealed in late September that testing was unable to "establish, distinguish or identify potential evidence".