Here is a summary (excerpt from the book) of the transition of the focus of the investigation between 2003 and 2004. Note that Kostreba indicated a degree of dissension from the change in theory. In reviewing other long-term cases, it seems that it is common for investigators to shift their theories of cases. This is particularly true in the Wetterling, Reker, and Kimball Post Office Bomb case. I think there may be psychological factors behind that, where investigators get frustrated that their working theories are not producing results and they gradually shift to rethinking those theories. Sometimes, it seems, that in the process they end up untying some rather sound and simple explanations.
Sheriff Sanner emphasized that the fresh start of the investigation, brought on by Kevin coming forward with his information, breathed new life into the investigation.
“In essence, it breathed all kinds of investigative life back into a fifteen-year-old case,” Sanner said. “And all of a sudden we’re working on this case like it’s something that just happened.”
“We are more convinced that this occurred by somebody local, somebody on foot,” Sanner added. “We are more convinced of that now than we ever have been.”
The turn of events regarding the tires tracks impacted the investigation in 2004 and caused investigators to go back to the beginning of the case. Jim Kostreba was a Stearns County chief deputy when Jacob was kidnapped. He later became the Stearns County Sheriff, and was actively involved in the case for the rest of his career.
“I don't know if you’d call it a gut instinct,” retired Sheriff Kostreba said. “But I always have had a feeling that this one could be cleared.”
Kostreba did acknowledge that Kevin’s story offered an innocent explanation for the tire tracks in the Rassier driveway, but he still believed that there was a vehicle involved in the abduction. He explained that it would have been difficult for the abductor to disappear with Jacob so quickly without a vehicle. Kostreba had always favored the theory of a car being involved in the crime, but the new information about Kevin’s car creating the tire tracks in the Rassier driveway brought the case back to the people, and he felt the people could help solve it.
Everett Doolittle had been an investigator with the Minnesota BCA since the beginning of the Wetterling case. In 2004, as the fifteenth anniversary of Jacob’s abduction neared, Doolittle pointed out that going back to the beginning of the investigation was a common method for solving older cases. He advised current investigators to go back and re-examine all the information, looking for links that hadn't been made earlier. Taking a second look at suspects who had previously been cleared, and perhaps should not have been, was warranted, he said. Doolittle's cold case unit of the BCA had utilized the same methodology to solve two major murder cases in Minnesota, including the 1992 murder of Linda Jensen in Big Lake, and the 1978 slayings of Alice Huling and her three children in Fairhaven Township.
“In almost every case, the person told someone,” Doolittle said. “The answer is out there somewhere. The key is to find it. Time becomes your friend for that, not your enemy.”
Although investigators did not state so publicly at the time, the neighbor that they were taking a closer look at was Dan Rassier. Patty Wetterling wrote a personal letter to Dan Rassier later in 2004. According to Rassier, the letter appeared to have come from Patty through the Stearns County Sheriff's office. In the letter, Rassier said that Mrs. Wetterling asked him to please come forward, to admit that he committed the abduction, and to tell investigators what had happened on the night of Jacob's abduction. Rassier did not acknowledge or respond in any way to Patty's letter, and the information about the letter would not be publicly known until several years later.
The new information from Kevin coming forward in 2003 apparently prompted investigators to search the Rassier farm again in 2004. The search was not known publicly at the time, and investigators released no information about whether or not any evidence was discovered or which areas of the property were searched. According to Rassier, the 2004 search was done without a search warrant.
Rassier said the BCA asked him at one point to confess to the crime, telling him that during his 911 call he sounded much too nervous to simply be concerned about someone stealing his firewood. Rassier said he laughed at the investigators and rejected their request. For investigators, their contention that Rassier sounded nervous during his 911 call on the night of October 22, 1989, would later prove to be a thorn in their side. (In 2013, it was revealed by an investigative reporter that investigators neglected to save the tape of Rassier’s 911 call).
In October 2004, on the 15th anniversary of Jacob's abduction, Sheriff Sanner reiterated that the focus of the Wetterling investigation was on local suspects.
“We cannot lose the momentum in this investigation,” Sanner said. “We're going to systematically process all leads and information that comes in to find a resolution. I strongly feel that we're now looking in the right direction.”
While Stearns County investigators were piecing together the new theory regarding Jacob's abduction in 2004, Jared, the victim of the January 1989 abduction and assault in Cold Spring, came forward to share his story. Jared told Twin Cities television station KARE 11 that he believed his abductor and Jacob's abductor were one in the same. The two-part series of news reports highlighted similarities between the two cases. KARE 11's news coverage of Jared’s story produced a flurry of tips from the public.
“Nothing he is saying on TV is anything we didn’t already know,” Sanner said of Jared. “The only benefit I see in what he’s doing is rejuvenating interest in a very old case.”
As Jared went public with his story, Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner was downplaying the possible links between the two cases. While Sanner acknowledged the cases had some similarities and that such links had been considered from the very beginning of the Wetterling investigation, he cautioned that the links between the cases were weaker than previously believed.
“It strengthened the likelihood that they aren't related,” Sanner said. But the sheriff stopped short of saying the cases were not related. “The cases are similar, and we're not ruling it out,” Sheriff Sanner said. “But there are significant differences too.”
“The similarities are there and you cannot get beyond that,” Sanner added. “But are they really and truly connected? Until we get resolution, I don’t know that we can answer that with any certainty.”
Sheriff Sanner’s stance marked another turn in the investigation because investigators had stated many times over the years that there were strong links between Jacob’s and Jared’s cases. In fact, at one point, investigators had disclosed they had found a “sure link” between the cases. As time passed, that sure link began to carry less weight in the eyes of investigators than it had in the early days of the investigation.
