A popular news anchor suddenly disappears while on her way to work in 1995 and no trace has ever been found since, today we look into the case of Jodi Huisentruit and why she was abducted.
Jodi Sue Huisentruit was born on June 5th 1968 in Long Prairie, Minnesota. She was the youngest daughter of Maurice Nicolas Huisentruit (1920 - 1982) and Imogene L. "Jane" Huisentruit (nee Anderson, 1923 - 2014). In high school, Jodi showed a talent for golf and she and her team won the state Class A tournament in both 1985 and 1986. After high school, she moved onto St. Cloud State University where she studied mass communications and speech communications where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1990.
Jodi Huisentruit
Jodi's first job post university was with Northwestern Airlines. She began her broadcasting career with CBS affiliate KGAN in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as the stations Iowa City bureau chief but she then returned to Minnesota for a job with ABC affiliate KSAX in Alexandria. Jodi later returned to Iowa for a position at the CBS affiliate KIMT in Mason City.
On October 8 1994, Jodi had reported to the MCPD that she'd been made uncomfortable by a person in a small newer white van who had seemingly followed her on her run, the van has never been identified. Jodi had also told friends and a self defence instructor the month before her disappearance that she feared that someone was following her. Despite these incidents the police remained sceptical about the theory of a stalker.
JODI'S LAST MOVEMENTS
Jodi had spent the weekend before her disappearance (June 23 - June 25) on a water skiing trip to Iowa City with John Vansice, her friends Ani Kruse and Tammy Baker and John's son Trent, who was a college student at Iowa City at the time. The group stayed at Trent's apartment and Tammy shared a room with Jodi. The two had met several years before when they were working as reporters in Iowa City. The weekend before that (June 17 - June 18) Tammy had stayed with Jodi at her apartment and had spent time with John and other friends in Clear Lake, boating and dancing. Tammy noted that John and Jodi seemed to be spending a lot of time together and when she had asked her about it Jodi had said that they were just friends, even Jodi's sister believed that John was interested in her. John had apparently named his boat after Jodi but had never had the name painted on it. John was 22 years older than Jodi.
Jodi kept a personal journal and the last entry in it was dated Sunday June 25, in it Jodi wrote about how much fun she had had that weekend:
"Got home from a weekend road trip to Iowa City - oh we had fun! It was wild, partying and water skiing. We skied at Coralville Res. I'm improving on the skis - hips up, lean, etc. John's son, Trent, gave me some great ski tip advice. Today, Sunday, it was raining in Mason City so didn't get any skiing in. I love it, it's addicting. Great friends but professionally, I'm fed up. It's difficult finding a new job and I'm confused about agent and what to do."
Jodi at her surprise 27th birthday party
On June 26 1995, Jodi participated in the Mason City Chamber golf tournament before play was stopped because of rain. The group then socialised at the clubhouse before Jodi left around mid afternoon to get a change of dry clothes for the awards dinner at the Mason City Country Club. She left shortly before 8.00pm and called a friend, Kelly, in Mississippi at 8.24pm, Kelly wasn't home so Jodi had a brief chat with her husband instead for a few minutes. Earlier whilst Jodi had still been at the club two members recalled hearing her mentioning about changing her phone number after she had received what she described as "nasty" and "naughty" phone calls but she had not mentioned her personal feelings on them.
Afterwards she went to the house of John Vansice at around 9.30pm to 10.30pm to view a videotape that he had filmed of her surprise 27th birthday party that he had arranged on June 10th at Sully's Bar in Clear Lake, Minnesota. After viewing the videotape John said that Jodi had left to go home, he was the last person to see her before her disappearance.
Jodi Huisentruit, John Vansice and Ani Kruse at her 27th birthday party
A MISSED NEWSCAST
At about 4.00am on Tuesday June 27th 1995, KIMT producer Amy Kuns noticed that Jodi had failed to turn up to work as she had been due to be at the station for about 3.00am, so Amy called her apartment at 4.10am not feeling overly concerned as Jodi had been late before. Jodi answered and explained that she had overslept and was preparing to leave for the station and would be there to anchor the news at 6.00am. The station was about a mile away from Jodi's home and when she had been late before she had managed to get there for 4.20am. Amy recalled that their short conversation appeared normal and nothing had seemed out of the ordinary.
Amy then tried to call Jodi at 5.00am but this time she received no answer. By 6.00am, Jodi had not turned up for work so Amy filled in for her on the morning show Daybreak, Jodi's absence had meant that Amy had been forced to write and produce the newscast by herself. At about 7.00am after the newscast, KIMT staff called the Mason City Police at the behest of Amy who had grown concerned over Jodi's failure to arrive at work as she had never missed a newscast before.
Jodi Huisentruit on Daybreak
When the police arrived at Jodi's apartment at 7.16am they noticed her red 1991 Mazda Miata in the parking lot, nothing seemed out of the ordinary but then as they got closer they could see that some sort of struggle had taken place. Her personal items were strewn about and her car key was bent. Jodi's red heels, blow dryer, earrings and hair spray had been scattered on the ground during the struggle but her purse, make up kit and briefcase weren't at the scene. The only evidence there seemed to be was an unidentified partial palm print on her car and a strand of hair, whether the hair had a root making it viable for DNA testing has never been revealed. There were also drag marks on the pavement.
It appeared that Jodi had been abducted about 20 minutes after her phone call had finished with Amy and whilst she had been next to her car which was parked just 12 feet away from the entrance to her apartment building. Police checked her apartment but everything was untouched, her bed was made and it was tidy, the only thing out of place was the toilet seat that was lifted, which was unusual for a woman living by herself. There was no sign that the attacker had been hiding inside Jodi's car which would mean that they had been likely waiting in the parking lot for her.
Crime scene photographs outside Jodi's apartment
The evidence pointed to Jodi having met with some sort of foul play so police interviewed her neighbours in the hope that someone had heard or seen something. At least three neighbours had heard screams at about the time Jodi would have been leaving for work which would have been around 4.30am. A nearby neighbour stated that they also remembered seeing a white van which was parked with its lights on and the engine running in the parking lot at about the same time as the screams were heard. This van was never positively identified but it was reported as possibly being a 1980's Ford Econoline van and was described as if it belonged to a police officer. It is unclear what is meant by that statement.
1980's Ford Econoline van
At around mid-morning Jodi's friend John Vansice and two other men arrived at her apartment building whilst the police were still there. John had apparently come looking to find the police to tell them that he had been the last person to see Jodi the night before as she had come to view the birthday party footage that he had gotten the day before her disappearance. Police told him to bring the footage to the station where it would be reviewed and he would be questioned. He later told the media that he had passed a polygraph with flying colours and he has always denied any involvement in Jodi's disappearance. John has an alibi in the form of his friend LaDonna Woodford who said that he had been at home as she had called him at 6.00am that morning and that they then had gone for a walk around the neighbourhood. When interviewed John stated this about his relationship with Jodi; "Jodi was like a daughter to me. She was just like my own child.".
THE INVESTIGATION
Fears of a stalker intensified especially given Jodi's previous concerns as she would have been an easy target, her home address, unit number and phone number were listed publicly in the Mason City phone directory. Jodi had lived in her apartment since November 1993 and her unit faced the parking lot. She also kept the same work schedule each day and frequently talked about her social and community events when she was delivering the news.
Jodi was hoping to leave Mason City at the time of her disappearance for a job at the Twin Cities television studios, this would have been a much bigger news market and was much closer to her hometown of Long Prairie.
Jodi's red 1991 Mazda Miata removed from the crime scene
In September 1995, the Huisentruit family hired private investigators, McCarthy & Associates Investigative Services Inc. in Minneapolis, Minnesota who then enlisted private investigator Doug Jasa from Omaha, Nebraska who appeared in several national shows to promote the case. In November of that year the family travelled to LA to meet with three prominent psychics which was televised on Psychic Detectives, the show generated several leads but none led to anything concrete. Jodi's KIMT co-workers planted a memorial tree outside the station one year after she disappeared.
Police looked into convicted serial rapist Tony Jackson who was currently serving prison time for a series of violent rapes in the Twin Cities area, as he lived just two blocks from the news station and his cellmate is said to have stated Jackson confessed to the crime but police have been unable to confirm this. Jackson was later cleared of any involvement in the case by police in 1999. The police also looked at another rapist Thomas Corscadden, who lived in Austin, Minnesota, as he owned a van in 1995, but Corscadden's prints did not match those that had been found on Jodi's car.
Tony Jackson
In May 1996, 100 volunteers helped to search an area of Cerro Gordo County but nothing was found. The police and private investigators interviewed more than 1000 people which did not yield anymore new clues as to what had happened to Jodi, she was declared legally dead in May 2001 by a judge in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa. In 2003, FindJodi.com was created by Minnesota TV journalists Josh Benson and Gary Peterson to help keep Jodi's case alive and to manage any tips that came in.
In early 2008, photocopies of 84 pages of Jodi's personal journal were anonymously posted to The Mason City Globe Gazette. The pages came in a large envelope with no return address and it had been posted in Waterloo on June 4th. This was an odd development in the case as the journal had been in the possession of the police since the beginning of Jodi's disappearance but within days the sender came forward and it was revealed to be the wife of the former Mason City police chief David Ellingson. Apparently, the former chief had taken a copy with him when he had left office for some reason and it's not known why his wife, Cheryl, had sent the pages to what happened to be her former employer.
In May 2015, all 100 members of the Iowa House of Representatives signed a letter requesting that Mason City declare June 27th 2015 as Jodi Huisentruit Day in honour of her memory and of all the other victims of unsolved crimes but this was declined. In December 2016, John Kooiker, a retiring state representative wrote an opinion piece that described his experience with the case and suggested a cover up by the Mason City officials.
Jodi Huisentruit
In March 2017 a warrant was executed against John Vansice for the recovery of GPS data for his two vehicles and he also provided a DNA sample, fingerprints and palm prints, but as of yet no charges have been brought against him. As of 2020, the Mason City Police Department and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation are still actively investigating the case.
On New Years Eve in 2019 a Find Jodi billboard was vandalised with the name of a retired investigator and the words "Frank Stearns machine shed" were spray painted on. No one knows who or why someone did this and whether it is related to Jodi. Maria Ohl, a Mason City police officer later claimed that Lt. Frank Stearns, Lt. Ron Vande Weerd and Bill Basler had been involved in Jodi's abduction and had covered it up, but they have denied all of her claims and no evidence has been found to support this. Ohl was fired from the police department in August 2011 for not following department rules and procedures regarding possible evidence in a criminal case.
The vandalised billboard
The criminal case in question was Jodi's. A commission agreed with the police chief that Ohl had mishandled information she had allegedly received regarding the case and had neglected her duty by not documenting possible evidence and in doing so interfered in an investigation; she had also failed to properly secure police records and misused mobile audio and video recording equipment. Ohl countered with a suit that claimed sex discrimination, religious discrimination and retaliation by the police department. The suit was settled for $95,000.
Maria Ohl
OUR CONCLUSION
At Apollo's Raven, we believe that the police were wrong to discount the theory that Jodi had fallen victim to a stalker. There were clear signs from Jodi herself of this possibility, she had complained of the man in a white van following her on her run, she had received nasty phone calls and she had mentioned about changing her phone number to stop them and even stated her belief that someone was following her the month before her disappearance. Jodi was a public figure and it is very easy for certain individuals to get obsessed with those that they see on television.
The person responsible for her vanishing was clearly lying in wait for her outside her apartment and knew her schedule, this was not a simple grabbing an unsuspecting woman in the spur of the moment off the street, this was a planned crime with the goal being to kidnap Jodi.
We doubt that John Vansice had anything to do with the disappearance, he seems on all accounts to have been very helpful to the police and the investigation. While it was a little odd that he had gone to find the police at Jodi's apartment rather than the police station, he had been honest about being the last person to see her and he did give valuable information on her last known movements. We believe that John has fallen victim to the assumption that as he clearly had a crush on Jodi that it has to be him that is responsible.
A Find Jodi billboard
Jodi's case has suffered from a lack of evidence and a muddled motive that has greatly hampered the police's ability to find a culprit and the truth about what happened to Jodi on June 27th 1995. Many theories will continue to float around until either Jodi is found or someone comes forward with information.
If you have any information on the disappearance of Jodi Huisentruit please contact the Mason City Police Department on 641-494-3564 or the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation on dciinfo@dps.state.ua.us or 515-725-6010 or alternatively please visit FindJodi.com