CASE CLOSED

WHEN POLICE COULDN'T CRACK THE CRIME, THESE ORDINARY CITIZENSTURNED-ARMCHAIR DETECTIVES DID

- Kylie Walters

FINDING JACOB

HOW AN EVERYDAY MUM SOLVED A 27-YEAR-OLD ABDUCTION

When 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was snatched by a masked stranger while riding home from the video store in 1989, it seemed like authorities had everything they needed to quickly find his kidnapper. Not only were there two witnesses, but police were on the scene in just six minutes. Still, no-one would know who took the schoolboy for almost three decades.

The case went unsolved for 27 years until a mother of two and part-time crime blogger, Joy Baker, made solving the abduction her personal mission. In 2010, Joy was inspired to start writing about Jacob after she visited the site where he was last seen in the rural US town of St Joseph, Minnesota.

"As I sat parked there and staring at that site, I was hooked, mesmerised and I felt like I needed to find the answers," she told The Sun.

Joy spent the next 13 years painstakingly digging into archives and newspaper files. She found that local law enforcement officers had failed to follow up on credible leads, evidence was lost and key witnesses were never questioned.

So, she decided to do it instead. Person by person, piece by piece, she started putting together an extensive file full of leads until her search brought her to 37-year-old Jared Scheierl.