The car Moorhead police were seeking in connection to the Thomas Bearson homicide has been found, but it does not appear to have any connection to the college student's killing.
"Investigators are comfortable that this vehicle is not associated with the ongoing homicide investigation," the Police Department announced in a statement Thursday. "The communitywide support is greatly appreciated as investigators continue to follow up various leads."
Investigators had asked for the community's help Monday, and it delivered.
The search for the car was the first public development in the case in months. Tipsters quickly pointed police to the 2005 Nissan Maxima that security cameras had spotted in the vicinity of the lot where Bearson's body was found last September.
Bearson, an 18-year-old freshman from Sartell, Minn., was only a few months into his freshman year at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D., when he walked out of a party in the early morning of Saturday, Sept. 20, and vanished. His body was found three days later — five miles away and on the other side of the Red River — in a used RV sales lot in Moorhead.
The police statement said the search for the killer, and the ongoing need for the community's help with that search, continues. "Investigators on this case confirm there is a lot of follow-up being conducted on this investigation and value the continued community involvement to strive toward identifying the responsible party in this tragic crime."
Jennifer Brooks
