Sasquatch, You also need to state IMO (in my opinion) when making statements like this so they are not read as fact by readers of this thread who come along later.
In his book, "The Line," author and professional hunter extraordinaire William Urseth tells the tale of a man who was the cook at a hunting property in Bottineau, North Dakota in 1991.
Urseth's journey to the hunting property in Bottineau is quite a tale on its own, but of more interest to us is the man there named Clark, who was known as the Water Witch. Clark earned that name for his innate ability to locate underground water and oil using unconventional methods. The author tells the story of how Clark accurately predicted the number of birds the hunting group would shoot the first day out.
Where things got interesting was with what happened at the end of that first day. Clark knocked on the hunting cabin and asked the men if they had heard of Jacob Wetterling. Being natives of Minnesota, they certainly had heard of Jacob. Clark then asked if they wanted to know where he was buried. Without answering, Clark proceeded to guide his hand over a map and settled on a park in the town of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Urseth asked Clark if he had ever told the FBI about this. He said he did, and they thought he was crazy.
This abduction attempt was not related to Jacob's, but it is a reminder that kind of activity was happening in the area and was largely ignored.
The alleged abduction attempt took place on the 1200 block of 15th St North in St. Cloud, on July 13, 1989. A man enticed a 4 year old boy away from his apartment and tried to take him away in his car. He offered the boy a soda if he would take a ride with him. They left the apartment building area on bikes. The boy's 10 year old sister went out looking for her brother and found him with the man, as he was loading the boy's bike into his car.
The man was found, but was not charged because he hadn't given the boy anything to ingest, hadn't assaulted him, and was not beaten.
St. Cloud police admitted to "blowing" the investigation.
Source - December 8, 1989 St. Joseph Newsleader
ELOCsoul...
I find both your stories(Water Witch + 1989 Attempted Abduction) strange. Not doubting you, they are just very unique stories.
1. Water Witch: does this story have any legs or is it simply interesting? I have a friend familiar with Bottineau who could check further on the story.
2. 1989 Abduction Attempts: it seems in the 1980's there was a lot of this type of activity....is it confined to this time frame?
human, according to this MPR article from 7/2/10, DR thought LE brought in backhoes after dogs were brought to the property:
"Rassier said he believes investigators came back to his property this week because of new canine resources. He said he supports any effort to do a search in a new and better way."
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-07-02-jacob-wetterling_N.htm
this may have been the probable cause they received for permission to search the property.
Wow wow wow. Smoking gun! The d. ogs must have hit on the scent of human remains. They do not hit on the scent of dead animals. Just wow!
Smoking gun. Waiting for technology
Agree. I think that chest may have once held Jacob, but this is only my opinion. I think a cadaver dog hit on it, then they tested and found blood or other bodily fluids, but the testing of that was inconclusive. I'm basing this on what DR said in his TV interviews after the search. I think DR has done very well in most of his recent interviews, but showed some deception when talking about the chest.
I think it's obvious it had to be a cadaver dog. Why else bring dogs from Louisiana after 20-some years if not really good cadaver dogs.
Random other thoughts, for trackerd or anyone else: Do you think or know if LE made a mistake and drove up DR's driveway the night of the abduction? From Kevin's story, it's clear they didn't secure the site right away. I can imagine them not knowing how serious of a case the call was going to turn out to be and just sending some officers to drive over there. I probably would have made such a dumb move myself--just drove right over to check things out. That could have obscured a lot of footprints and other tracks, right?
Also, if Feeney had an old police car, could he have been involved and used the car, but his tracks were taken for police car tracks?
We know Feeney was in the area. And Kevin's story includes meeting a self-proclaimed "medical cop" at Tom Thumb.