Why debate back and forth as to when DR was named a POI? As suggested by several posters, he was likely a POI privately long before naming him publicly. Also, LE has said several times that they had several suspects in Jacob's case. DR is not the only POI on LE's radar. A couple of excerpts from the book:
On Monday, October 23, 1989, a bloodhound tracked Jacob's scent from the road up the Rassier's unpaved driveway for about forty yards. It was at that spot where Jacob's last footprints were found in the dirt, with a fresh set of car tire tracks alongside. Detectives interpreted the last footprints as evidence of resistance from Jacob. A Nike shoe, similar in style and size to the shoes he was wearing, was used to help identify the prints as Jacob's. The bloodhound did not indicate Jacobs scent beyond that point. Detective Steve Mund made plaster casts of several footprints and tire tracks found in the driveway.
Investigators took casts of tire tracks found near the kid-napping scene but they did not communicate a high level of certainty that the tracks were those of the kidnapper. BCA director, Mark Shields said he was not confident that the kidnapper made the tracks, noting they were considered as possible evi-dence at that point. pg 101
In October 1995, Sheriff Kostreba noted that there were four top suspects in Jacob's kidnapping. He said that two of the suspects were from central Minnesota and neither of them were the stereotypical pedophile. The other two suspects were not from the area but were pedophiles. Aside from those top suspects, Kostreba added that there were another half-dozen possible suspects that investigators had been unable to rule out. pg 160
Rassier has said that from the beginning of the investiga-tion he had told detectives repeatedly about the two cars, despite that only one of the cars had been reported on. Investigators appealed to the public to help identify the drivers of a handful of suspicious cars that witnesses had seen near the abduction scene, or within a few blocks of there. If indeed Rassier actually in-formed investigators about the cars he saw on October 22, 1989, from the very beginning, it's unusual that law enforcement officials made no pleas asking the public to help identify those particular cars. Investigators had made it a point to publicize the need to identify other cars, so if Rassiers story is true, why didnt they make a plea to identify the car Dan Rassier said he saw at about the time of the abduction? Why didn't they make a plea to identify the car that Rassier said he saw driving through his yard in the middle of the afternoon?[/I] pg 265