Patty Wetterling’s son, Jacob, turned 38 years old on Wednesday. But like the last 26 years, Patty and the rest of the Wetterling family celebrated the occasion without him.
“We always have a family dinner and we fix his favorite food, steak,” Patty of St. Joseph, Minnesota, told ABC News. “We laugh and hug our grandkids and we honor that. There were six us of in this family and we still carry Jacob in our hearts. It’s just what we do.”
“We’ve had a rather explosive year in the search for Jacob and I was grappling with the fact that he is 38. He was 11 [when he went missing] and I was like ‘How could this be?’
On Jacob’s birthday, Feb. 17, Patty wrote a powerful note to her son, which was published on the website for the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center.
The letter reads, in part:
Birthdays are supposed to be about parties, hats and noisemakers, cake, ice cream, friends singing and making wishes but not yet. Not this year, again. How I wish to wrap my arms around you and hug you tight!
I want you to know that since you were stolen away from us, people everywhere have been searching, praying and hoping for your safety and for answers. Last fall, 26 years later, news of possible answers had your story as the number two news coverage in the region. That’s pretty amazing 26 years later. People care. There are more good people than bad in the world and people still hope.
My birthday wish is for you to come home. We need to find you. I have another wish for every child who is home safe today, that they will never have to endure abduction or sexual exploitation of any type. We are working just as hard on prevention as we are on searching because this is so wrong…so unfair. I remember how much it bothered you when things were unfair. Me too, it bothers me too.
I am hoping and praying that people will remember you on February 17 and we ask that everyone hug their kids a little tighter, tell them that they love them and take time to play a game or read books. My wish is also that parents will support agencies that help to find our missing kids and help other victims…
And once again today, February 17, we will light our candles, fix your favorite foods and cake, and thank God for the gift of you.
We love you Jacob and we’ll never stop searching for you!
I so wish for a happy birthday for you…
-Mom
Jacob Erwin Wetterling (born February 17, 1978) from St. Joseph, Minnesota was kidnapped from his hometown at the age of 11 on a Sunday evening, October 22, 1989. He has been missing since then.
Jacob Wetterling, 11, his brother Trevor, 10, and best friend Aaron, 11, were cycling home from a convenience store after 9 pm on October 22, 1989, 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. Subsequently, the gunman asked 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.
The investigation into Wetterling’s abduction continues. 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.
The Charley Project has sketches of a man believed to have abducted Wetterling and sexually assaulted the other boy in 1989.
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 also emerged that Seitz himself had been abducted and tortured in 1959, and family said he was thus concerned for Wetterling from personal history.
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. However, it was revealed in late September testing was unable to “establish, distinguish or identify potential evidence”.
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. 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, just 40 minutes away.
Source: Wikipedia/ABC news/TheCharleyProject
