my thoughts on Jacob Wetterling remains being found

Jacob Erwin Wetterling (born February 17, 1978) was a boy from St. Joseph, Minnesota, who was kidnapped from his hometown at the age of 11 on Sunday, October 22, 1989, and murdered.

During the week of August 29, 2016, the FBI recovered remains from an undisclosed location in central Minnesota. Local media confirmed these remains to be Jacob's on September 3, 2016.[1] The location was revealed by Danny Heinrich, a longtime person of interest in the case.[2]

Kidnapping
On October 22, 1989, just after 9:00 p.m., Jacob Wetterling (11), his younger brother Trevor (10), and a friend Aaron (11), were cycling home from a convenience store where they had gone to rent a video,[3] when a masked gunman came out of a driveway and ordered the boys to throw their bikes into a ditch and lie face down on the ground. He then asked each boy his age. Jacob's brother was told to run toward a nearby wooded area and not look back or else he would be shot. The gunman then demanded to view the faces of the two remaining boys. He picked Jacob, and told his friend to run away and not look back otherwise he would shoot.[4] This was the last time Jacob was seen alive.

2004–2015 developments
External image Age progression of Wetterling to age 35

In 2004, some new reports appeared in the local press. A long-held belief is that the abductor got away in an abandoned car. It was also revealed ten months prior to the Wetterling abduction that another boy had been kidnapped, placed into a car and sexually assaulted before being released. The modus operandi was similar to 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 Wetterling, his brother, and friend were stopped.[5]

The Charley Project has sketches of a man believed to have abducted Wetterling and sexually assaulted the other boy in 1989.[6]

In early 2009, the Milwaukee Police Department 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 whose children had disappeared were found in Seitz's home. It was also revealed that Seitz himself had been abducted and tortured in 1959, and family members said he was thus concerned for Wetterling due to personal history.[7]

On June 30, 2010, investigators with search warrants descended upon a farm near the abduction site. "Items of interest" were found and hauled away in six truckloads of dirt from the site to search for evidence. Forensic testing was unable to "establish, distinguish or identify potential evidence".[8]

In May 2014, investigators confirmed that they were taking another look at a series of attempted and actual child molestations that occurred in the Paynesville, Minnesota, area in the two years leading up to the Wetterling abduction and murder. Between the summer of 1986 and the spring of 1987, five teen boys were attacked. No one was ever arrested. The authorities re-interviewed some of the victims and are working with the Internet blogger who brought the information to light. After months of research and interviews with some of the victims, it is believed that these attacks were not random and that the culprit could be connected to the abduction of Wetterling, located just 40 minutes away from the other crime scenes.[9]

In October 2015, a person of interest, Daniel James Heinrich, was publicly named in regards to Wetterling's disappearance. The person had been questioned and a DNA sample was taken back in 1990, but he was not charged with a crime.[10][11] The person of interest's DNA was recently matched to an abduction of a 12-year-old in Cold Spring in January 1989.[12] The suspect was arrested on October 28, 2015, and charged with possessing child pornography.[11][10]
Remains discovered

On September 1, 2016, Heinrich reportedly decided to cooperate with authorities and led investigators to human remains.[13] On September 3, 2016, Jacob's mother, Patty Wetterling, reportedly told television station KARE, a local NBC affiliate, that the remains found were indeed those of Jacob's. She said, "All I can confirm is that Jacob has been found and our hearts are broken. I am not responding to any media yet as I have no words."[14][15]

Constance Aka ”Connie”, born July 11, 1942 had just turned 10-years-old. Originally from Wyoming, she was staying at Camp Sloane in Salisbury, Connecticut in the Summer of 1952. She had one week left until camp was over. On July 14th, 1952 her mother visited the camp and said nothing was amiss and that Connie asked to stay at the camp longer.

However, less than 48-hours-later, on July 16th, 1952, the young wavy-haired brunette had some type of altercation with a group of girls shortly before breakfast which resulted in a bloody-nose. She was seen walking off, but not before telling fellow campers with whom she shared a tent that she was planning on skipping breakfast and returning an icepack to the camp’s nursing unit. (The icepack was used for a previous, unrelated injury.)

Connie had different plans however, she started walking down Indian-Mountain-Road, leaving the icepack behind in her tent. It has been said that she was home-sick, although according to her mother Connie seemed happy and asked to stay longer at camp Sloane and although she was told ‘no’, she didn’t seem to care, the altercation she had earlier could have changed her mind.

Camp counselors noticed the young girl missing later that day when they saw the ice-pack still in her tent and realized she hadn't been seen for a few hours. They searched camp Sloane and the surrounding areas, asking people if they had seen Connie.

According to witnesses, Connie was seen picking flowers while hitch-hiking, she was seen asking several people how she could get to Lakeville, which was less than a mile from Camp Sloane. She was again seen later that day on US-Route-44 in Salisbury, CT hitchhiking. She was carrying her black-pocketbook which might have contained photos of her friends. She has not been seen or heard of since, nor have any of her possessions been found.

♦ Connie’s disappearance gained national attention, dead-end leads and false-confessions. Numerous searches have been conducted to no avail.

♦ Connie’s Grandfather, Nels Smith, was the former governor of Wyoming. He has since passed away. So has Connie’s parents, with her fathers recent death earlier in 2012.

♦ Connie was an independent child who looked older than her age. A caucasian female who could have passed for a teenager at the time of her disappearance. She had wavy brown hair, blue eyes, and poor vision but wasn’t wearing her glasses while staying at Camp Sloane which would have made it difficult for her to see clearly or read.

On July 16th, 1952 Connie was wearing a red windbreaker, dark navy blue shorts with plaid cuffs, tan leather shoes and a red-hair-ribbon which would have helped keep her hair/bangs from blowing into her face.

♦ According to Sandy Bausch, a native to the area who has done extensive research on this case, the Police tried very hard looking for Connie Smith. Sandy stated, ↔ ”The Connecticut State Police took charge of the investigation. Almost immediately, they checked a nearby gypsy encampment. In fact, investigators hid in the forest for several days to see if Connie was being held against her will. Nothing came of that lead. As the days passed, cops drove through forests and fields in an open jeep, hoping to locate the odor of a dead body. They tested scat in the forest, thinking maybe Connie had been eaten by wild animals. After receiving a lead that she had been buried in the earth of a fresh grave, state troopers visited cemeteries and plunged rods through the dirt until they hit caskets. The area is littered with Revolutionary War-era water-filled “ore pits,” and police searched these, again to no avail. https://stillunsolved.wordpress.com/tag/constance-christine-smith/