Jodi Huisentruit case: New billboard, Iowa gathering mark 29 years since disappearance

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
Updated ·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

It’s been 29 years since television news anchor Jodi Huisentruit disappeared on her way to work in Mason City, Iowa.

At 11 a.m. Thursday, friends, family and members of FindJodi.com, a nonprofit website and podcast devoted to solving the case of her disappearance, will gather outside the TV station where she worked, KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa, to mark the anniversary.

Patty Wetterling, the mother of Jacob Wetterling, will be the featured speaker. She is a nationally recognized child-safety advocate and educator and the co-author of “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope,” the story of how 11-year-old Jacob was taken by a masked abductor near St. Joseph in October 1989. It wasn’t until 2016, when Danny Heinrich confessed to killing and burying Jacob, that the Wetterling family and the nation knew what happened to the boy.

When Huisentruit disappeared, Wetterling was the first person some of Jodi’s friends reached out to for advice, said Caroline Lowe, a FindJodi team member who worked for 34 years as a crime reporter for WCCO-TV.

Huisentruit, of Long Prairie, Minn., interviewed Wetterling on two occasions regarding 11-year-old Jacob’s kidnapping, Lowe said.

“The first time was just months after he disappeared,” Lowe said. “Jodi was a senior at St. Cloud State University in January 1990, studying communications and broadcast journalism, when she and several college friends visited Patty at her home,” she said.

Three years later, when Huisentruit was working at KSAX-TV in Alexandria, Minn., she interviewed Wetterling again for a story that ran on what would have been Jacob’s 15th birthday, Lowe said.

“For me, the cases have always been twin cases,” Lowe said. “Jacob’s case being solved was the one that inspired me to think that Jodi’s could be solved.”

A new billboard was installed near the Mason City Airport in June, just days after Huisentruit’s 56th birthday, Lowe said. The billboard, donated by Reagan Outdoor Advertising, reads: “Don’t sit in silence … the time to talk is NOW,” she said.

“Somebody knows something. We’ve believed that from the beginning,” Lowe said. “The anniversary is a significant date to not only Jodi’s family and loved ones but for the person who abducted her. That’s why we keep the billboard in Mason City. We’re keeping Jodi up there until she is found. Her family wants to bring her home to Long Prairie.”

FindJodi.com officials launched a billboard campaign in 2018 in Mason City to help solve the mystery of Huisentruit’s disappearance; the billboards appeared around the time of her 50th birthday. FindJodi.com has paid for a billboard in the city ever since, Lowe said.

Related Articles