Here is a chronology of events that have occurred in the investigation:
(11/5/2004)KAAL-TV aired the first of 13 investigative reports during their 10PM News last night. Details on their web site's Huisentruit Files section.
8/17/2004
From KSTP-TV, Minneapolis/St. Paul:
New test results are in on a suspect in the Jodi Huisentruit case and will be revealed today.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS broke the story Monday night, and spoke about the results with Mason City, Iowa police and the man at the center of this investigation.
Thomas Corscadden is a convicted sex offender, who's currently locked up at the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter. We spoke with him Monday by phone after learning investigators had driven from Mason City to see him Monday afternoon. They did not arrest him. Police say they only questioned him.
Investigators executed a search warrant on Corscadden less than two weeks ago. They wanted his finger and palm prints after he admitted in open court, that he had bragged about being involved in the disappearance of Jodi Huisentruit, the Long Prairie native who vanished early one morning in 1995 as she was walking to her car in the parking lot of her Mason City apartment building.
Investigators are trying to find a match to a partial print found at the scene. Corscadden was questioned shortly after Jodi's disappearance.
Mason City police Lt. Ron Vandeweerde wouldn't characterize the conversation with Corscadden in St. Peter Monday afternoon.
We spoke with Corscadden by phone Monday night. He was calm, but clearly not happy about the fact that we reported all of the latest actions by investigators. When we asked him specifically about Monday's events, we got a resounding "no comment" and he hung up.
8/6/2004
Police probe prints for link between sex offender and Huisentruit
By BOB LINK, Of The Globe Gazette
MASON CITY — Investigators at the Mason City Police Department are obtaining palm and finger prints from a Minnesota man who may be a suspect in the Jodi Huisentruit case.
Thomas Corscadden, who is serving time in a Minnesota prison for a sex crime, has already been questioned by police about the 1995 disappearance of Huisentruit.
But after a recent review by the Mason City Police Department, it was discovered that it didn’t have Corscadden’s finger or palm prints.
“Over the years we have requested prints from a lot of different people,” said Lt. Ron Vande Weerd of the Mason City Police Department. “This is not the first time.”
On Tuesday authorities executed a search warrant, obtaining the prints.
On Thursday, Vande Weerd said the prints were being mailed to him.
Earlier this week, Corscadden appeared in Mower County court in a civil commitment hearing. During that appearance he was reported to have made additional statements regarding Huisentruit.
He is scheduled to be released from jail, but prosecutors say he is sexually dangerous and should remain locked up.
In March 1996, a court agent’s conversation with Corscadden prompted suspicion.
When she mentioned Mason City, Corscadden smiled and said, “Jodi Huisentruit.” When the agent said she didn’t think Huisentruit was alive, Corscadden is reported to have said, “No, she’s dead.”
Once he receives the prints, Vande Weerd said he will submit them to the state crime lab to determine if there is a match to prints lifted at the crime scene nine years ago.
July 16, 2004: MASON CITY — The Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s Department today identified the human remains found northeast of Mason City as a man last seen in 1995.
Using personal effects found near the remains and preliminary autopsy results, Sheriff Kevin Pals said the preliminary identification is James Maurice Perkins of Mason City, who was 44 years old when he disappeared in May 1995.
July 15, 2004: Local authorities are investigating discovery of what is believed to be human remains just North East of the Mason City city limits, in the 18000 block of 280th Street, in the vicinity of Ideal Creek.
6/26/2004
Nine years after Jodi went missing, still more questions than answers
By BOB LINK, Of The Globe Gazette
MASON CITY — June 27 has become a painfully quiet day for relatives of Jodi Huisentruit.
It was nine years ago when the 27-year-old KIMT-TV anchorwoman did not show up for work.
Nine years ago a nationwide search started and hundreds of questions began to start echoing.
With no answers to the most important questions, family members have no special plans for this day.
“We’re going to quietly remember Jodi,” said her cousin, Mary Lee Oberg of Little Falls, Minn. “And continue to ask people to come forward if they have any information on the case. We want people to keep remembering ... keep looking.”
Police believe Huisentruit was abducted shortly after 4 a.m. on June 27, 1995, as she went to her car in the parking lot of the Key Apartments on her way to the television station for her morning show.
She had talked with fellow workers earlier that morning, telling them she was on her way.
Found scattered around her car in the apartment parking lot were the things she’d have used to get ready for work: a pair of red women’s dress shoes, a blow dryer, bottle of hair spray, car keys and earrings.
Police began their investigation with those items and were joined by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the state Division of Criminal Investigation.
The story gained nationwide publicity as local officials went on television shows such as Larry King Live. Several missing-person shows also featured the case.
In the years since her disappearance, investigators have followed thousands of tips and interviewed more than 1,000 people.
“We’re not much closer than we were years ago,” said Lt. Ron Vande Weerd, a detective for the Mason City Police Department. “We still get calls today. But most of those are either ‘psychic’ in nature or are a follow-up to someone who has been arrested and the characteristics of their crimes are similar in nature.”
Vande Weerd said the person who is responsible is living with the tragic truth.
“Someone out there knows what happened,” Vande Weerd said. “I would urge that person to come forward, confess and provide the information.”
He said the file on the case is huge and investigators often review it when tips are received.
“We’ll keep following up until we solve it,” Vande Weerd said.
Oberg said Jodi’s mother, Jane Huisentruit, is now 80 years old and still hopes to find solutions to her daughter’s disappearance.
“She is elderly,” Moberg said. “It would be nice if she could get some closure.”
Like many, Moberg thinks the abductor is someone that was either close, or an acquaintance of Jodi’s.
“I certainly don’t feel Jodi is still alive,” Moberg said. “But it would bring us closure if we could find her.”
05-18-2004
Prosecutors try to stop release of sex offender questioned in Huisentruit disappearance
ST. PAUL - Prosecutors are fighting to keep a man questioned in Jody Huisentruit's disappearance behind bars.
Thomas Corscadden, who prosecutors say admited to rapes and attempted rapes going back more than 25 years, is being held at the Minnesota Correctional facility in Oak Park Heights. He's scheduled to be released early next month.
Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch and Mower County attorney Patrick Flannagan filed a petition to civilly commit Corscaden, who is now 52.
Corscadden was convicted of several sexual assaults, including an assault on his 8-year-old daughter, the attorney general's office said.
When Mason City, Iowa television anchor and reporter Jodi Huisentruit disappeared in June 1995, the attorney general's office said Corscadden was considered a suspect. They said that he had been to the city to go to nude dancing bars, and that his wife said he had contacted a TV station in that city in a failed attempt to get tickets to a show earlier that year.
Huisentruit has never been found.
In addition to the rape convictions, the attorney general's office said Corscadden admitted to sexually assaulting women in Vietnam when he was in the army in the early 1970s. The office said he claimed a friend would hold a gun to the victim's head and give her the option of sex or death.
http://kstp.com/article/view/144075/ 3/10/02
Remains are not missing Iowan
By DAVE ROEPKE
Register Staff Writer
03/10/2002
An examination of dental records has proven that the remains of a woman found in Indiana are not those of missing Mason City anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit, police said Saturday.
The bones discovered in a secluded area about three miles south of South Bend in 1996 bore striking similarities to Huisentruit, investigators said Friday.
"The dental records of the unidentified person in Indiana have been examined and compared to those of Ms. Huisentruit by a forensic odontologist, and he has determined they are not those of Ms. Huisentruit," said Mason City police Lt. Ron Vande Weerd.
The connection between the remains and Huisentruit surfaced in an e-mail to The Des Moines Register Friday from a Delaware man who said he learned of the body on the Internet and saw similarities between the two cases.
5/15/01
Court declares Jodi Huisentruit legally dead
By BOB LINK, Of The Globe Gazette
MASON CITY - Jodi Huisentruit, the KIMT anchorwoman who disappeared during June of 1995, was declared legally dead Monday in Cerro Gordo County District Court.
Judge Steven P. Carroll signed the court order, requested by Huisentruit's family, after Clear Lake attorney Robert Swanson, appointed by the court to represent Huisentruit's interests, issued his report.
Swanson was appointed to independently investigate the case on behalf of Huisentruit three weeks ago.
"There just isn't any evidence that Jodi voluntarily left her apartment, or staged the scene of her disappearance," Swanson said. "There is evidence that she was involuntarily removed from her apartment complex."
Swanson reviewed Mason City Police Department records and talked to Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents involved in the case while conducting the independent investigation for the court.
"There is no evidence that Jodi is currently alive," Swanson said. "Presumably she met an untimely early and involuntary demise."
Saying the court order establishing Huisentruit's death is in her best interest, Carroll signed the order without reopening the hearing.
Thaddeus V. Jude, Maple Lake, Minn., who represents Huisentruit's family, was not at the hearing.
Huisentruit's sister, JoAnn Nathe of Sauk Centre, Minn., said the request was a "very private family matter," which legally had to be done.
"I'm glad we settled it," she said. "We did what we had to do. Jodi would have wanted us to do this. She was one to take action and do what needed to be done."
Nathe said the family would continue its search for the truth of what happened in June 1995.
Jude said Monday's court action would allow the family to proceed in completing Huisentruit's estate matters
Huisentruit disappeared early June 27, 1995, and is believed to have been abducted from the parking lot of the Key Apartments, where she lived.
4/11/01
Huisentruit probe rekindled
By FRANK SANTIAGO
Register Staff Writer
04/11/2001
Copyright 2001, Des Moines Register and Tribune Company
Mason City police were hoping Tuesday that the abduction of a 17-year-old girl in Nebraska may provide the elusive break in the case of television anchor woman Jodi Huisentruit, who disappeared in 1995.
Capt. Mike Halverson said "our interest has been piqued" by the disappearance Friday of Anne Sluti, who Nebraska investigators suspect was kidnapped by Anthony Zappa. He remained at large Tuesday, and Sluti also was missing.
Zappa's name had not previously surfaced in the investigation of Huisentruit's disappearance, which has included many suspects and scenarios, Halverson said.
Authorities believed he was in prison at the time of the disappearance, but a check Tuesday of Iowa Department of Corrections records showed that he had been released.
Zappa, 29, has two cousins who live in Charles City, which is about 30 miles east of Mason City. The Minnesota native often stayed with them, investigators said.
He pleaded guilty Jan. 23, 1995, to a string of burglaries, some only a few miles from Mason City. Floyd County Attorney Marilyn Dettmer said Zappa, who also is known as Anthony Steven Wright, used a handgun in the burglaries.
Zappa was sentenced to 15 years and taken to the Oakdale prison Jan. 24 for processing, state records show. On April 4, he was released while his case was appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.
Huisentruit disappeared June 27.
The Supreme Court rejected Zappa's appeal, and he was re-admitted to Oakdale on Sept. 1. He was paroled March 5, 1999.
Zappa is wanted in five states, including Iowa, for car thefts, assaults and illegal gun possessions. A search for him prodded police to close the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., one day in March after he was spotted there.
Investigators said they had no motive for last week's abduction of Sluti, which they suspect was random.
Halverson said there appeared to be similarities between the Sluti and Huisentruit cases.
* Police found Sluti's purse and other personal belongings scattered near her car in a Kearney, Neb., shopping center parking lot. Huisentruit's possessions were found near her car in the parking lot of her apartment complex.
* Both incidents appeared to involve a hasty abduction.
* Kearney investigators said witnesses told them a man approached Sluti as she was walking toward her car. She was struck on the head and forced into a stolen minivan. The vehicle was recovered in Colorado on Sunday with no trace of Zappa or Sluti. Witnesses in Mason City said they saw a van in the early-morning hours near Huisentruit's apartment complex when she vanished.
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3/28/01 - Petition to administer Huisentruit estate filed
MASON CITY - A petition to administer the estate of missing KIMT-TV anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit has been filed in Cerro Gordo County District Court.
Huisentruit disappeared in the early morning hours of June 27, 1995, and is believed to have been abducted from the parking lot of the Key Apartments, where she lived, as she was preparing to go to work. She has not been seen or heard from since that morning.
Attorney Thaddeus V. Jude of Maple Lake, Minn., representing Huisentruit’s sister, JoAnn Nathe, filed the court petition. Huisentruit is listed in the court document as an "absentee."
"This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do," said Nathe. "Everybody tells us Jodi is no longer with us but I still hold out a faint glimmer of hope. The petition is a legal formality that we have to do in order to take care of some family things involving Jodi. The law says you have to wait five years and it's been almost six. I hated to have to do it but it is necessary," she said.
Second Judicial District Judge James M. Drew has set a hearing date of April 23 at 1:15 p.m. on Nathe's petition.
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8/7/00
ABC-TV's Elizabeth Vargas series "Vansihed" to feature Jodi's story
The disappearance of Jodi Huisentruit, the KIMT-TV morning anchor who has been missing for more than five years, will be the subject of "Vanished," an ABC television special Monday night. The program will air at 9 p.m. CDT - check your local listings for the time and station in your area.
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5 years, No Answers
By JOHN SMALLEY, Of the Mason City, Iowa - Globe-Gazette
MASON CITY - The fifth anniversary of the disappearance of KIMT-TV anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit is a painful reminder for those who knew her best and worked with her at the television station.
"To be honest, I almost dread the anniversary coming around every year," said news anchor Amy Kuns, the last person who spoke with Huisentruit before she was apparently abducted in the early morning hours of June 27, 1995.
"It's the dredging up of all the old feelings and all the unanswered questions," Kuns said. "As a journalist, that's one of the hardest things - to not be able to answer the questions."
Kuns said being the last person to talk with the then 27-year-old Huisentruit before she disappeared has created "almost an eerie feeling," in her life. "You always have those questions in your mind; you always wonder if you could've done something more.
"There's almost a guilt I have to live with wondering if something could've been done."
KIMT News Director Doug Merbach said he thinks about Huisentruit every day. All around him are reminders of the "vivacious," fun news producer and anchorwoman.
Each time he walks through the front door of the TV station, a tree planted in Huisentruit's memory greets him or waves goodbye. The desk Huisentruit used is still just 10 feet from Merbach's office door, and the memories still surface each day.
"You can't escape something like that," he said. "Jodi is definitely not forgotten, and I will certainly be thinking about her on Tuesday."
The 29-year-old Kuns, who was an associate producer of the early morning show that Huisentruit anchored, said the two had discussed the "what if" possibilities in terms of having to leave from home for work in the early morning darkness each day.
"We had talked about it," Kuns said. "We had conversations that went so far as to ask: if something would happen to one of us, who would know? We had a pact that if either of us was late, we'd call each other."
That agreement is what prompted Kuns to call Huisentruit that morning five years ago. The two spoke briefly, with Huisentruit relating that she was leaving for work.Huisentruit never arrived at KIMT, which meant Kuns scrambled to do the morning show alone. By about 6 a.m., another staff member called the police.
Kuns said she hasn't been interviewed by investigators in "a couple of years," but worked with the police very closely in the days following Huisentruit's disappearance. "I went with them to Jodi's apartment. They wanted me to see if anything looked out of place. Nothing did.
"Then I had to go through her clothes, to see if I could figure out what outfit she might have been wearing," Kuns said. "That was tough. It really hit me like a ton of bricks."
In addition to the effect on her colleagues at KIMT, Kuns said the Huisentruit case has caused ripples in the television industry, especially for women in TV.
"Through the Children's Miracle Network, I meet anchors from all over the country," she said. "I met an anchor from one of our sister stations in Myrtle Beach, S.C. She carries a gun in her car. She had heard of Jodi's story, and it changed the way she thinks of personal safety."
As for herself, "Finally after five years, I've let go of that constant fear," Kuns said. "It's taken me a long time to trust people again."
Even so, "I never let my guard down," Kuns said. "I think more now about my personal safety and I try to be aware of everything around me all the time."
Kuns said she has "finally come to grips with the idea that something terrible probably happened" to Huisentruit. "If she is dead, I hope she didn't have to suffer. That's the hard thing to think about. I just hope she didn't have to suffer."
Kuns said she fields questions all the time, wherever she goes, about Huisentruit and the disappearance. And she uses those questions to continue to advocate for awareness of personal safety, especially for women.
"I always make that point - please be careful; you can never be too careful."
Kuns said the Huisentruit tragedy also has caused her to appreciate life all the more.
"I've always felt that both good and bad things happen for a reason," she said. "I've wondered for years what the lesson is here. And I think it's this: guard your life and appreciate the time you do have here. You never know when something might happen to you or someone you love."
Kuns said the case "has really changed my life, and I'm trying to make it change for the better. I was so afraid for so many years. Now, I want to tell people: don't be afraid but do protect yourself and do be careful."
- Reporter Zach Jensen contributed to this story.
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Detective Wants to Bring Closure to Officers, Family
By ZACH JENSEN, Of The Globe-Gazette
MASON CITY - Five years. Five long years - Mason City Police Capt. Mike Halverson has been waiting for a lead, a clue, a hint of some kind that would lead him and his investigators to the whereabouts of Jodi Huisentruit.
But, unfortunately, there is no new evidence in the case of the June 27, 1995, disappearance of the then 27-year-old KIMT-TV news producer and anchor, and Halverson wants to bring closure to Huisentruit's family and to his officers.
"We don't know she's dead," said Halverson, the department's field operations commander. "However, the probability of her being alive after five years is very slim. I don't think she's alive, but do we have anything to confirm she is dead? No."
Huisentruit was last heard from about 4 a.m. the morning she disappeared. That was her regular arrival time at the television station, and she spoke with co-worker Amy Kuns, telling her she'd be there in a few minutes, but she never arrived.
Police believe she was kidnapped from the parking lot of her apartment complex in Mason City.
Scattered around her car in the apartment parking lot were the things she'd have used to get ready for work: a pair of red women's dress shoes, a blow dryer, bottle of hair spray, car keys and earrings.
Police began their investigation with those items and were joined by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the state Division of Criminal Investigation. In the five years the investigation has continued, investigators have followed thousands of tips and interviewed more than 1,000 people.
Today, Halverson said, he and his officers continue to investigate leads as they come in, though fewer leads are being found.
Dozens of rumors continue to float through the community regarding the possible circumstances of Huisentruit's disappearance, but authorities say even though they take all possible leads seriously, they don't want to comment on them publicly.
"We have never dealt with rumors and we're not going to start now," said Halverson.
Mason City Police Investigator Frank Stearns agreed: "We don't comment on rumors."
Stearns did say that each time the National Crime Information Center reports finding an unidentified person's body that matches Huisentruit's description, he compares dental records - so far to find the unidentified body is not Jodi Huisentruit.
Stearns said that despite the age of the Huisentruit file, it's still being actively worked on. The FBI and DCI each still have a special agent assigned to the case, and there isn't a day that goes by that Halverson and Stearns don't think about Huisentruit, they said.
"We have not received any leads that have led us closer to the conclusion of this case," Halvorson said. "This has been an extremely hard case to solve. It's something that all the investigators and patrol officers think about every day. We'd like to get the information we need to solve the case and make an arrest."
"It has been a difficult case," Stearns said. "It consumes you, and it is almost your every thought."
Other Case Developments
2/11/2000 Crews from the ABC television network were at KIMT-TV today, shooting video and gathering information for an hour long program that is to feature Jodi's story.
6/21/99 ST. PAUL (AP) -- Jackie Folkerts, a 19-year-old woman who was fatally stabbed in her Iowa home, told relatives before her death that a man told her he was involved in the disappearance of television newswoman Jodi Huisentruit, KSTP-TV in Minneapolis reported.
Huisentruit, an anchorwoman at KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa, disappeared four years ago, and authorities believe she was abducted as she was on her to way to work for the early-morning shift at the station.
Folkerts, a waitress, was found dead in her Britt, Iowa, home Jan. 25 by a co-worker and customer who had gone to check on her when she did not show up for work.
Britt is 30 miles west of Mason City in northern Iowa.
Folkerts' aunt and uncle, David and Olivia Mitchell, said Jackie told them a man approached her about three weeks before her death at the Colony Inn where she was working and talked about Huisentruit, KSTP reported Friday night.
" Some man had came in and was talking to Jackie about he was the one who either kidnapped Jodi Huisentruit or had something to do with it, " Mitchell said.
Mitchell said his niece was upset by the incident.
The man then showed up at the restaurant a second time, and Folkerts got the man' s license number. After her death, the Mitchells said they turned the number over to the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation.
Blake Dietrich, Britt' s police chief, told KSTP that he only recently became aware of the information and intends to follow up on it on Monday.
May 6, 1999: A convicted rapist in Minnesota is no longer considered "a viable suspect" in the disappearance of KIMT-TV anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit, Mason City Police Capt. Mike Halverson said Wednesday.
"After conducting a thorough investigation which included interviews, crime laboratory analysis, records review and polygraph examination, Tony Jackson is not considered, at this time, a viable suspect in the investigation," Halverson said.
Huisentruit disappeared from the parking lot of her Mason City apartment in June 1995. Authorities started looking at Jackson, 25, last year and the investigation intensified in February after a Minneapolis television station reported that a man who was in jail with Jackson in 1998 said that Jackson had confessed to killing an anchorwoman.
"We haven't been able to develop anything that will tie him in with this case," Halverson said. "However, that does not mean something won't come forward that could put him right back there at being looked at again."
Investigators interviewed Jackson March 25 and asked him to take a lie detector test, which he passed. Jackson had agreed to the interview months earlier, but Halverson said that investigators didn't want to interfere with criminal proceedings against Jackson in Minnesota.
Jackson is in prison there for three rapes and also was charged in February with a February 1997 attack. He is serving a life sentence for the first conviction and will be in prison until he is at least 88 years old, according to the Dakota County attorney's office.
Halverson said the investigation is ongoing and that leads in the case are still being received.
WCCO television reporter Caroline Lowe, who broke the story about Jackson allegedly confessing to killing the anchorwoman, said she thought the lead was definitely worth pursuing.
The prison inmate said Jackson recited rap lyrics about a woman being "stiffin' around Tiffin" and that led WCCO to an abandoned farm near Tiffin in eastern Iowa where search dogs reacted to an odor in a silo. Nothing was found.
"They did their job," Lowe said of investigators. "I wouldn't agree or disagree. We aggressively covered a report on a serial rapist."
February 27, 1999 Laboratory tests show that boards from a silo found at an abandoned farmstead in eastern Iowa are not linked to the disappearance of a Mason City television anchorwoman, police said Friday. See the full article here.
February 21, 1999 MINNEAPOLIS - Possible new evidence in the June 1995 disappearance of KIMT-TV anchorwoman Jodi Huisentruit was reported Sunday night by Twin Cities WCCO-TV I-Team investigative reporter Caroline Lowe. The report, that also aired on KIMT-TV Channel 3, Mason City, during its 10 p.m. newscast, suggested Huisentruit's body may have been buried in a silo near the Johnson County town of Tiffin and alleges a possible connection to Tony Jackson, a convicted rapist who was linked to Huisentruit's disappearance by the I-Team in an earlier WCCO report. See the full article from the Mason City Globe Gazette.
July 10, 1998 -- The assistant county attorney who successfully prosecuted Tony Dejuan Jackson for rape in Minnesota said she believes he is responsible for the disappearance of an Iowa TV anchorwoman three years ago. "In my own mind and in my own heart, I think he did it," Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Melinda Elledge told the Des Moines Register for a story published today. A Ramsey County judge sentenced Jackson, 24, Wednesday to life in prison as a "patterned sex offender" for the rape of a St. Paul woman. He would have to serve at least 47 years before being eligible for parole. "Knowing what I know about him and the way he has been involved as a rapist, I would bet my bottom dollar" that Jackson abducted Jodi Huisentruit, Elledge said. Jackson is being investigated in the disappearance of Huisentruit, a native of Long Prairie, Minn., who vanished on June 27, 1995. Jackson lived a few blocks away from her Mason City TV station at the time. In April, Jackson was sentenced for raping an 18-year-old Cottage Grove, Minn., woman and for burglary. He faces trial this fall for the rape of an Inver Grove Heights, Minn., woman, and may be retried in Washington County, where a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the rape of a Woodbury woman. Iowa authorities said their investigation of Jackson and the Huisentruit case continues. Steve Conlon, a spokesman for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, declined to discuss the details. "It would be fair to say that we're looking at further trying to pin down his whereabouts and the manner in which he committed the crimes in Minnesota," Conlon said. Jackson has maintained his innocence.
February 9.1998 (Mason City) -- Mason City police aren't commenting so far on news from Minneapolis about a possible development in the case of missing T-V anchor Jodi Huisentruit. A Minneapolis T-V station reports that information about a Twin City rapist has been sent to Mason City police. W-C-C-O T-V says F-B-I and state investigators may compare the palm print of 24-year-old Tony Jackson with an unidentified print found on Huisentruit's car. Huisentruit was the morning and noon anchor at K-I-M-T T-V who vanished on June 27, 1995. W-C-C-O says Jackson, who's charged with four rapes in 1997, lived two blocks from K-I-M-T T-V at the time of Huisentruit's disappearance. Mason City police say they found NO connection between Jackson and Huisentruit's disappearance during earlier investigations. Jackson repeatedly denied involvement in the case to W-C-C-O reporters.
August, 1997: A possible sighting was proven false. A retired California Highway Patrol Officer reported seeing someone matching Jodi's description in the Western US. A member of Jodi's family met with the officer, and the person that matched Jodi's description and it was confirmed not to be Jodi.
June 5, 1997: Jodi's 29th birthday; and the 2 year anniversary of the abduction is approaching. An upcoming nationally sanctioned women's 10K run in Iowa City will feature a candle-light vigil to remember Jodi.
1/9/97 Mason City Police want to question a Clemons, IA man who was arrested in Canada faces possible charges of kidnapping, sexual assault, and burglary in Marshall County Iowa. Raymond N. Hinders, 18, was arrested in Canada after a 21-year old female, also from Clemons, IA contacted Canadian authorities saying she had been kidnapped and needed help. Police are interested in interviewing Hinders apparently made comments about Jodi to his alleged victim on the way to Canada.
December7, 1996 Mason City police say that a tip on where to find the body of a missing newswoman has turned out to be another false lead.
Lieutenant Ron Vande Weerd says police received a tip via the Internet that the body of missing KIMT newswoman Jodi Huisentruit would be found in a soybean field about 35 miles southeast of Mason City.
He says the information appeared promising because it provided exact coordinates, but investigators found nothing when they excavated the site about three weeks ago.
The department normally does not comment on specific leads, but Vande Weerd made an exception today after the department received calls in the wake of news reports that police were responding to the tip.
He says the department follows all leads aggressively but that there have been no breaks in the case.
June, 1996: The one year anniversary passed with nothing new to report - KIMT did a special show that featured the case, and those of other missing person from North Iowa, and the station was again in the national spotlight for few days.
In early January, CNN's Larry King Live, and the NBC show Unsolved Mysteries started doing background research and was in Mason City shooting video for a future program, and Jodi's coworkers, family, and friends have appeared on a number of syndicated and network programs. This page continues to see an average of 1000 visits a month, and occasional e-mail messages of concern and support continue to be a source of strength as time passes with no new information. The reward fund is now over $34,000
December 27, 1995 marked the passing of six months since Jodi's abduction. The investigation continues - and all there is to report is that there is nothing new to report. Jodi's abduction continues to gain attention in various media - with newspaper and magazine articles, and TV shows about the case, with more to come.
Oct. 25, 1995. The fall harvest and hunting seasons are underway, and investigators in the case are again asking for the public's help. Farmers have been asked to look for anything unusual in their fields, outbuildings and grain storage bins. Hunters have been asked to look for anything that is out of the ordinary as they are out in remote, wooded areas as they hunt. The reward fund continues to grow, now in excess of $30,000.
Sept. 8, 1995: Jodi's family hired a private investigator to look into her disappearance, not because they are unhappy with the investigation, but they just want someone with a fresh perspective to see if there is anything that may have been overlooked in the search for Jodi.
Aug. 10, 1995: Police report that they are scaling back the investigation and the number of people working full time on the case will vary day to day based upon the number and nature of further tips received. Investigators have followed over 1200 leads in the case, all over the country.
July 1, 1995, 5:00PM: Authorities are looking for a Mid-1980's White, full-size Ford Econoline van. The vehicle and the person or persons in the vehicle may or may not be involved and are wanted for questioning. No license plate information is available.
REWARD!!
Crime Stoppers of Cerro Gordo County have established a reward fund at Liberty Bank and Trust of Mason City. Contributions to the reward fund may be sent to:
Crime Stoppers
Liberty Bank & Trust
PO Box 851
Mason City, IA 50402-0851
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