WCCO-TV's Jennifer Mayerle wasn't the only reporter in federal court Wednesday when the person of interest in Jacob Wetterling's 1989 disappearance was in court again.
Last week Mayerle scored that scoop when the story broke about Daniel James Heinrich's arrest on pornography charges and his possible connection to the Wetterling case.
"When an arrest is made a person has to make an initial court appearance," Mayerle said playfully. "Our job was to find out when and where and that's what we did on Thursday. When I learned [it was going to be] in St. Paul, I knew the press conference had been called for 2 o'clock in Minneapolis. … I figured I might be alone on it."
Mayerle found it interesting that when the judge asked Heinrich for his name he identified himself as "Danny" not Daniel. "You'd think when a judge asks you to say your date of birth, your name and reads you your rights, you'd state your given name appropriately," said Mayerle. "He walked in wearing mostly black, head to toe. He had on gym-type pants with a red stripe down the side. No handcuffs on his ankles or wrists. And he was wearing glasses unlike his mug shot."
Mayerle was anxious to hear Heinrich's voice.
"The one thing that we have heard for years is that this person who may have abducted Jacob Wetterling and who was involved in the kidnapping of the boy in Cold Spring had a low, gravelly, raspy voice. My whole thing that day was wanting to hear him talk. … When the judge asked him to speak it was interesting because it was lower and somewhat raspy."
I hope authorities have found the guy who tore apart Patty and Jerry Wetterling's world and destroyed a sense of security in outstate Minnesota.
"You know Jacob and I were born just a couple months apart. I was the same age as him," said Mayerle. "I remember it like it was yesterday, my youngest brother, Rob, who was only 4 at the time, asking my mother every morning: 'Mom, have they found Jacob yet?' "
