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"Breaking News" -- the Jodi Huisentruit case

posted 10 years ago by GraceFromSoCal
18 replies | jump to latest

It just dawned on me how odd it is that we have ZERO discussion here about Jodi Huisentruit! 

For those who may not know, she was a young TV anchor in a small city in Iowa, and she vanished into thin air in June, 1995. No trace of her has ever been found. The "Disappeared" episode, "Breaking News," is very good and contains a lot of details. There's an episode of "20/20" called "Anchorwoman" that also does a good job of detailing the case.

Her mother, who was pretty old when she had Jodi, died last year, never having given up hope that she'd find out what happened and bring her daughter home. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be.

Any thoughts, anyone, about what may have happened to Huisentruit?

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] minkysmom82 10 years ago

her older friend must have had something to do with it... they didnt' really speak of anyone else that had any ill will towards her. I just do not buy that the police killed her and covered it up, UNLESS the police were the ones that killed her friend whose death she was investigating.

[–] GraceFromSoCal 10 years ago

There's nothing that will convince me the police had anything to do with this, other than investigate it once the crime happened. I do believe there could be a tie-in to the death of her friend, although I [obviously] don't know enough about their inner circle of friends/acquaintances to have any idea who might have been involved. The older guy...I can't think of his name, but I know who you're referring to, I can't imagine him hurting Jodi. He genuinely cared about her, and vice versa, and while I do think he had romantic feelings for her that she didn't have for him, I don't think that triggered such rage in him that he'd kill her.

What I find really interesting/perplexing is how LITTLE has ever been discovered in terms of her disappearance. This is truly one of those 'vanished into thin air' instances.

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] BetteDavis79 10 years ago

I think it's hard to discuss any case where it's literally 'vanished into thin air.' I have no idea what could have happened to Jodi. There isn't any hard evidence pointing to anyone in particular but obviously a kidnapping/homicide.

Other cases like Jodi are Rachel Cooke who disappeared while jogging. No evidence. Amy Wroe Bechtel disappeared while jogging in the mountains. Again no evidence. These cases seem the most difficult to solve because you have nothing to go on.

[–] GraceFromSoCal 10 years ago

You're right, ryanj_pepper, that it's hard to discuss a case when there's virtually no evidence. But I still want to! 

I can't help thinking that today--with surveillance cameras EVERYWHERE--Huisentruit's abduction probably would've been caught on camera. At least there'd be SOMETHING to go on, like a make/model of a vehicle, or a description of the perpetrator, etc. But twenty years ago, and especially in a small, basically crime-free place like Mason City, Iowa, cameras weren't exactly common.

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] BetteDavis79 10 years ago

So true! I hope more and more high quality cameras are placed everywhere and anywhere so we can start getting some hard evidence on the criminals. Maybe they will start thinking twice about what they are doing and some lives can be spared.

[–] GraceFromSoCal 10 years ago

Me, too. Unlike a lot of people who fear a 'big brother' type of society, I'm all for surveillance cameras anywhere and everywhere--within reason, obviously. I mean, I don't want them in the stalls of public restrooms, you know?!  But parking lots, inside stores, in hospital corridors, etc., absolutely. Just think of how things would change if every hospital had surveillance cameras catching the comings and goings of people--including people who steal newborn babies from their nurseries.

Just today I re-watched an episode of..."48 Hours?" (I've already forgotten!), about the Christopher Coleman murder case. He's the jerk who faked having received threatening letters/e-mails; he killed his wife and their two young sons. What amazed me was that one of his neighbors was a cop, a detective, and when Coleman told him about the supposed threats, the cop put up surveillance cameras on his property to help monitor what was happening at the Coleman residence. AND THE IDIOT PUTS A FAKE LETTER IN HIS OWN MAILBOX--ON CAMERA!!

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] justKryptonite 10 years ago

Did you see that crazy Dateline about the student nurse who went to her car in the hospital parking lot on her break,then disappeared. Her entire walk out of the building and her walk to her car is caught on camera, except... the one that was broken right near her car! They missed the attack. If you've seen it you know what happened if you haven't seen it I will figure out the episode tittle for you so you can watch it, it sounds right up your ally.

[–] bpitt311 10 years ago

Oooh, that episode was so chilling and bizarre! It's actually appropriately titled "Vanished" and it's a two-part episode. :)

[–] justKryptonite 10 years ago

Her case makes me so sad and it's a frustrating one because I think it will won't be solved unless they find her body. I think she was just in the wrong place and was attacked by a stranger, murdered and dumped probably within hours. It's a really sad case, if only she had just fallen back asleep and missed work altogether!

[–] GraceFromSoCal 10 years ago

It is frustrating, isn't it?

I think there's something to the theory that someone had been stalking her, but there's also the situation with her friend who had died recently under suspicious circumstances.

Where I disagree with you, justKryptonite, is that I don't think it was random...at all. I don't think she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. After all, WHAT would the perpetrator have been doing in the apartment parking lot at that hour of the morning? No cars were broken into or anything, as far as I know, so why were they there? What would motivate them to attack an innocent bystander who happened to come out of her apartment just then? No, I think the person was there specifically to attack/abduct Huisentruit.

I feel really badly for her mom, who held out hope right to the end that she would have some resolution. It's really sad that she died with that huge hole in her life/heart.

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] kleeamd82 10 years ago

I remember when this case first began, seeing it on the news back in 1995, when I was just 13 as well as profiled on 'Unsolved Mysteries', which was a favorite show of mine and still is. The story is one that stuck with me and I've followed it over the past 20years (can't believe it's been that long). I'd always do internet searches periodically to see the latest updates and am surprised that after all this time it still hasn't been solved and that nothing really else new in the investigation,as far as clues, has ever surfaced.Last year, I bought the book 'Dead Air' and read it front to back. It had a lot of info about her background - her childhood, growing up, her personality etc. but it offered very little as to who would have committed this act and what the motive was behind it. My gut feeling is either that the older gentleman she was seeing at the time of her disappearance did it (the book shared some stories about a couple of other suspicious deaths under mysterious circumstances that his name was connected to) or that it was a stalker.

[–] VCR 9 years ago

Same here, Unsolved mysteries and 20/20 with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs! Ha! This case haunted me. I always thought it was a fan that stalked her morning routine..

"Have you seen or touched any monkey's?" Monty, Late Show with David Letterman

[–] bpitt311 10 years ago

I agree with you that this was a planned, targeted attack on Jodi. I feel like her exposure via the local news program she was on gave stalkers the opportunity to fixate on her. It's so messed up that she was an ambitious young woman following her dreams, and some psycho had to come along and rip that from her. :(

[–] GraceFromSoCal 10 years ago

Why am I not surprised that we agree, bpitt311? 

Yep, I think this just smacks of a fixated 'fan' who planned the attack. I've noticed [not just here] that people sometimes say it couldn't have been planned because how would the attacker know that she was going to be late that day. Um...they didn't need to know that. He [I think we can safely assume it's a he] went to her apartment building expecting her to leave at a certain time, but when she didn't, all he had to do was sit and wait. He knew she hadn't left yet, so it was just a matter of time before she did. Whether she had left one minute later than usual or an hour, he'd still be there.

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] bpitt311 10 years ago

Oooh Grace, that is so creepy but true that the perp probably just waited around outside until Jodi emerged. It's funny that in such a small community, no one could identify the strange vehicle seen parked around Jodi's apartment building in the wee hours. I wonder if someone used the van for the abduction and then parked it in a barn or something to avoid detection?

This is a case that I think will give way some day. It is a high profile case, in a small town where all people do is gossip. Someday, someone will crack.

[–] GraceFromSoCal 10 years ago

Yeah, it is creepy to think about him just sitting there waiting.

I hope you're right that this case will be solved eventually. I'm encouraged by the continual trend of cold cases being solved years, even 3, 4, 5 DECADES down the road. So it may not happen soon but, hopefully, at some point it will be solved. I really hope that it happens while Jodi's sister is still alive; their mom didn't get to see it happen.

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com

[–] justKryptonite 9 years ago

I think most of the cases that are solved years later are due to DNA and since they have no body I feel like it will never be solved. If someone happens to come across her body it would be so decomposed that they probably wouldn't get much evidence. It's so creepy that someone can be taken like this and just vanish. I'm still not convinced that it was a stalker, I feel like it could have been a neighbor or someone who was trolling around for a victim. I used to work at a TV station in a smaller town and I know they do get stalkers, a weather woman I worked with had one and precautions were taken when walking out to cars. But the thing with a stalker is they usually reach out to the reporter in letters first and I don't remember them mentioning anything like that. Maybe it was someone obsessed with her but closer to home.

[–] GraceFromSoCal 9 years ago

Yeah, I see the points you're making, justKryptonite (love the name, by the way!). Even so, I still want to be optimistic that this case will eventually be solved. It's just so...WRONG! that someone can vanish off the face of the earth without a trace.

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http://www.CaliforniaDreamsPhotography.com