Followed Jacobs case, not nearly as in depth as most of you here and just recently read this thread. What was it exactly in ELOC's book was the metaphorical smoking gun that seems to point to who exactly committed the crime? To be honest, this entire thread is a bit confusing to me(and I'm far from being a dense person), especially with the strangely worded comments and the not so subtle personal digs being tossed around.
I'm not sure I would call anything in the book a "smoking gun," but there were a number of key items in the book that were being ignored by media all the way up until the point Danny Heinrich was arrested, and all turned out to be highly accurate after Heinrich's arrest in October 2015 (the original book was published in April 2015). Here are a few:
1. Per Al Garber's book, "Striving To Be The Best," a man had been arrested in Jared's case in 1990. Fibers from the back of the man's car were consistent with fibers from Jared's snow pants that he was wearing on the night of his abduction. That had never been mentioned in any media account, and not even Jared had been aware of this until it was found in the book and pointed out to him.
2. While a blogger and some of the Twin Cities media were extensively promoting the "Duane Hart did it" campaign, the book points out that Duane Hart had an alibi for the night (which was actually one of the child victims he was convicted of assaulting) Jacob Wetterling was taken. That alibi (although it was DH's word only) had never been known before, to anyone other than LE.
3. The book points out that Duane Hart appeared to be helping investigators identify Jacob's and Jared's abductor, and that he specifically named Danny Heinrich as Jared's abductor, and went on to describe Danny Heinrich and his car exactly as Jared had described. That information originated from February 1990, and had never been seen by the media or anyone outside of Stearns County investigators at the time.
4. The book notes that Dan Rassier did indeed report seeing a car in his driveway at the time of the abduction, and was quoted in the St. Cloud Times in 10/24/89 edition.
5. The point was made that investigators had asked for the public's help in identifying many cars, seen days before and blocks away from the abduction scene - but that they did not seek help in finding the car that Dan Rassier saw that night.
6. The book suggested that if a car was involved in the abduction, that it was a 2-door car, that investigators were focused on rear tires of cars, and that the car had driven out of the driveway rather than backed out.
7. It was noted that investigators had gathered good tire impressions in the Rassier driveway because they were able to eliminate cars based on tire treads and sizes along the way.
8. Contrary to what was reported in some media, and a blog site, the book points out that the Paynesville cases were aggressively pursued by the Paynesville Police when they occurred, and that Wetterling investigators were aware of those cases from the beginning.
9. The book noted that the sole piece of evidence left behind in the Paynesville cases was a cap that the assailant wore. That cap was later tested for DNA and substantially matched up to Danny Heinrich's DNA.
10. It was pointed out that it seemed very unusual that Kevin's presence in the driveway on the night of the abduction explained away the car tracks and led investigators to conclude that Jacob was abducted on foot. The key reason for this is that Kevin never stopped the vehicle in the driveway, except at the very end by the road. This is key because there would have been stop and start tire marks adjacent to Jacob's last footprints. Additionally, Kevin never stepped outside of the car, and therefore his footprints would not exist in the print field.
11. The books suggested it was more likely that one of Duane Hart's victims was more likely to be the abductor than Duane Hart himself.
Incidentally, I have recently found a newspaper article from 1990 where the Kandiyohi district attorney, in the strongest language I have seen to date, said that Hart was likely not connected to the Wetterling abduction.
I'm not trying to brag here...just pointing out to you the key points from the original book that turned out to be true. Much of this had been presented to various media organizations and bloggers, but was ignored until after the arrest of Danny Heinrich.
By the way, Alison Feigh can tell everyone she wants that I'm not qualified to have researched the case or written the book. Really strikes me as odd that she claimed to not known about the book until January 2015, and attempted to block efforts to get some of this information publicized (none of this stuff is super-secret, really - it was just never put together in one place before, or fit together in a chronological order)