Impressions From The Key Apartments

Members of the FindJodi team were recently in Mason City, and on this episode of the FindJodi podcast, team members Scott Fuller and Caroline Lowe share their impressions of the Key Apartments, where news anchor Jodi Huisentruit was abducted on June 27, 1995.

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 her

(00:26):
disappearance has never been solved. Intwo thousand and three, two television news
reporters created fines Jody dot com,a website dedicated to preserving Jody's memory and
keeping her case alive. This isthe official Finds Jody podcast. Welcome back

(00:56):
to the Fine Jody Podcast. I'mScott Fuller. Thank you for listening,
and on this episode we are joinedby Fine Jody team member Caroline Lowe.
Once again. Caroline and I hada chance to get together in Mason City
recently within the last couple of weeks, and she and I took the time
and the opportunity to visit the scene, that being the Key apartments where Jody,
who's in trute, was abducted inJune of nineteen ninety five. Obviously,

(01:19):
for more in the case see previousepisodes. But Caroline joining us now
after her visit to Iowa, andCaroline, you and I got to walk
the scene. You've been there obviouslybefore, but it's been a few years.
First of all, before we getto the key apartments itself, and
sort of a renewed perspective or refresherthat you might have on the Key apartments.

(01:40):
What was it like to be backin Mason City. I found it
very emotional to be back in MasonCity. As you said, I've been
there many times over the years,both initially covering the case in more recent
years for the dedication of our fineJody billboard on I would have been fiftieth
birthday in twenty eighteen. The walkfor Jody we did on the twentieth an
of her. But being there,I always look for clues. I always

(02:02):
think, is there something I missedon a previous visit. But it just
hit me how many times I've beenthere. Where is there an answer here
in Mason City? What are wemissing? One point, I stopped by
the billboard, our new billboard onMonroe, and I got teared up.
There's just something so emotional for meseeing Jody's smiling face up there saying don't

(02:23):
sit in silence, the time totalk is now on our billboard, and
thinking I hope somebody driving by thisbillboard is going to have an emotional connection
as well. Somebody who might knowsomething, who might kind of think they
know something, will come forward.It was very emotional for me to be
back there in Mason City, andspeaking of the billboards here point, are

(02:45):
there answers still in Mason City.I've always sort of assumed that whatever happened
to Jody, she is still withinsome kind of proximity of Mason City.
And I think there are answers inthat town that haven't been told or haven't
been told of the right people,which is one of the reasons why we
have the billboard up there to beginwith. But in a lot of ways,
that town is still the center ofthis case exactly, And I think

(03:07):
having that billboard in Jody's face meansJody is always in Mason City herself.
She's there. You can't escape thebillboard if you're going through town, can
see it a couple times a dayor more. So Jody is still in
Mason City. She's not just acase somewhere in a police department file or
something we're working on. It putsher presence and visibility in Mason City,
and as far as we're going towe're going to keep that presence until Jody

(03:29):
is found. One of the reasonsI wanted to do this episode is because
even in this age of Google Earthand citizens flew thing and investigating cases online,
as you know, there is noreplacement for actually seeing a place and
the dimensions and the geography and meetingthe people. Not everybody is obviously able
to do that, and so hopefullythrough this episode we can describe the area

(03:52):
of the town, and specifically hereI want to focus on the Key Apartments,
a place that you've been several times, many times. You covered the
story from day one for WCCO andnow obviously as a member of the team,
but it had been a while sinceyou'd been to the Key Apartments before
you and I went back there acouple of weeks ago. What struck you

(04:12):
as sort of a refreshed memory ofthe Key Apartments overall, several things struck
me. I think the immediate thingwas just how small the complex is.
When you get away from it andwe talk about it, you hear apartment
complex, three buildings. I thinkit's easier to think of it as a
bigger site. The other thing thathit me in so many ways, it
doesn't look any different. Yes,at night, there's lighting that wasn't there

(04:33):
back the dark morning when Jody disappeared, But overall it looks so similar to
back in the day. Standing therewith you, as we circled around and
looked at it from different angles,it struck me that there are a lot
of different places you could position yourself, at least initially to watch Jody's apartment.
It was very easy to see.In terms of actually moving in and

(04:55):
abducting her, you had to havea plan to be there really close to
her car, But overall it prettyeasy place to do some staking out and
keep a good eye on Jody's apartment, the entrance to her building. Places
like that. For anyone who hasn'tbeen to Mason City, how would you
describe the apartment complex in the sideof town it's on. Would you call

(05:15):
this a populous area? Is itbusy? Is it rural? Is it
remote? How would you describe thatto someone who's never been there? Well,
it's it's a good question. Ijust was asked that recently on another
podcast. I wouldn't say it's remote, but across the street there's a parking
lot, where there's a church,and maybe down the block, I believe
there's some houses, but it's notheavily populated. It's not there aren't a
bunch of residential homes right there acrossfrom Jody's complex. Quickly it becomes a

(05:40):
city, it becomes more populated,but not in that immediate spot where Jody
in the front of the building onKentucky to where Jody was living at the
time, and Jody only had afive minute drive if that when she went
to work in basically downtown Mason City, and her apartment complex is to the
north and east of downtown and kimtgoing back through the old footage newspaper and

(06:04):
video, it was presumed that whoevertook Jody, they had two choices to
go out of the parking lot ontoKentucky Avenue. They could have gone north,
which would be a left turn,or they could have gone south,
which is the route Jody took towork every day, which is a right
turn, And it was presumed thatthey turned north because that's the fastest way
out of town. If you turnnorth, you're about four minutes a couple

(06:26):
of turns away from being in themiddle of a cornfield. In Iowa and
just a vast expanse of farmland.But in truth, well that's I think
a reasonable assumption. We don't knowwhich direction that they turned. Now,
we have no idea. Everything's basedon assumptions what would seem logical. But
one of the mistakes you can makein a case like this is to kind
of project yourself what would be thelogical way. We don't know what the

(06:48):
perpetrator, what state of mind hewould have had that morning. It would
he have just impulsively gone way orthe other, one way or the other,
We just don't know. And howplanned was it? Is that a
part of the plan or fit withsomething more spontaneous or less planned, you
know, it's fifty fifty maybe whoknows Standing there up on the street or
in Kentucky. As we watched itand looked at different angles going behind the

(07:10):
building, I clearly the person couldwatch it from a safe spot. But
as I said, you'd have tohave a plan to get down close to
the exit from Jody building, wherewe know there's just twelve steps to her
car, So whatever you were doingto surveil at in advance, you would
have to be in position down thereand most likely, it seems looking back
at the scene, the person wouldhave had to have been concealed by the

(07:32):
dumpster, which is just virtually nextdoor to the entrance to the building where
Jody would have been coming out ofto go right to her car less than
twelve steps away. Yeah, Idefinitely want to get back to the dumpster
and her entrying egress point. Butyou and I also walked to the south
the back of the building across theWinnebago River as a park. It's fairly
large public park back there, andso we were able to walk around and

(07:55):
see the building, building sea fromthe other side of the river, just
to get kind of apographical geographical context. But that standing there surreal to realize.
I mean that that's the first placethey look for Jody is right there
in the Winnebago River. So thepark on the other side had a Civil
War reenactment go on the previous weekend. Obviously a lot of people were there.

(08:16):
The only thing that struck me,I guess about the park and then
add your own impressions, that isone place you cannot see Jody's apartment from
is across the river exactly. Itwould have been a place to stay and
maybe camp out or hang out,but you could not see Granted we have
twenty six years plus of growth andtrees, et cetera, but there's no
way you could see Jody's apartment fromdown there. You would have to If

(08:39):
you saw Jody's apartment, you wouldhave to be up on Kentucky or off
to the side of her apartment bythe lot. You could not see it
from behind there at the campground,and that's to the south the park across
the river, and the campground thatyou mentioned is to the west, and
we talked a lot about the campgroundin the last episode of the podcast.
It's interesting to weigh is depending onthe time of the year, you can

(09:01):
see Building CE and the entire fullview of Jody's unit and all the other
parking lot facing units from the campground. But when we were down there,
you know, it's a late summer, early fall. There's a lot of
foliage. Some of that's probably moregrown than it was twenty seven years ago.
So it's really hard for me personallyto weigh the campground as sort of

(09:22):
a stalking points potentially, because Idon't know how well you can see through
the foliage from the campground to Jody'sbuilding c from there. What were your
impressions of the campground and the layoutthe similar impressions and at a place somebody
could have been staying, could havevisited before, but in terms of stalking
Jody keeping tabs on Joy that wouldnot be a place to do. That

(09:43):
doesn't work. And I guess Iwas surprised I hadn't looked at the campground
in so many years, and justreally both the proximity but also the lack
of visibility to Jody's car, Jody'sapartment. Not a place that you'd be
able to watch Jodie. Yeah,especially during the summer with all the trees
in full foliage. All Right,the building itself, the complex itself.
We've talked about the geography hopefully adequatelyin previous episodes where people can get a

(10:09):
picture, but I've always imagined sortof a bowl parking lot oval shaped.
Jody's building seas to the south oron the left as you drive in,
then there are buildings A and Bon the right as you drive in.
One of my impressions being there withyou that I'm not sure that I was
aware of previously necessarily, but Ibecame aware that in order for someone to
feel comfortable in any kind of likeprolonged stocking, they would have to be

(10:31):
really comfortable with the fact that they'renot going to be spotted or someone's not
going to approach them and talk tothem on the way I mean, apartment
living is a bit insular on theone hand, but people are also aware
that kind of thing. I thinkeven back then, where if you see
somebody walking around for thirty minutes,an hour or whatever that might be that
they might raise an alarm to somebody. So, whether they're in a vehicle

(10:54):
or just kind of lingering in thearea, this person had to feel very
comfortable observing Jody, which I thinkwe feel that she was observed for some
period of time at some point beforethe abduction. They had to have a
reason to be there, or maybejust had different sense of belonging or whatever
it was. But stalking in thatarea, even though Jody's apartment is very
visible, you have to be extremelycomfortable to do that in that setting,

(11:18):
comfortable and or bold. I thinkthe only way you could probably do it
would be staying in a vehicle toeyeball it from a vehicle the way we
were up there. We were walkingaround the periphery, and it didn't seem
to attract much attention ourselves to theamount. You know, we're there for
maybe an hour. One thing thatstruck me that we were there too was
a maintenance person we had watched forsome time down there at one point came

(11:39):
up to us and asked us ifwe were actually the building manager our owners.
They were looking for a tool.But made me wonder all the focus
we've heard on somebody who knew Jodya serial rapists, could there have been
somebody so off the radar like thisperson we saw when we were there,
who might have been able to keepan eye on Jody or had some connection
with something like that. And thatgoes in to the comfort or at least

(12:01):
having a reason to be there forat least a little period of time on
a regular basis, every day deliveryperson, somebody who was doing some maintenance,
something along those lines. To beable to stalk somebody there, I
mean, you would stand out Ithink after a certain period of time,
unless maybe you had a reason tobe there. Well. On the other
hand, we were there this timeduring the day. If you were stalking
Jody at nighttime. I think inthe comfort of darkness, there could have

(12:24):
been easier ways to conceal yourself.Again, sitting in a vehicle across the
street, but in the middle ofthe day, I'm surprised we didn't attract
more just people didn't seem to paymuch attention. Just walking around, you
were refreshed on where Jody's car wasparked, and we saw the entrance in
the exit. It's been talked aboutso much over the years. Twelve steps
to her car and all that.That's how police presume that somebody was there

(12:48):
waiting for her, which I guess, on the one hand, is a
helpful piece of information. I thinkit's a safe assumption. But having now
seen it again, it is amazingto see how short a distance that is
from her door of the building toher car and then erie for me is.
At one point, we were standingat such an angle where you know,

(13:09):
a scenario could almost play out infront of us, where if a
person was waiting, let's say,by the dumpster, Jody may not observe
that person right away. She's hurryingto get to work, she's late,
and that person could approach at thatangle from behind, and you can almost
see how the attack might have playedout right in front of us. Oh,
exactly, That's part of it.Hit me standing there just again,

(13:31):
Jody was distracted, She's coming downthe stairs, goes out the door to
her car. Whoever had their eyeon Jody had to get presumably out of
the vehicle they had been in orwhere of their spot was to watch her,
and then again in position by thedumpster to be ready to attack her.
And I'm just wondering as we lookedagain at the apartment, did the
light go out that was the signalthe light went out in Jody's apartment that

(13:52):
she was going to be coming downthe stairs. That person put himself in
position to get jump out at herby the dumpster. That's the only scenari
area looking at it physically, thatreally stood out for me. I think
that makes sense. I think that'sa safe assumption. And from the sidewalk
there, I think it reinforces toothat even if somebody were walking down the

(14:13):
street, I think it's a bitof a jump for someone to even run
over from the sidewalk or anywhere elseand attack her. Because it was such
a short distance, I think thatperson probably would have had to have gotten
into position for what they were planningon doing, or at least confronting her.
Yeah, I can't imagine a scenarioof somebody walking by and getting across
the parking lot, as she said, It just would not have been enough

(14:33):
time, and I think in therush that probably would have attracted Jody's attention.
Somebody's sprinting across the lot. Wetalked about this a little bit earlier,
but there are several points in theparking lot and across the street,
even up the street a little bitwhere Jody's unit is visible, even I
realized a little bit from the otherparking lot to the north, and maybe

(14:54):
some spots along the wooded area thecampground there. But the point is Jody
can be seen from more places thanshe could see even if she were looking
out her window. Someone could evenbe concealed in a vehicle or in some
of their obstruction and watching maybe forthose signals of her lights going on and
then going off again and then pullinginto position. Oh exactly. I think

(15:16):
it would have been very easy todo that, and just being there reinforced
for me the most likely scenario ofhow the person would have progressed to contact
her. I don't know if you'vethought about this since, but having seen
the scene again and realizing what wouldhave gone into the crime as it happened,
at least as far as we know, what does that tell you about
the person? Maybe? Generally?Do you have any impressions about what does

(15:39):
the scene tell us? You talka lot about investigators you've talked to over
the years, listening to the sceneand learning from it what it's trying to
tell you. What about the sceneand how this would have gone down?
What's that tell you about the personthat would have taken Jody. You know,
we talked a lot of thought aboutthat a lot when we were there
in the parking lot, and itseems to me it would have been a

(16:00):
very chaotic, quick scene that Jodyis approach from behind, person grabs her,
her things go flying out of herbag, her blow dryer, keys,
vent key items found on the groundin this chaotic moment. Then this
person had to drag Jody, getJody to the vehicle and get out of
there, so as both very preciseto be able to attack the way that

(16:22):
person did and also chaotic, andit happened so fast and looking in the
parking lot. You think, howcould somebody not be looking out the window,
or the risk of somebody looking outthe window that the perpetrator was living
with. But on the other hand, it was four twenty in the morning,
and I don't like that many peoplewouldn't nor be looking out the window,
but very very quick and take chaoticJust the way things were strewn around

(16:45):
her car in the parking lot.I think that's a good observation. Even
if it's planned, there is thatstruggle, that moment of chaos, which
leads to what do you make ofthe fact that nobody heard or saw anything,
at least nobody call police, anda couple of people have reported hearing
screams, But where do you putthat in such a small area, in

(17:07):
such a small scene, at thathour. I would, as we've talked
about somewhat before, perhaps the apartmentlife. Most of the people there did
not have children. They were peopleworking, you know, going about on
their lives in their own without alot of commingling. But it's you would
think a scream would grab someone's attention. But again, the lifestyle, the
fact that there was a campground behindthe complex where noises came from time to

(17:30):
time. Sometimes if you hear somethingin the middle of the night, you're
not sure what you've heard. Iremember once we woke up. I was
awakened to the sound of an earthquake, didn't know what it was, and
it turned out when I went andchecked, it was an earthquake. So
you don't always know in the middleof the night what you're hearing. And
down the road when the police wereinterviewing people, I think people said,
oh, yes, I did hearsomething, but it certainly was not enough

(17:52):
for anybody to reach out to thepolice or at that point. And you
would hope if somebody actually looked outtheir window and saw the physical struggle happening,
that they would have called somebody.So I want to presume nobody actually
saw the abduction. I can't imagineif anybody saw what we saw, the
aftermath of Jody being abducted, thechaos by her car, the thing's trine

(18:12):
about. I can't imagine somebody wouldnot have called police if they had seen
what happened. Watching people who livethere come and go now kind of just
in their daily lives. I hadthe thought too about other women who lived
at the complex at the time thatJody did, and you wonder if the
attacker came from them. They wereknown to maybe other residents of the complex,

(18:33):
boyfriends, friends of boyfriends, friendsof friends, whatever. Or is
this a stalker who might have alsoor previously been interested in some of the
same behavior with somebody else who livedthere, Or do you think it was
Jody's specific you know, I thinkuntil we know what happened, we're just
left to speculate. Certainly, Jodywas a very highly visible target. She

(18:53):
wist as we've talked about earlier,she was easy to track down, her
apartment number, phone number, alist in the phone books, so she
would have been a very easy target. Her bright red new bos to Miyata
right there, you could see whereshe would be going to. But I
think you can't until we know whathappened, You can't rule out that there
could have been somebody visiting who maybehas looked at some other young women at
the building. Maybe they didn't know, as Jody hughes and truth, we

(19:17):
just don't know. It's just sostriking at how easy it would have been
to grab Jody, and it reinforceshow difficult that would be for investigators in
any situation. When you have somethinglike that in an apartment complex, when
police are so far behind and gettingto the scene, because where do you
start. You've got the person,the tenants of the building and around them

(19:37):
are an entire six degrees of separationof possible people who have visited or are
related or past relations. That's atall mountain to kind of wade through if
you're trying to see if there's aconnection to the abduction, to the complex
or someone that lives there, evenindirectly. On so many of these cases
we followed over the years, we'veseen that at the end it turned out

(19:57):
to be somebody who had that connection. Could have been a boyfriend, a
brief boyfriend, a passing boyfriend,somebody who knew somebody we just don't know.
I think the only thing that makessense is it was not likely to
be someone who was walking down KentuckyAvenue at four twenty in the morning and
stumble across Jody coming out of herbuilding. That would not, physically,

(20:18):
I believe, work. So ithad to either be somebody who was already
in the building who was familiar withit, or somebody who stalked her who
got to know Jody. Jody didn'thave to know that person or someone to
easily stalk Jody and get to knowher habits. Yeah, in a lot
of ways, it would be easierto stalk her if she didn't know who
they were. She wouldn't be lesslikely to recognize somebody like that exactly.
And who knows. Could it besomebody she'd met before and just approached her

(20:42):
briefly, and you know, sheturned away, But it seems that she
was pierced, that she was ambushedfrom behind, attack from behind, from
everything we've heard about on the carand the mirror being pushed forward, the
chaos of things being spread nearby,then dragged through the silt to a vehicle
and gone. That's a good point. I think you and I can speak

(21:02):
to this a little bit. Beingin public and sort of public figures,
you sometimes meet people and talk topeople, and they remember the conversation that
you have forgotten. And so I'msad to say, embarrassed to say,
there are times when I re encounterpeople who remember me much more than I
remember them. But that certainly wouldhave been true for Jody and her personality

(21:22):
as well. Her personality she poppedon the screen, her visibility I mean
it said she couldn't go to agrocery store and get out in less than
twenty minutes or a half hour becausepeople would want to talk to her.
So she quickly became such a visible, likable fixture in that community. It's
hard not to think that that couldhave been a factor if it wasn't somebody
she already knew that that was afactor in what happened to her. So

(21:45):
from your most recent trip to MasonCity, in the scene itself, any
final thoughts or impressions that you tookback home with you, I think a
resolve to not give up. There'ssomething about actually being in the city where
Jodi lived and worked for the lastyear and a half, to be there
where her last moments are that we'reaware of, to see her billboard,
her face smiling down at us,So I would say the resolve is there,

(22:07):
and also the sense that there's stillpotentially answers there. We saw it
mentioned so many times before the JacobWetterling case, where in the end Jacob
didn't go very far. A lotof the nobody type cases I've read about
say that typically the people go toa comfort level, they don't go too
far all that far necessarily from wherethe crime happened. So I wonder if

(22:30):
there's somebody in Mason City who hasinformation who could break open the case.
We just need that one person tocome forward to the police department. If
they're not comfortable going to the police, the state, DCI, the FBI,
reach out to us, reach outanonymously. Just hope that you don't
keep that secret hidden in Mason Cityfor another anniversary, another year of not

(22:51):
knowing what happened to Jody. FindJody as a nonprofit run by volunteers with

(23:21):
a mission of keeping Jody's unsolved casein the spotlight. Anyone with information about
Jody's case can reach out to theMason City Police departments. Information can also
be provided to the Iowa Department ofCriminal Investigations. You can also contact Find
Jody anonymously if you prefer don't sitin silence. The time to talk is

(23:44):
now for the entire Finds Jodi team. I'm Scott Fuller. Thank you for listening.