It's obvious to this reader, Mr. Dudley is good at investigating, penning out plausible “who dun its” with listed sources for a growing fan club. All on pertinent old cold cases (Wetterling, Holden, as well as the research/ new books on possibly Reker and Guimond cases. Stearns County MN sure has a magnetic pull for you.
There are 86 counties in Minnesota, not to mention the heart-rendering Wisconsin cases unsolved such as Jennifer Wesso or the 22 yr old Angelina Wall, (think of the mileage you’d save.) To be honest, as an aspiring writer who has bought all your books listened to your gift of gab, I’m awed at how effortlessly you find key people detectives, crucial information, impress FBI agents, and manage to ‘push the card’ on suspects. Pea-green Jealous. So who hired you?
Who hired you to point out the "Peter Principle " is alive and well at SCSO while maintaining the ongoing litany of criticism of LE to fan the faultfinding flames of your faithful fanclub to blend with the crowd? Police go to work, every DAY, not knowing if their partner has their back, facing high rates of depression, divorce , burn out or whether they are even going home at night without injury. These posts jump on the bandwagon, blame LE, investigators, techniques, reporters, news, ( Kinda like blaming grandpa for the “outhouse” when all I really wanted was a sewer pipe buried under the frostline hooked up to inside pvc.. ..Oh Wait, city sewer wasn’t around yet back then) The current administration of LE has to broach the mistakes of its predecessors over and over again.
I started a new writing career with the not so lucrative Amazon publishing venue, and yes, I’m finger pointing at your area of expertise landing on the list of the missing people at Tri County Crime Stoppers consistently. Read your own post #24 on 7-2-16 “Thanks… been searching for the accomplice!! I mentioned several other unsolved cases from Stearns County area in my book now 2 of those are “solved”. Please send your reply here.
I hope I’m wrong and you HAVE solved “those two cases” , and I wish for the family’s sake, the resulting confession is verified, true and in 2016.
Hmmm, not quite sure how to perceive your post, but always willing to answer any questions or address concerns.
In the books my intent is to be objective and let the reader decide. I do ask questions, some of which may lead the reader to reach a certain conclusion. Feedback from readers has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of fairness and objectivity. I haven't had anyone tell me they thought the book or any part of it was critical of investigators.
Websleuths is a different animal. Posters speculate all the time and I do share my opinions here much more liberally than in the books-that's part of constructive debate. Often times I post an idea or statement to elicit a response, to see if others have a counter view or another idea I hadn't thought of.
Regarding the police, I have the utmost respect for the job they do. I have tried to refrain from judging investigators, and if I see a poster suggesting something I believe to be wrong in their assertion, I will point it out. Obviously, mistakes were made in the Wetterling case. Why they were mde, I don't know, but actually spend a great deal of time trying to figure out what happened, and just keep coming up empty. In the several months prior to Heinrich's arrest, I was increasingly asking questions about how LE turned their attention to DR, I asked many times why they had never asked for help in finding the car he saw, I asked how they could simultaneously suggest DR was always a suspect even though they had never questioned him about Jared's case. Nine of it made sense to me. I didn't ask those questions to be critical, I asked because I hoping for an explanation.
As an aside, the Paynesville police of the 1980's have been criticized publicly by Joy Baker, Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Jenna Ross, and others. On the other hand, I have vehemently defended the Paynesville Police because the fact is their police chief, who unfortunately is not of the capita to defend himsel, went door to door and worked his butt off to find the man responsible for the Paynesville attacks.
I call 'em as I see 'em, and I believe I do so fairly.
My criticism of reporters is well-earned. Many of them care more about access to victims for interviews than they do about the truth. I could care less about doing interviews, but willing to do so for the sake of finding the truth. As an example, I silent a fair amount of time finding subjects to interview for WCCO for the Kimball story, and specifically asked to leave me out of it, to focus on the case and the good man who lost his life. She still slid a glimpse of the book cover in there, but otherwise did as I asked. Funny thing was, the family was disappointed I wasn't mentioned...but I reminded them it's not about me...
As far as the other two cases, I did not mean to imply that I had solved those cases. I'm a humble guy. I had information that I believed could solve the Kimball case. I turned that information over to a good journalist who in turn took my information even further. In the Reker case, I had really nothing to with it, except that through networking and a little help fro fellow WS posters, we were able to attach names to a known case that may quite well be related. When I asked Stearns County for copies of records in that case, I mentioned a name and date, and the clerk at the next window interjected, "ah, the Dairy Bar case." Bingo!
If you wish to contact me privately to address any concerns, please email me at
robebben@yahoo.com.
PS-Actually I have tentative plans for 2017 for a book about cold cases I my own area. Would be collaborating with a reporter on that one. When the time comes I hope that she'll agree with my idea to donate the proceeds to a local dog rescue organization.��
