27 Facts

June 27, 2022 would represent 27 years since KIMT-TV anchor Jodi Huisentruit was abducted from her apartment complex in Mason City, Iowa.

Her case remains open and unsolved. Her family and friends are still seeking answers.

On this episode of the FindJodi Podcast, Caroline Lowe revisits a previous web post and provides an in-depth overview of the case.

If you have information about Jodi’s case, you can reach the Mason City Police Department at [phone]. Or you can share information with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at [phone] or via email at [e-mail].

You can also reach us anonymously at FindJodi: (970) 458-JODI (5634) or via email: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Before sunrise on a mild summer morningin June nineteen ninety five, a twenty
seven year old television news anchor namedJody Husten Trutz hurriedly left her apartment in
Mason City, Iowa, headed forwork, but she never arrived, and

(00:26):
her disappearance has never been solved.In two thousand and three, two television
news reporters created finds Jody dot Com, a website dedicated to preserving Jody's memory
and keeping her case alive. Thisis the official fines Jody podcast. Welcome

(00:55):
back to the Finds Jody Podcast.I'm Scott Fuller. On this episode a
discuss between Caroline Lowe and myself basedon a post that Caroline made to the
website finds Jody dot Com on thetwenty sixth anniversary of Jody's disappearance. Last
summer, Caroline came up with alist of twenty six facts twenty six known
facts about Jody, who's in truesubduction from Mason City in nineteen ninety five.

(01:18):
Jody's case is set to get asignificant amount of national media coverage this
spring, some of that coverage comingvery soon, and so we wanted this
episode just to very back to thebasics of Jody's case to be at the
top of the podcast feed. Foranyone who is unfamiliar with Jody's case.
This is also a good opportunity foryou if you've listened to every episode of
the podcast, to remind yourself ofdifferent aspects of a very complicated investigation over

(01:44):
a long time that might have slippedyour mind over the episodes that conversation.
Twenty seven facts in what will bethe twenty seventh year since Jody went missing
Coming up next on this episode ofthe Find Jody podcast, we have Caroline
Lowe Find Jody team member and investigativejournalists for decades at WCCO in Minneapolis,

(02:06):
and Caroline, for the twenty sixthanniversary, which would have been June of
last year, put together a poston the website that we're going to revive
as we go into the spring insummer. Twenty six facts about Jody's disappearance
in the case, one for everyyear that she's been missing, and so
we're going to add to that forthe twenty seventh year. Have it there

(02:29):
for a good starting place for peopleto go to if they're unfamiliar with a
case or if they're unfamiliar with anypart of the case. In this episode,
we're going to take that post anddo a podcast form of it in
the interest of theater the mind beforewe started recording here, so people can
have a mental picture. You're inyour home office and you're wearing your fine

(02:49):
Jody shirt for this right. Yes, I had some T shirts made last
year, one for myself. Isent one to Jody's sister Joanne in Minnesota,
and I'm carrying my mom rosary thatshe had in her deathbed. Two
days before she passed away, wewere talking with her about the legacy of
service she left with her kids andshe mentioned my sister mentioned that I was
working on Jody, and my mom, who is barely aware, said hughs

(03:13):
and truth and I kind of She'sfollowed it for years, so I'm hoping
that to get a little inspiration tokeep going. Also in the office here
on my end, I'm not wearingit because I have my headphones on.
But you gave members of the teamand Joanne a hat a fine Jody had
that you had made out there inCalifornia. So that's always in my office
right in front of me here too. So your twenty six posts and we'll

(03:35):
turn it into twenty seven for thisyear. We're just going to run them
down, and again, this isa good introductory episode. The fact that
you have first up, Jody hadapparently overslept on the morning of June twenty
seventh, nineteen ninety five. Jodyhad spent the day before at the Mason
City Chamber of Commerce golf tournament anddinner. She left the Mason City country
Club shortly before eight pm, thatwould be Monday night, and called a

(03:58):
friend in Mississippi at eight twenty fourpm. So when it comes to Jody's
Monday, right up until about eighttwenty four it's all pretty well known.
From the time that she's on theair as usual for daybreak, didn't anchor
the new newscast as she normally wouldbecause of this Chamber commitment that she had.
In terms of Monday, she isaccounted for all the way up to

(04:21):
after when she leaves the country clubevent, and eight twenty four pm is
a time that the police have givenon the phone call that she made to
her friend in Mississippi. It obviouslygets a little bit murky after that into
the Tuesday morning where she disappeared withthis phone call, Caroline, How is
that confirmed by police? The waywe understand the time was directly from police

(04:45):
who've done interviews. The current investigator, Terrence Brotaska, has said that on
national television. So that's one ofthose few facts and for us in recent
years was actually a new fact.We did not know that until more recently,
and there have been so many specialson Jody over the years. But
that eight twenty four pm becomes avery important piece of the timeline that,
as you say, was previously unknownto us. We know she left after

(05:06):
eight pm, and she's on thephone at home in her apartment, obviously
very importantly at eight twenty four pm. Question becomes what happens between eight pm,
eight twenty four pm and then aboutfour am the next morning, and
that brings us to fact number two. This is Tuesday morning, when Jody
failed to show up for work.Kimt assistant producer Amy Coons awaken Jody with

(05:30):
a phone call at about four tenam. Amy said Jody assured her she'd
be right to work to anchor thesix am newscast in the studio located about
a mile away from Jody's apartment.Amy later said nothing sounded out of the
ordinary when she talked briefly with Jodyon her landline phone that morning, again
at about four ten am. Oneof the questions in reading this fact number

(05:50):
two Caroline that I get is howmany phone calls were there from Amy to
Jody that morning? There was obviouslythe four ten am phone call, but
how many times altogether did Amy callJody. You know, when we've talked
to Amy in the past year andmore recent years, some of the time
part frame is a little more fuzzy. But looking back at interview she did
early on, when things were morerecent, it looked like they were about

(06:13):
three phone calls, the one shortlyafter four, another one about four thirty,
another one about five o'clock, andthe four thirty call and the five
o'clock call were not answered by Jodyright exactly. And I think that's led
to the strongest speculation when Jody mostlikely was abducted sometime after the four ten
phone call, and probably at fourthirty, so it's probably a twenty minute

(06:36):
window we're talking when Amy had thatlast contact with Jody. Question that comes
up quite a bit too. Alsoas a result of a police statement in
one of those national specials. Ibelieve it's Frank Stearns, who's now retired
from Mason City Police, who wason this case for many, many years.
He says that the toilet seat inJody's apartment has left was left up,

(06:59):
and that obviously infers to some peoplethat there was somebody else in the
apartment with Jody that night. Whatdo we know about was Jody alone in
the apartment that night? How dowe know or not know at this point,
Well, it's kind of have tostring some things together. If you
go back to a statement from ChiefJack Sleeper, who's now deceased, back
a day after Jody was abducted,I'm reading directly from the Mason City Globe

(07:21):
Gazette from two days after Jody isabducted. Police Chief Jack Sleeper is quoted
as saying police also have found noevidence that anyone was with her prior to
her disappearance. Sleeper said, Sothat was an immediate twenty four hours after
Jody disappeared, doing an interview thatnext day that appeared in the newspaper on
Thursday. So the invest actually thechief of police at the time in nineteen

(07:44):
ninety five, immediately after Jody disappearedas saying there's no evidence that there was
anybody else in her apartments. Youhave a long time investigator on the case
many years later saying, well,the toilet seat was left up, so
it's possible somebody was adding to theconfusion a little bit frankly. And you
know, and I've run this bynumber of investigators from other agencies, US
retired ones as well that we oftenconsult at Fine Jody, and they said,

(08:05):
don't rule out the possibility it mighthave been a police officer, one
of the officers on the scene.Because all the focus was in the parking
lot. There were no signs ofa struggle really anything out of the ordinary,
other than perhaps at toilet seat inJody's apartment, So it could have
been somebody who was stuck there.It's all speculation. It's certainly something when
I first heard about it about twelveyears ago that caught my attention, but

(08:28):
I think it's a mistake to cometo conclusions. We've also heard speculation about
possible beer cans in the sink overthe years. When I talked to Rose
Tobin several years ago, the managerof the Key apartments, who said she
got the call from police to leta police officer go check on Jody that
morning. She said that was notthe case. Everything looked fine in her

(08:50):
apartment, nothing looked out of theordinary. So as to whether or not
Jody was alone that morning, Iguess the real answer is we don't know.
But there is no indication that therewas anybody in her apartments other than
what Lieutenant Stearns had said about thetoilet seat being left up, which,
as you just said, could beotherwise explained too. And Amy Koons said

(09:11):
when she talked to Jody, Imean, granted she wasn't there, but
she said her impression is that shedid Jody sound like she had been awakened.
No indication, no sound of anybodyelse there. That was her take.
So we are left to kind ofpiece these things together. But I
think it's significant that the police chief, who was one of the first people
on the scene that morning when Joywent missing, made a statement like that
to the media. Fact number threeis Amy Koons said that Jody had occasionally

(09:35):
been late before. This is broughtup as people try to kind of make
sense of the timeline and weave anarrative together of their own. How often.
As far as we know now fromAmy and the other co workers that
you've spoken to of Jody's, howoften was she late to work for that
early early morning shift. I thinkthe best description I can give from talking
to Amy and then talking with thenew weather person who worked there with Jody

(10:00):
it was there that morning, isthat she occasional. It wasn't specific,
but it had happened before. AndI'm talking to Jody's manager, Doug Murbach,
the news director, and others.None of them had been aware of
that before. But that again isnot all that surprising, having worked at
a smaller station that a lot oftimes these things happen and they don't necessarily
get shared with the management. Youcan also go back and find a previous

(10:22):
episode about point number four, andthat is that Jody was apparently abducted about
twenty minutes later, this being afterfour ten, next to her car outside
her apartment, which was parked justtwelve feet from the entrance of her apartment
building. We talk a lot inpast episodes about the apartment complex itself.
We also talk about what indications thereare that Jody might have been stocked short

(10:46):
term or long term prior to herdisappearance, perhaps by her abductor having recently
saw it. You and I wererecently down there, and just to be
there and experience the parking lot isdifferent than anything else. So, knowing
what you know about the case inthat facility, what about this scene indicates
that Jody's attacker might have been waitingfor Jody to come out. I think

(11:07):
when you look at how close hercar was parked to the building, the
amount of time a person would haveto grab Jody was so small, The
window was so tiny, she waswhat twelve steps away, so I think
it, and looking at this stuffthat was scattered, her personal items by
her car, it feels like avery surgical and blitz attack. At the
same time, somebody was precise.They jumped in, they grabbed Jody,

(11:31):
and they got her. Things gotscattered, and then she was gone.
And the direction Jody was walking fromher door the apartment complex store to her
car, Let's say there was abad guy walking down the street, she
would have had time to see himand probably take some kind of evasive action.
It's that close when we take twelvesteps, and even if Jody hadn't

(11:52):
seen somebody, even if the personwere going very quickly. It would be
impossible to get from up there inKentucky Avenue to her door of her car
to where she was that quickly.And you and I spent a lot of
time looking at it from so manydifferent angles where she could be watched.
And I think it's pretty clear thatby the time Jody left her apartment that
person had to be in place veryclose to where the dumpster was, very

(12:15):
close to her car. Could notbe person could not be too far away
and successfully grab her right location ofthe dumpster was behind where Jody would have
been walking too. There are severalreasons to believe that there was fairly fierce
struggle between Jody and her attacker rightthere next to her car. During the
struggle, the key to her nineteenninety one miles to Miata was slightly bent.
Her red high heels, blow dryer, earrings, and hair spray were

(12:39):
found scattered on the ground nearby anddown the parking medium toward the street,
as though Jody were being dragged duringher after the struggle, and that mirror,
her mirror was pushed forward on thecar as well, like she had
been pushed against it. That's right, her driver's side door mirror was bent
toward the front bumper. So onething I want to point out, since

(13:00):
we mentioned the key, this getsbrought up a lot. It's an unfortunate
descriptor over the years that her carkey was bent, because I think a
lot of people think forty five degreeangle. Her car key was bent,
police have said, but very slightlyso, and that's evidence from the photos
that police released about ten years afterJody's abduction. I do want to put
out there that Jody's key was notbent in such a dramatic way, but

(13:24):
it was bent's enough where I thinkpolice believed that it was in the lock
as she was being attacked, right. I think the feeling is that she
was right there at the door,her back was to the attacker. The
key is one more indication of justthe force that was used because it was
bent, as well as all thethings that we're probably thrown out of a
bag or whatever. I can't imagineshe was carrying her blow dryer and her

(13:46):
heels and the other things she hadwith her in her arms, so there
must have been some kind of bagthat they were in and they went flying
as she's being attacked or part ofthe struggle as she's being dragged away.
That's a great point because if wedo this backwards and say these items are
at the scene, than what itemsare not at the scene and why not?
And none of those items have beenfound. No item outside of that

(14:07):
parking lot has been found that weknow of related to Jody's case. As
far as we know, things likeher tote bag, she had a newer
address book that Auntie Cruz had justseen that previous weekend. There's items like
that, as far as we know, have never been found. If they
have been found in more recent years, the police have not shared that,
but to this day we believe theyare missing. Fact number six is there
were no eyewitnesses. Nobody from theapartment complex called police. And we should

(14:33):
say that you have over the years, and we've highlighted some of these accounts
on past podcast episodes. There werepeople who saw and heard things that day.
You've interviewed several people who have seenmaybe something related to the abduction.
But the point here is nobody sawJody, who's in troupe, being abducted.

(14:54):
Despite this occurring in a bowl infull view of most of the units
in three fairly law Arge apartment buildingsexactly a number of those units, like
Jody's, faced the parking lot,and granted it was the middle of the
night and not that many people arelikely to be up, But as the
police said there were no eyewitnesses,there were potential ear witnesses that they did
not hear about till the next dayor in the days that followed, where

(15:16):
some of the other people in thebuilding and the next building over said they'd
heard some scream, some said theyheard some knocking on a door, and
statements made. As we've followed upwith many of those people, many of
them are deceased. The neighbor acrossthe hall that we'd heard about supposedly heard
some things. She passed away anumber of years ago. The man in
building B who said he was upat that hours and thinks he heard a

(15:37):
really long scream. In fact,I read a letter that he wrote about
it with quite a bit of descriptionof what he said he had heard a
long scream. He never called police. None of these supposed examples of earwitnesses
popped up until after Jody was abducted. After police went knocking door to door
looking for people who may have heardor seen something right, and that's point

(15:58):
number seven two that people did hear. They told police they heard a scream
or some kind of other commotion fromthe parking lot around the time that Jody
was abducted. People have asked overthe years, did police interview everybody in
that apartment complex, as you justmentioned. I'm not sure what percentage,
but a good percentage of those residentsare now deceased. But we've talked to

(16:18):
quite a few as well. Fromwhat we know, how thoroughly did police
canvas the area in terms of interviews, You know, it's really hard to
tell. As you've mentioned, anumber of the people are deceased. Some
of the people also have memory issues. We talk with one woman a few
months ago who felt that she didn'tsee the police take any notes. She
didn't feel they showed a lot ofinterests in some of what she shared about

(16:40):
concerns about somebody in a car who'dbeen behind her building down by the campgrounds,
who had been of concern. Sowe don't have until we someday see
the inside files, if there's thecase is solved and the files are made
available, We don't really know thequality of those interviews back then. It
struck me too that of the peoplethat lived in the complex, we've run
into people who were interviewed by oneagency and not another. And I'm sure

(17:06):
there's coordination and communication in the casefile there between agencies. I've yet to
find. I don't think anybody insidethat apartment complex that we've talked to who
wasn't interviewed by somebody. But somewere interviewed by FBI, some were interviewed
by DCI, MCPD, so therewas that too. I can't imagine.
I mean, basically, investigations oneon one issue canvas. You knock on

(17:26):
every door, you knock and talk, So I would assume that everybody had
been reached to some point, butwe just don't know what was obtained from
those searches. And back to thescream for a moment. Looking at a
quote from chichaperback a day after Jodydisappeared, he said, some neighbors have
said they heard a noise that mighthave been associated with the incident, but
others thought it might have been animalswere still working on that point. Number

(17:48):
eight is at six am, whenJody had not shown up to work.
Amy Cohon's anchored the hour long newscastin Jody's place. Amy had to write
and produce that newscast by herself.That's obviously a day that nobody would forget.
We recently talked to Amy for anepisode of the podcast you can go
listen to that. It was withinthe last year, last summer. I
think it was that episode. Quickly, Caroline, you and I both met

(18:10):
with her in person, which Ithink was key too. What were your
thoughts about Amy's episode and where she'sat now in her account? Now sitting
there with her, we were withher two to three hours having launched,
talking to her and then recording apodcast. You could feel the trauma that
she still lives with almost twenty sevenyears later. She's grown a lot.
I think she's now committed to controllingher narrative, telling her story, but

(18:34):
she'll say little things will pop up. Try to help her deal with it,
because she said if she knows inadvance, she can usually deal with
it. But it's been a verytraumatic journey. I also talked not too
long ago with the new weather guywho was working with Amy that morning.
We haven't heard a lot about thatuntil recently, but Kevin Skarupa is now
a weather person out east. Heremembers just they kept expecting Jody to walk

(18:56):
through the door any moment, hesaid, because he could. Amy was
very upset during the commercial breaks,wondering is it taught to show? Went
on what's wrong, and he personallythought that maybe Jody had just been stopped
for a speeding ticket rushing into work. Didn't have a cell phone back then,
and I thought, it's strange thatshe didn't make geric because in our
TV business, it's a huge it'scardinal sent not to make air. But

(19:19):
they never imagine, as much asthey became increasingly concerned, they never imagine
anything like an abduction occurred. AndKevin said this still stays with him to
this day, and other people hewent through this with at the station is
kind of forever seared that those momentsand the next few months in their lives
and their memories. Those recent accountsthat you've done for the website, in

(19:41):
for the podcast, in addition toAmy's episode, I think added a lot
of context to what it was liketo be in their shoes first person,
and what a scary and surreal experiencethat was for them. All these years
later, it still comes across whenthey talk about it. Oh, that
that lunch that day with Amy wasso strong. And I've talked to dog

(20:03):
Myrbach quite a bit over the years, and it's still with him, you
know, he still lives with Heis the man who hired Jody. And
what could you do? And frankly, I don't know what he could have
done because I have friends at workin the business now and early morning anchors,
and you know, they don't haveescorts, they don't have full time
security staff taking care of them twentyfour to seven. Yeah, but it's
impossible to have been connected to thattragedy, that event and then have to

(20:26):
cover it, To have that ongoingright in your own newsroom. This isn't
something that happened, say at arestaurant that was horrible, but this is
where you go to work every day, right in your own newsroom. Jody's
desk was still there. You hadto look at that that trauma. I
can feel it when I'm with him. You can't escape it. It's still
there. At about seven o'clock,then that morning fact number nine, just

(20:48):
as that morning daybreak newscast is ending, Amy Coons did not call the police.
She actually asked somebody else to callthe police to check on Jody.
Jody had been late before, aswe mentioned, but she'd never of her
missed a newscast, and now she'dmissed the whole newscast. And so fact
number ten, at seven thirteen am, that co worker at KAMT called the

(21:08):
police. Again, that was notAmy Koons though somebody else yes, And
as you know, it's been reporteda number of times that Amy made the
call. The fact is, Amy, who had had to pull that whole
newscast off from six to seven,still had updates to do, had to
work on the noons show, soshe's continuing just to try to get through
the hour getting her job done.So she asked a co worker who walked

(21:29):
through to make the call. Soseven thirteen am the police are notified for
the first time. They're actually onthe scene within just a few minutes.
But if we think back to thetimeline here, she's abducted around four twenty
or four thirty that morning, andnow thirteen is when police are called.
Whoever took Jody, whatever wherever hewas going, whatever his intentions were,

(21:53):
he has a three hour head start. Then before police even know that Jody's
missing. That person who took Jodiehad an incredible number of breaks. The
three hour window, the no eyewitnesses, nobody who came forward, and
if the person knew it was Jody, If the person knew Joy as the
morning anchor, he had to haveexpected that there'd be an immediate response.

(22:15):
Jody not making air would be huge. He never could have imagined that her
not showing up her work, notmaking air would not have triggered an immediate
response. He was very lucky inthat sense. And I've thought, too,
wondered to myself, how can youexpect to do something like what this
person did to Jody in such abrazen way and not be seen by somebody?

(22:36):
So he might be thinking in minutesas opposed to hours. Yeah,
I can't imagine as he went inand made the move and grabbed Jody and
took off, that he ever couldhave not expected to have the police on
his tail pretty soon. It wouldn'tsurprise me if this person hadn't been there
before practicing this, if the personwere stalking her, figuring out the different
things you had to consider to pullsomething so brazen as this, pull it

(23:00):
off and get away with it,knowing that Jody, who was running late
for work, was due to beon the air within ninety minutes so when
she was abducted, so fact numbereleven. Then right there, at seven
to sixteen am, the first MCPDofficer arrives at the apartment complex. Initially,
they're not treating this as an abductionright away. They're kind of looking
around, as we've heard from variouswitnesses, trying to get their bearings.

(23:23):
What does Jody even drive, whichapartment unit is hers? Which building does
she live in? So that probablytakes a couple of minutes, and then
the officer pretty quickly would have seenthe sign of a struggle by her car
next to Jody's car, which wasstill parked right below Jody's apartment window.
It is her card, the brightred Mazdamiata right. You couldn't miss it.

(23:45):
It had to pop amongst the othercars in that loft that morning.
We also have a whole episode onthe car, our opportunity to see it
in person, but also very valuablythe work that you did on how Jody
acquired that car, at least asfar as we could get on that,
So fact number twelve, the MCPDChief at the time, Chief Jack Sleeper,
among several other officers. Several manyend up showing up. I'm not

(24:07):
I can't remember the number of Carolinaoff the top of my head, but
I want to say twelve. Ican't imagine that most of the force wasn't
there. We have a number ofnames on the incidant report that we can
post, but I think there wasa full turnout. They knew when they
saw the parking lot, the sceneat the parking lot, Jody missing air.
They didn't know exactly what they had, but they knew something really bad
had happened. I believe. Soit escalated after seven sixteen. It escalated

(24:30):
very quickly in that next half hourin terms of the police presence. This
is when police are first getting agrasp on what is happening with Jody,
and one of the things they wantto do is get inside the apartment.
And people may have not stopped towonder how did they get inside the apartment,
who let them in, and whatdid they see. Rose Tobin,
who was a manager of the Keyapartments back then, has told us a

(24:52):
number of times over the year thatyears that she's the one that was approached
by police and was the one thatfrankly had a key to the apartment and
took the officer doing the initial welfarecheck into the apartment looking for signs of
Jody. And what struck her andI think everyone at the time is nothing
looked amiss. Yes, we heardlater about the toilet seat, but nothing
looked like any kind of a struggleor any kind of problem in the park,

(25:15):
in the apartment. Whatever went onhappened there by the car. And
so in terms of what police didfind point number thirteen, very little forensic
evidence was found to the crime scene. A partial palm print was obtained from
Jody's car. Somewhere on the car, A strand of hair was also discovered,
according to retired MCPD investigator Frank Stearns. He said that, as we

(25:37):
mentioned in the same television interview,Stearns refused to say if her route was
attached to the hair. It's notknown if the found evidence is related to
Jody's disappearance. A witness also approachedpolice, stating that he had seen a
white van near Jody's card about thetime she disappeared, and that witness it
was Randy Linderman. All of thesetopics again her covered in previous episodes.

(25:57):
We get evidence questions all the time, is there forensic evidence? What evidence
do they have? Or their fingerprints? We've in recent years gotten a lot
of DNA questions with the advancement offamiliar DNA and touch DNA. From what
we know right now, bottom line, how does it look when it comes
to DNA or the physical evidence atall when it comes to Jody's case.

(26:18):
Well, as much as things andforensics have gotten better in recent years,
I know, back in two thousandand four when Josh Benson and Gary Peterson,
who founded Find Jody, interviewed LieutenantRon Vander, who is the supervisor
the case. Back then he saidhe emphasized we have very little evidence.
I mean that was key from thebeginning. Later years and we didn't know

(26:40):
about the palm print. Later yearswe heard Frank Stearns mentioned the hair on
a national televis show. He didnot save it had a root in it.
Things have gotten better in terms ofgetting to get DNA from a hair,
a strand of hair, even ifit doesn't have a root, but
we don't that's still a small pieceof evidence. And the pom print,

(27:00):
we don't know if the palm printwas somebody that was with Jody at the
golf tournament the day before, somepeople I talked to somebody who walked Jody
to her car earlier in the day. Could it be one of her friends.
Her friend Tammy Baker had been therejust the week couple weekends before visiting
with her. Could it be oneof them? Could it be an officer
walking through. Could it be someonein the apartment complex. But as far

(27:22):
as we know, they have neveridentified that pomp print, And we know
that when different people of interest nameshave come up, they have the police
have tried to get compared to seeif there's someone's print could be on the
car, and the mestag matches similarlywith the pom print. Also the hair,
even if it's usable, say witha route for DNA comparison purposes.

(27:42):
Otherwise, hair evidence is famously unreliable. But if you have root material,
maybe some DNA, But there again, we don't know that the hair belonged
to the perpetrator, just like pombprint exactly. And I've talked to some
people who worked a fact a womanwho runs a DNA DOE project doubt here
who's helps identify unidentified remains, andshe was telling me about some things in

(28:03):
the last few years that have advancedquite a bit with hair testing, and
we could put some information on oursite. But again, one hair that's
a tiny, tiny piece of potentialevidence. That whole struggle in the parking
lot that was probably pretty violent,and there's just those two pieces of evidence
well, and a lot one ofthe things that me we can touch on
now that's been incorrectly reported a lotover the years is that there was blood

(28:26):
there. But the police have madea point of coming out and say no,
there was no blood evidence, Butthere has been number of reports over
the years saying there was blood.If they had blood, that would be
could be very significant if only therewere, but there is not. Fact

(28:48):
Number fourteen. Jody's friend, JohnVan Siss and two other men arrived at
the key apartment's mid morning while policewere at the scene. Police say Van
Siss told him he was the lastperson to see Jody alive, and he
told them she had stopped by hisMason City duplex that night before Monday night
to watch a video of a surprisetwenty seventh birthday party he helped throw for
Jody. On June tenth. Theparty was held at Sully's Bar in clear

(29:11):
Lake. The building was owned atthat time by a friend of Jody's and
Van Sisse's businessman, Alden Stecker.Stecker's former wife shot the video. Sources
say the video was given to VanSisse the day before Jody disappeared. From
what we understand, the video isabout just under eighteen minutes. What's significant
there is at times, until Iheard that, I always had the idea

(29:33):
that maybe it was a two hourvideo, and would Jody really go over
on a work night to watch areally long video. When you hear it
just under eighteen minutes, it doesn'tseem like it would necessarily be out of
the realm of possibility. But Ido know if you look at police interviews
in recent years, they seem skepticalthat Jody ever got together with John van

(29:53):
Sisse and watched the birthday video.And one of the reasons that might be
the cases we know what time sheleft the golf outing before eight She has
a phone call from her apartments ata twenty four pm, and so an
eighteen minute video it doesn't work insidethat window. We've raised a question in
this podcast in the past could Judyhave gone home first and then to John

(30:15):
van Seiss's house to watch the videoafter if there's a reason he couldn't have
that police know, we're not awareof that, but they have stated publicly
they think that's a very tight window, and they seem to be convinced that
she would have gone over during thatwindow. Yeah, I think the window
if you look at where John vanSeiss was living, the distance from the

(30:36):
country club where Jody left her whatevergolf team partners told me, it was
probably closer to quarter to eight.But even leaving at quarter to eight,
going over to John van Seiss's duplexto watch a video, even if it's
eighteen minutes, then getting back homein time to call her friend Kelly Turguson
at eight twenty four, it wouldnot work. There is no way that
window would work. So if shedid go over, it would have had

(30:57):
to have been after the free phonecall that Jody had with Kelly's husband,
because Kelly was at home right whichbrings us to fact number fifteen. So
we're back at the scene and JohnVan Siss has arrived and he's telling police,
I saw Jody last night. Wewatched a video Obviously, any investigator
is going to be interested in that, especially as they're still getting their bearings
on what happened to this missing woman. So police told John van Sisse to

(31:21):
bring that video to the police station, which he did, and that's where
he was interviewed by investigators for thefirst time. What do we know about
John van Sissen's terms of the investigation? Was he polygraphed? Were his properties
his homes ever searched? Yes,we do know that John van Sisse was
polygraphed. In fact, he volunteeredthat to the media. At one point
he said that he had passed withflying colors. In terms of his house

(31:44):
being searched, that we have neverheard of any search conducted by police of
his residence. In terms of thesearches of his property, it's become public
that his properties were searched after theabduction, but there was never a search
warrant obtained those properties. Correct.If there was a search warrant obtained,
it may well have been sealed andwe wouldn't necessarily know about it. And

(32:06):
we have learned some things over theyears. In fact, that twenty seven
teen incident with the search warrant wasexecuted for GPS staid on his cars.
We did not know about it untila year later and it popped up on
the Iowa Courts website. But theactual search warrant was kept secret, So
it's possible, but we have neverheard specifically of a search warrant. So

(32:28):
if they didn't have a search warrant, that would have had to have been
a consent search where John Vansis said, hey, come on in, take
a look. Fact number sixteen.We'll go back to the weekend before Jody
disappeared. That would be June twentythird through the twenty fifth. Jody was
on a water skiing trip to IowaCity with John van Seiss, as well
as her good friends Annie Cruz andTammy Baker, and Van Seiss's son Trentz,

(32:50):
who was in college in Iowa Cityat the time. The group stayed
at Trent's apartment over the weekend.Tammy shared a bedroom with Jody. She
and Jody met several years earlier whenthey were both working as reporters in Iowa
City. The previous weekends to thatJune seventeenth through the eighteenth, Tammy also
stayed with Jody at her Mason Cityapartment Tammy says that weekends they spent time
with John van Sisse as well andother friends in clear Lake, voting and

(33:14):
dancing. I want to point thosetwo weekends out, and I'm glad you
bring them up, because so muchis made of that weekend before for good
reason as to what Jody was doingthat weekend before. But she was also
with many of these same people theweekend before that in mid June, right,
Jody say, This June was amonth of Jody doing a lot of
water skiing, and she got tosee her good friend Tammy Baker on the

(33:36):
two of those weekends, both whenshe came down that earlier weekend in June
and again up in Iowa City.And I just seen Jody. Typically,
even though she had did do somethings alone with John van sis typically she
would have her friend Annie cruise alongor to say when she was at the
op Bar other places where she wentor if she was water skiing. Could

(33:57):
if she was water skiing, itoften include Tammy as well. Fact number
seventeen in Caroline's post is Jody's lastentry in her personal journal was dated the
previous Sunday, June twenty fifth,that's two days before the abduction, Jody
wrote about how much fun she'd hadwater skiing on Van Seis's boat that previous
weekend. Van Seiss named the boatafter Jody, although her name was never

(34:19):
actually painted on the boat. VanSeiss, who was twenty two years older
than Jody, later told the mediahe took a polygraph and passed with flying
colors, as he said. VanSeiss has repeatedly denied any involvement in Jody's
abduction and has never been arrested orcharged in connection with Jody's disappearance. That
boat name that you bring up,Caroline, comes up a lot. It
sticks out to people that John namedhis boat after Jody. He says so

(34:42):
himself in a media interview. We'vediscussed this on the podcast a little bit.
John van Seiss's boat was I guesswe could say informally named after Jody.
Her name was not on the back, as you point out. According
to Annie Cruiz, Jody's good frontwho was out on the boat a number
of times. Tammy bay Her fortyeight Hours, which interviewed John for a

(35:02):
CBS show back in nineteen early daysin nineteen ninety five. There is never
anything they saw on the boat becauseyou know that that if they had had
Jody's name on the boat, thatwould have been a real key part of
their piece. So we have foundno indication that her name was actually painted
on the boat. Also pointing outabout John van Seiss's polygraph, we've sort
of encountered as we interview people whomight have been certain places or known certain

(35:28):
people. I was frankly surprised tothe number of people who say that they
were polygraphed by the Mason City PoliceDepartment. So John van Seiss was polygraphed,
he says, he says he passed, But there are also several other
people surrounding this case, I guesswho also tell us that they've been polygraphed
by investigators exactly. We heard abouta pilot that knew Jody, who,
according to Report and Star Tribune backthen, was polygraphed. You spoke with

(35:52):
somebody who is a friend of Jody'swho is polygraph We've heard of others as
well, and I think we shouldemphasize that polygraphs, as you know,
are not admissible in court, butthey are an important investigative tool. Investigators
often use it to try to finda direction, try to see, for
example, of somebody's willing to takea polygraph, A lot of attorneys will

(36:13):
say, don't do it, becauseif you come across the wrong way,
if you're nervous about something else,not a good idea, But they are
an investigator tool. I've seen overthe years people who've passed polygraphs who turned
out to be guilty. It's alsoa bit more subjective to the operator,
the polygraph administrator than most science andthink the interpret the interpreting of the exactly,

(36:35):
which is why it's not admissible.Fact number eighteen, A copy of
Jodey's eighty four page journal was mailedanonymously in two thousand and eight to a
reporter at the Globe Gazette in MasonCity. A police investigation revealed it was
sent by the wife of a formerMCPD chief, David Ellingston. Cheryl Ellingston
previously worked for that newspaper, butno motive has ever been given for why

(36:58):
she sent the journal to her formeremployer. This was an early episode that
Josh Benson and I did for thispodcast, which is still just a fascinating
bizarre twist in this case that hasmany But as you point out, that
former chief's wife, Cheryl Ellingson,has never said what her motivations were,
what she was trying to achieve,why she sent the copy of the journal

(37:20):
to the media. It's still oneof the stranger twists, more enduring and
one of the more enduring mysteries ofthis What motivator Was she trying to give
a scoop to a report her atthe paper that she respected. Was she
trying to send a message I've youknow, we've only seen a small portion
of the eighty four pages, butI assume that the highlights were what we're
published, and there's nothing that jumpsout. There's nothing that looks particularly negative

(37:45):
for Frankly John van Seis. It'sa mystery, and I did try to
reach I did reach Cheryl Ellingson lastyear to see if maybe she would talk
to me give us some insight,and she hung up the phone. And
the police said later after they weretrying to crack down and find out how
this copy of evidence Scott release,they said they did not know the motive,
so she was never charged with thecrime. It's the family was very

(38:07):
upset about. It was very personal, as Jody's own words, and there
it is the front page of thepaper. No idea what prompted Cheryl Ellingson
to mail a copy every time Igo back to that so bizarre fact.
Number nineteen. Two federal grand jurieshave reportedly been convened in connection with Jody's

(38:29):
case. No indictments were handed downby either of those grand juries. A
friend of Van Siss's, Lodonna Woodford, has said that she testified in one
of those grand juries that Van Seisswas home when she called him at about
six am on that Tuesday morning,June twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five,
and that the two of them endedup going for a walk around the neighborhood.

(38:49):
We I think what it tells usis she we have somebody who testified
under oath claiming that Van sis washome at six If that's true, that
gives him an extremely narrow time.Do you have anything to do with Jody's
disappearance? It would not fully alibiJohn Van Sais. It's I call it
a partial alibi. It's a partialalibi exactly so from four twenty until six
am obviously an even tighter window tocommit this crime and do whatever follows.

(39:14):
From four twenty four thirty to sevenfifteen in the morning, and as you
say, it's a grand jury witnesswhose testimony has not been impeached. You
know, in terms of there's noevidence that LaDonna Woodford is not telling the
truth it were aware of. Ithink if the police had found discrepancies in

(39:34):
LaDonna Woodford's story in terms of thephone call, I can't imagine they didn't
check out her phone, his VanSizes phone. If they had found that
she had testified falsely under oath ortold us to police and lied to police,
I think that she would have beencharged with making a false police report
with perjury, and I think thepressure would have been used to try to
get her to cooperate in their focusingon John Van Siss. There are a

(40:00):
lot of things like grand juries andsearch warrants in this case, and it's
difficult to follow along with, maybeespecially in this overview episode, but this
is something that Caroline the rest ofthe team have documented as each of these
things have come up over the yearsat Fine Jody dot com. Fact number
twenty is in March of twenty seventeen, Van Seiss was subpoenaed by a federal

(40:21):
grand jury in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So he drove from his current home
in Arizona to provide a DNA sample, fingerprints and palm prints. No charges
came from that grand jury. Sothe question there is if that didn't result
in a charge all those years later, now in twenty seventeen, what was
the point of subpoenaing John van Seissat that time. It's hard to know

(40:46):
what the police thinking was reason washaving him come up to do that.
I mean, he could have providedhis palm prints, fingerprints, DNA to
the FBI office in Phoenix where helives. He wouldn't have to go up
to Iowa to do it. Ithink you have to remember that federal grand
juries are often on fact finding missions. And I talk with a former federal

(41:06):
prosecutor we interviewed a few months ago, Ted Dubias. He said, one
of the things they sometimes do ifyou have a later grand jury is like
a more recent one, is peoplememories change, People are dying, so
there may have been people brought inthat we have no idea who they were,
and to get their testimony under osget it locked in. So if
down the road there are charges,they have that frand juries testimony unless a

(41:30):
person chooses like LaDonna to talk aboutit. It's secret. There's no way
you find out anything until it onlyif there is an indictment, So we're
left to just sort of piece togetherspeculate. But we really don't know.
That episode that you did with TedTobias well worth going back and listening to
as well for those who haven't,not specific to Jody's case, but investigations

(41:52):
in general and no body cases ingeneral, which is what Jody's case is
at the moment. Fact number twentyone. Also in March of twenty seventeen,
the MCPD obtained a search warrant froma Sarah Gordo County judge to place
GPS tracking devices on two vehicles connectedto John Van Sisse. Van Siss did
not own these vehicles in nineteen ninetyfive. I don't think either, we're

(42:15):
even in existence. In nineteen ninetyfive, Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told Forty
eight Hours correspondent Jim Axelrod the GPSsearches did not produce any evidence. The
search warrant affidavits for the searches haveremained sealed, so it's unknown what probable
cause investigators provided to the judge.To convince him to approve those searches.

(42:35):
The Mason City Police very basically wouldhave to convince a judge that there is
whatever the evidence is reason to believethat this person might be connected to a
crime or this crime specifically, andthat evidence is what remains sealed inside that
warrant. It's been resealed annually eversince. Are we ever going to see

(42:58):
what's attached to that search warrant?I'm talking with this Harrol Gordon County attorney,
and just from my own experience coveringthese things, no, I do
not think it will be released until, say, somebody is charging Jody's case,
and at some point when everything's released. The argument, the point that
the prosecutor makes is they want toprotect the integrity of the investigation. Very

(43:19):
common way to do that, andit was certainly could show a little window
on why they're focused on this oneperson. Now. The other thing to
keep in mind, and I goback to Jacob Werling's case, as we
often do, search warrants were alsoexecuted on a neighbor the police focused on
for some time, Dan Rassier,who later turned out had nothing to do
with Jacob's case. We never sawthe contents of those search warrants, and

(43:42):
there were several until after Jacob's remainswere found twenty seven years after he's abducted,
after Danny Heinrich was convicted on anunrelated federal child porn case and led
the police to the remains. Soit's only way after. It was a
done deal, So I don't thinkwe're likely to see anything anytime soon.
Fact number twenty two takes us allthe way back to before Jody's abduction.

(44:04):
In October of nineteen ninety four,Jodia reported to the police in Mason City
that she'd been made uncomfortable by aperson in a small, newer white truck
on a Saturday evening in October nineteenninety four. That truck has been erroneously
described sometimes by police as a blacktruck. It is, in fact a
white truck. You were able toconfirm that through a document request of Mason

(44:25):
City police. The incident report confirmsit was a white truck. The truck
and the driver have never been identified. Beside the nineteen ninety four instant,
Jody also told some friends and aself defense instructor and the months before her
abduction about concerns that she may havebeen followed. Despite those instants, police
have been publicly skeptical about the possibilitya stalker may have abducted Jody. And

(44:47):
actually there were two incidents that policehave said over the years that they checked
out prior to Jody's abduction. Dealingwith Jody. There was the white truck
following her, which there's an incidantreport on all that daytime. That's all
confirmed through the instant report that yourequested. There is a second incident that
one of the investigators from Mason CityPolice references that there is no public documentation

(45:10):
for, and that is one ofthe investigators said that Jody had felt fearful
driving to work at some point andshe was given a police escort, according
to this police investigator, for aperiod of a couple of days, but
that is not corroborated by any documentationat least that we have access to.

(45:30):
And you looked, you tried.I actually requested a copy of that incident,
made a public recket's request, aswe did for the white truck.
Trying to figure out what's going onto be followed on your way to work
on a weekday morning, say atthree o'clock in the morning is very different
than the white truck incidents, whichhappened about six thirty on a Saturday night.
But after I made my request,the police department told me that there

(45:53):
is only one incident, the whitetruck thing, So I'm not sure where
this other one came from. I'veasked to Amy Coons if she ever heard
about it. I asked if anythingabout her ever having police escorts. No
one at her station remembers Jody everhaving police dog, and Doug didn't know,
and he presumably might have heard aboutthat. If one of his employees
is being escorted to work, onewould think so. On the other hand,

(46:15):
he did not know about the whitetruck incident, so if you know,
he had not been aware of that. But certainly if Jody's getting police
following her escorting her to work,that would have been talked about in the
newsroom. She would have talked withAmy about that. Yeah, So we
never could get to the bottom throughrecords of that second instant. Whether they're
being conflated, whether they both happened, we don't know. And it's there's

(46:39):
no if there's no other corroboration ofanybody following her on the way to work,
and this is still, you know, on the website, if you
go to the report that was doneback in two thousand, it's still out
there and it surfaces from time totime on some of the web forums,
and it kind of keeps it outthere that there were these two very different
incidents the Jody reported to police alongthose lines of Joy being stalked Fact number

(47:02):
twenty three. Jody would have beenrelatively easy to stock. Her home address,
her apartment, unit number, andher phone number were all listed in
the Mason City public phone directory.She had lived in that apartment, which
faced the parking lot, since Novemberof nineteen ninety three. She also had
the same work schedule every day.She frequently talked about some of her social
activities and community events on the airwhile she was delivering news. People have

(47:27):
asked me, was she worried?Was she concerned for her safety? I
think from the things that we've heardabout the actual report that she made about
the white truck, me reporters anchors, you get a lot of people that
look at you, but to takeit to the level of making a police
report, Yes, and I knowshe was upset when she talked with her
mother about it. The fact thatwhen she met with the Safety the Defense

(47:50):
instructors in March, saying that shehad been recently felt she had been followed.
To me, those are things thatshe was now. Sometimes, her
friend said, she would try todownplay it so she didn't seem she was
being overly concerned. It's almost likeshe had that there's a book called Gift
of Fear. It's like she hada sense of something. Now it's possible
that was going on and doesn't haveanything to do with what happened to Jody.
It feels like something was going onin her life, and as she

(48:15):
said, from when you track downthe Mason City phone book and the things
that we've looked at, it's heartbreakingto see how easy Jody would have been
to stalk if that's if you hadthat intent. Fact number twenty four,
a convicted serial rapist in Minnesota,Tony Jackson, was living just two blocks
from the TV station where Jody workedin Mason City, Iowa, at the

(48:36):
time that Jody disappeared. Another convictedsex offender in Minnesota, Tom Corse Scadden,
was also in the general area atthe time. Both men are still
locked up in Minnesota facilities. Bothwere interviewed by Mason City investigators. Both
have denied any involvement in Jody's disappearance. And these, as far as I'm
aware of the only two people whohave been eliminated in Jody's investigation publicly,

(49:00):
they're the only ones that we've seen. The police come out and make a
statement, put out a press releasewith Thomas Corscaden, Lieutenant Vanderware talked about,
you know, he was polygraphed,he did provide a palm print and
basically said we've moved on. Thatwas an interview he did with Josh Spenson
and Gary Peterson back found two thousandand four. In terms of Tony Jackson,

(49:21):
after police interviewed him at prison,they put out a brief press release
saying that after doing a polygraph,palm print, some other things. Fact
one of the things that sterns whenhe cleared him, he said nothing in
that interview led us to believe thathe had anything to do with this.
That's describing an interview that he,Frank Stern had with Tony Jackson. So
they've gone on the record to sayvery strongly that these two people have been

(49:45):
ruled out right. Fact Number twentyfive a fine Jody. Billboard in Mason
City, meant to help generate leadsin the case, was vandalized on New
Year's Eve twenty nineteen. The nameof a retired investigator from MCPD, along
with the words machine shed We're spraypainted on the billboard. After a four
day investigation, the vandalism case wasclosed with no answers as to who defaced

(50:07):
our billboard and why? How fardid we get in finding out what happened
there? People have asked me,actually every New Year now, people ask
me, do you ever find outwhat happened to the billboard? What do
we know about that? We reallydon't know very much. You did track
down the police report, which indicatedbasically a four day between the time it
was taken the time it was closed. The takeaway we've had, and we've

(50:30):
talked to the police department as theythink was probably just New Year's Eve behavior
something like that, not connected toJody. But it's another one of those
questions we continue to get and evenother investigators I've talked through to outside the
Mason City area feels something that needsto be looked at. On the other
hand, some investigators feel given thename of the investigator on the former investigator

(50:52):
on the billboards line, it couldhave been an anti police thing, somebody
who had to grudge against the specificinvestigator. The current police chief, Jeff
Brinkley, had said publicly that itwas likely something a prankster vandalism New Year's
Eve kind of Shenanigan's paraphrasing, andalso worth mentioning the level of crime that

(51:14):
was committed against our billboard in MasonCity was a much lesser degree misdemeanor and
so the statute of limitations would haveexpired. So at this point, aside
from Jody's investigation, there's no reasonto pursue it as an independent crime.
But we did get tips on thebillboard to facing well, and I think
at the end of the day,it's really not charging or you know,

(51:36):
we had a book pay to putup another billboard. I think it's is
it a clue, is it adistraction? Is it a clue? And
we just don't know. Fact numbertwenty six from last year's post. Twenty
six years since Jody was abducted,Iowa's highest profile unsolved case remains a mystery.
Jody is still missing. No onehas been charged with abducting her and
her family and loved ones. Markanother year with no joy, no answers,

(52:00):
and we'll be updating that for thetwenty seventh year should we get there
with no answers. Later on thissummer, I could point out too that
Jody was declared legally dead in twothousand and one, and this upcoming June
twenty seventh, Jody will have beenmissing twenty seven years, the same number
of years that Jodie was alive.That number really stays with me because twenty

(52:21):
seven is also the number of yearsJacob Winterling was missing and finally found.
So I'm wondering if this number willhave some significance. But I think about
it a lot. You had madethat observation to me last summer, and
I made it to one of Jody'sfamily members, and it was extremely powerful
to me and to them. Shehas now been She will have been gone

(52:44):
for longer than she was alive,which is a very impactful thing to think
about. Well, and you haveyoung children. I think my kids were
really young back then, and Isee how much they've grown. They're grown
up, they're in their world,they have grandchildren. You just measure all
the years and years that things havebeen lost. Jody's mom passed away without
having answers her sister. She hastwo sisters, Joanne and Joe. Joann's

(53:07):
and Minnesota and Joanne's daughter were veryclose to Jody, and she just lives
with what they call ambiguous loss,that unknown wedndesay answer what scenario could it
be? Whatever scenario of what happenedto Jody is awful. But anytime it
stays unresolved, these things keep comingup and it'll be like which Jacob.

(53:27):
It was horrible when we got thenews that Jacob was found, but at
that point you could finally move on. He was brought home, the family
had a service, and you know, we were at the golf tournament with
Jody's sister this summer up in LongPrairie. I was thinking, this is
probably going to be where Jody's servicewill be one day, and the family
needs that. They need answers,the community needs it. Amy Coon's,

(53:51):
Doug Murboch, all the different peopletouched by Jody's loss, they need answers.
I've been shocked, really at thenumber of new things that have come
into the Find Jody team. Justin the last couple of years, and
then you go back the last fiveten years. Even then, it's amazing
to me how new information, newfacts are brought to the surface all the
time, all these years later.There's something about this case, especially where

(54:15):
those facts are so elusive, becausewe operate with this set of assumptions for
so long and then something comes alongand changes the whole dynamic with this case,
and some of the facts that comealong, we don't know what they
mean. One thing that came upa few years ago from hearing from one
of our followers, as we learnedthat we connected with Jody's teammates or golfing

(54:36):
partners. And we had always beentold, always thought the narrative was that
Jody has spent the whole day atthe Mason City Country Club, That's where
the dinner was held that night,That's where the majority of golfers were.
But in fact, according her teammates, they played at the Highland Park golf
course across town. What does thatmean in the timeline, it means Jody
was there from about nine in themorning until about two to thirty when she

(54:57):
went home to change after it rained. Could thing have happened there? What
is how significant? And we don'tknow if the police already knew that or
not. There's a lot of stufflike that they don't share with us.
But it's one of those things throughour followers that we learned that we did
not know before. So we reachout to anybody who's listening. We always
encourage you to reach out to thepolice department. But if there's part of

(55:17):
the timeline that you personally or someonein your family knows is not accurate,
it's really important to get the bestinformation out there. And you and I
were talking earlier, there's so manynational shows that have been done on Jody,
so many new podcasts. I can'tthink of a show or podcast that
hasn't had some factual errors. We'vehad ours to correct over the years,
and I feel our role is tobe the base operation of the most accurate

(55:42):
information we can have out there.So when these people do these shows,
people get information that they're going froma base of facts. So we're committed
to keep updating it, and ifwe have something wrong, I want to
get it right tougher to do thesedays, because the police share very little,
so some of what we get weget elsewhere, and then maybe things
that the police simply just don't know. But we keep digging and looking to

(56:05):
get a fact based place where youcan go to find what's going on with
Jody. And a twenty seventh questionfor our twenty seven facts, I guess
I know we don't know the answerto this, but how close are we?
How close are they the police?How close is this? You know?
We get that question a lot,as you know, Scott, and
a few years ago the chief wasquoted as saying they were close. I've

(56:28):
been hearing that for three or fouryears. Back in two thousand and four,
Josh and Gary did the interview wherethe investigators said, we're not any
closer today than we were day one. Pretty just heartening to hear. When
they're going on the tenth year anniversary. I just don't know. We learned
again with Jacob nothings teemed to begoing on, and then suddenly there was

(56:49):
a break. They brought in anew set of eyes after the twenty fifth
anniversary, and finally there is abreak the next year. That's what we
hope with Jody. But there's nothingthat we're aware that shows they are close.
You know, I would say tothat that question they might not have
gotten there yet, or we mightnot have gotten there yet, but someone

(57:09):
has been close. Someone's been close. I'll bet to this person, whether
it's police or US or somebody.As you say, with these cases,
once this thing starts to go,it's going to go quick. We just
need that one domino, that firstdomino, and that's what did it finally
in Jacob's case. So you hopethat in that case, though it gave

(57:30):
him a break. Is they hadanother person who had also been assaulted.
They had DNA from the sexual assaultand Jared Shyroll. We're not aware of
that here, but there could besomebody whose relationship has changed. I saw
that years ago with Donald Blum convictedmurdering Minnesota. His wife originally back then
claimed that he was home with herthat night, and then after he was

(57:51):
arrested, after he went away toprison, she came forward three years later
and said, I lied about that, but she felt safe. Is there
somebody out there who has formation,who didn't feel safe before, who's lived
with part of this over the years, who has a hunch, has some
information police come forward, share thatinformation with the Mason City Police or the

(58:12):
DCI or the FBI, or cometo us at Find Jody. You can
reach out anonymously. Just don't makethat family go for a twenty eighth year
of not knowing what happened to Jody. As our billboard a year ago said,
someone knows something. You might thinkit's nothing, but you may not
see the whole puzzle. You mightnot see the whole picture. You don't
know what police will do with thatand how it will make sense to them

(58:35):
or us. Just make sure somebodyknows what you know. And the newer
billboard says, don't sit in silence. The time to talk is now,
capital letters now, and that's myappeal. If anybody's listening, if anybody's
coming to our website, he said, we have some more national shows coming
up because we're going to be gettinga lot of tension for Jody. But
please don't make the family wait anotheryear. Finds Jody as a nonprofit run

(59:07):
by volunteers with a mission of keepingJody's unsolved case in the spotlight. Anyone
with information about Jody's case can reachout to the Mason City Police Departments.
Information can also be provided to theIowa Department of Criminal Investigations. You can
also contact find Jody anonymously. Ifyou prefer don't sit in silence, The

(59:30):
time to talk is now for theentire Finds Jodi team. I'm Scott Fuller.
Thank you for listening.