On June 27th, it will be 30 years since 27-year-old Jodi Huisentruit disappeared without a trace on her way to anchor the morning news at KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa. Mason City is a city in the northern part of the state with a population of about 29,000, located about half an hour south of the Iowa/Minnesota state line.
For nearly thirty years, Jodi’s family and friends have been left with no answers or accountability for her abduction in the parking lot just twelve steps from the Key Apartment building, where Jodi lived.
FindJodi was co-founded in 2003 by Josh Benson and Gary Peterson. Our non-profit team remains committed to keeping Jodi’s case from fading from the public eye, and we will continue our search for what happened to the promising young news anchor from Long Prairie, Minnesota.
Among our continuing efforts to help solve the case, we have put up billboards in Mason City and have produced thirty-five FindJodi podcasts.
As part of our mission to help produce the most accurate public record possible regarding the Huisentruit investigation, we have compiled a list of thirty facts about the unsolved mystery. We will continue to update this post as more information becomes available.
Before we get to the facts of the case, here is some background about Jodi’s life before she became part of one of Iowa’s most enduring mysteries.
1968-1995
Jodi was born on June 5, 1968, in tiny Long Prairie, Minnesota, where she grew up. Jodi was the youngest of three daughters of Maurice and Imogene “Jane” Huisentruit.
Jodi’s dad died when she was just thirteen and her mom passed away in 2014, never knowing what happened to Jodi.
Jodi excelled in sports in high school, especially at golf. She was a part of her school’s team when it twice won the state high school championship. Jodi was co-captain of her team and she also played softball. Jodi’s passion for golf continued as she grew older, and she was part of a golf tournament in Mason City the day before she disappeared.
After high school, where she was also on the student council, Jodi briefly attended Moorhead State University in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Jodi transferred to St. Cloud State University where she majored in mass communications and speech communication and co-anchored the campus news shows with Joe Vigil. While in college, Jodi also studied abroad for six months in England.
After Jodi graduated in 1990, she worked briefly as a Northwest Airlines flight attendant, prior to pursuing a career as a television news journalist. Friends remember her saying she decided she wanted to be on the air, not in the air.
Jodi’s ambitions included someday anchoring a network morning news show. To pursue her dream job, Jodi began her broadcast career on a typical television news job track, starting in small television news markets, working for low pay and going to work at three in the morning at her last position as a morning anchor.
Jodi’s first reporting job was at KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1991, assigned to their Iowa City bureau. That’s where she reconnected with her college co-anchor, Joe Vigil, who was also working in another KGAN bureau.
Jodi’s next stop was at KSAX-TV in 1992 in Alexandria, Minnesota. She worked as a reporter and an anchor before moving in 1993 to KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa, to anchor the morning news.
While Jodi was at KSAX, she interviewed Patty Wetterling, the mother of another high-profile missing Minnesotan, Jacob Wetterling. Jacob was also born in Long Prairie and his dad was from Mason City. Jacob was kidnapped by a masked gunman near the Wetterling home in rural St. Joseph in 1989, six years before Jodi was abducted.
Prior to the KSAX interview, Jodi also interviewed Patty Wetterling at her home, while Jodi was still in college at nearby St. Cloud State. Jacob’s remains were finally found in 2016, 27 years after he was murdered. His killer, Danny Heinrich, led investigators to Jacob’s burial site on a local farm, as part of a plea bargain.
At the time Jodi was abducted on June 27, 1995, her two-year contract with KIMT-TV was due to expire in the fall. She had been in the process of applying for jobs in bigger television news markets, including the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Minneapolis was two hours north of Mason City and much closer to where her mom lived in Long Prairie. And according to her friend Ani Kruse, Jodi was also exploring the possibility of moving to a state with a warm climate, including Florida and Arizona.
30 Facts
#1 – Jodi apparently had overslept on the morning of June 27, 1995. She was supposed to be at KIMT-TV, in Mason City, IA, by 3:30 a.m.to begin her news anchor shift.
Jodi had spent the day before at the Mason City Chamber of Commerce golf tournament and dinner. It had been a very long day.
She anchored the 6-7 a.m. Daybreak newscast that Monday and was allowed to skip anchoring the noon show so she could be at the golf tournament by 9 a.m. Much of the tournament was rained out so Jodi spent the day at the Highland Park golf clubhouse socializing. Mid-afternoon, she went home to change clothes, mail birthday cards and notes to friends and then rejoined the tournament participants at the Mason City Country Club for dinner. Two members of her four-person team remember Jodi saying she planned to change her phone number the next day because shed been receiving some harassing phone calls. Jodi left the country club shortly before 8 p.m. and called a friend in Mississippi at 8:24 p.m.
#2 – When Jodi failed to show up for work the next day, KIMT-TV assistant producer Amy Kuns awakened Jodi with a phone call about 4:10 a.m. Amy said Jodi assured her she’d head right into work to anchor the 6 a.m. newscast in the studio, located about a mile away. Amy said nothing sounded out of the ordinary when she talked briefly with Jodi on her landline in the one bedroom apartment where Jodi lived alone. The apartment was one of three buildings in the 73-unit complex located on the edge of the Winnebago River, by a campground and just north of the city’s largest park. Building C, where Jodi had lived since November, 1993, was the smallest one in the three building, horseshoe-shaped complex.
#3 – Amy said Jodi had occasionally been late before.
#4 – Jodi was apparently abducted about 20 minutes later, next to her car, parked just 12 steps from the entrance of her apartment building. It takes just 30 seconds to walk briskly from Jodi’s second floor apartment to where her car was parked in the lot. It was still dark outside when she was attacked from behind.
#5 – During the struggle with her abductor, the key to Jodi’s red 1991 Mazda Miata was slightly bent, her red heels, blow dryer, earrings and hair spray were found scattered on the ground nearby. Jodi bought the convertible just a few weeks earlier in June after she had driven a white Honda for several years which she had named “Precious.”
#6 – Police said there were no eyewitnesses to the abduction, no surveillance cameras to record what happened, show who committed the crime.
#7 – Some apartment residents later told investigators they heard a scream around the time Jodi was abducted, but no one called police.
#8 – At 6 a.m., when Jodi had not shown up for work, Amy Kuns anchored the hour-long newscast in Jodi’s place. Amy had to write and produce the newscast by herself.
#9 – Around 7 a.m., just after the newscast ended, Amy asked a coworker to call police to check on Jodi. Although Jodi had been late before, she’d never missed a newscast.
#10 – At 7:13 a.m, the KIMT-TV coworker contacted police.
#11 – At 7:16 a.m, the first MCPD officer arrived at Jodi’s apartment complex. There were no signs of Jodi when the officer checked her second-floor apartment. But the officer saw clear signs of a struggle next to Jodi’s car, including drag marks, still parked in the lot below Jodi’s apartment.
#12 – The MCPD chief at the time, and several other officers, soon arrived at the Key apartment complex. Lt. Frank Stearns said the toilet seat was up in Jodi’s apartment, raising some questions if Jodi’s had had a male visitor. In a statement to a Globe Gazette newspaper reporter the day after Jodi was abducted, MCPD Chief Jack Schlieper said, “Police also found no evidence that anyone was with her prior to her disappearance.”
The entrance to Building C of the Key Apartments.
#13 – Very little forensic evidence was found at the crime scene. A partial palm print was obtained from Jodi’s car and a strand of hair was also discovered, according to retired MCPD investigator Frank Stearns, in a television interview. Stearns refused to say if a root was attached to the hair. It’s not publicly known if the evidence found was related to Jodi’s disappearance. A witness also approached police stating that he’d seen a white van near Jodi’s car around the time she disappeared.
SEE ALSO: Evidence photos from the parking lot of the Key Apartment Complex
In a 2004 interview with FindJodi’s Josh Benson and Gary Peterson, Lt. Ron Vande Weerd said, “Unfortunately, in this case, there’s not a lot of evidence, period. But we do have definite parts of the investigation, different things that we know, that we are withholding for just that reason, that if we are able to develop a subject, that we are able to eliminate him or corroborate with him.” When Josh asked if police would consider releasing more evidence at some point, to help solve the investigation, Lt. Vande Weerd said, “Right now, there are no plans to release it. Obviously, we would release it if we felt it could help something. But right now, we are afraid it would just hurt. We don’t have that much to go on and we don’t want to give up what we do have.” (The interview was conducted one year after Josh and Gary cofounded the non-profit FindJodi organization in 2003.)
In an interview on the 20th anniversary of the abduction, Mason City Police investigator Terrance Prochaska told former KIMT-TV anchor Brian Mastre the MCPD has Jodi’s DNA, dental records and fingerprints to compare with unidentified remains in the national NamUS database.
#14 – Jodi’s friend John Vansice, and two other men, arrived at the Key apartments that morning while police were on the scene. Police say Vansice told them he was the last person to see Jodi alive and that she had stopped by his Mason City duplex the night before to watch a video of a surprise 27th birthday party he helped throw for Jodi on the weekend of June 9th. The party was held at Sully’s bar in a building in Clear Lake, Iowa. The building was owned by a friend of Jodi’s and Vansice, businessman Aldin Stecker. Stecker’s former wife shot the video. Sources say Stecker gave the 18-minute video to Vansice the day before Jodi disappeared.
#15 – Police told Vansice to bring the video to the Mason City Police Department. That’s when he was interviewed by investigators.
#16 – Jodi spent the weekend before she disappeared, June 23-25th, on a waterskiing trip to Iowa City with Vansice, her good friends Ani Kruse and Tammy Baker, and Vansice’s son Trent, who was a college student in Iowa City at the time. The group stayed at Trent’s apartment. Tammy shared a bedroom with Jodi. They spent Friday and Saturday nights socializing at night spots in the college town. Tammy and Jodi met several years earlier when both were working as reporters in Iowa City, and Jodi was with Cedar Rapids-based KGAN-TV.
The previous weekend, June 17-18th, Tammy stayed with Jodi at her Mason City apartment. Tammy says they were also with John Vansice and other friends in Clear Lake that weekend, boating and dancing.
June was a very busy month for Jodi who planned to be out of town again the next weekend. She was looking forward to being a bridesmaid that Saturday, July 1, in her dear friend Staci’s wedding in their hometown of Long Prairie, Minnesota.
#17 – Jodi’s last entry in her personal journal was dated Sunday, June 25th. Jodi wrote about how much fun she’d had waterskiing with her friends on Vansice’s boat that weekend. The former seed salesman named the boat after Jodi, although her name was never actually painted on it. Vansice, who was 22 years older than Jodi and recently divorced, later told the media he took a polygraph and passed with “flying colors.” Vansice repeatedly denied any involvement in Jodi’s abduction and was never been arrested or charged in connection with Jodi’ s disappearance.
#18 – A copy of Jodi’s 84-page personal journal was mailed anonymously in 2008 to a reporter at the Globe Gazette in Mason City. A police investigation revealed it was sent by the wife of former MCPD Chief David Ellingson. Cheryl Ellingson previously worked for the newspaper, but no motive was ever given for why she sent the journal to her former employer.
#19 – Two federal grand juries have reportedly been convened in connection with Jodi’s case. No indictments were handed down by either grand jury. A friend of Vansice, LaDonna Woodford, said she testified at the first grand jury in 1997 that Vansice was home when she called him about 6 a.m. on June 27, 1995, and they went for a walk in the neighborhood. She said Vansice told her Jodi had stopped by the night before to watch the birthday video.
#20 – In March of 2017, Vansice was subpoenaed by a second federal grand in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He drove from his home in Phoenix, Arizona, to provide a DNA sample, fingerprints, and palm prints. No charges came against anyone as a result of that grand jury investigation.
#21 – Also in March of 2017, the MCPD obtained a search warrant from a Cerro Gordo County judge to place GPS tracking devices on two vehicles connected to Vansice. Vansice had not owned these vehicles in 1995. Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told “48 Hours” correspondent Jim Axelrod in 2018 the GPS searches did did not produce any evidence. The search warrant affidavit for the search has remained sealed, so it’s unknown what probable cause investigators provided the judge to convince him to approve the searches. After John Vansice passed away in in Arizona in December, 2024, attorneys for private investigator Steve Ridge moved to have the search warrant and the affidavit with the key facts of the case unsealed. They argued they wanted to lift a cloud of suspicion off of John Vansice and his family. The Cerro Gordo County Attorney, Carlyle Dalen, and Jodi’s family opposed unsealing the document, concerned it could harm the ongoing Huisentruit investigation.
In a statement, Jodi’s family said, “As a family, we’ve received a number of inquiries about the legal battle currently playing out in the courts with Jodi’s case. Without getting too deep into the weeds, we all agree that if the release of the information would hinder the investigation in any way, then the search warrant should remain sealed. We are not onboard with the information being released to the public, especially while the investigation is open and ongoing. We do recognize there are a number of differing opinions on this-we respect that and ask that you respect ours as well. At this time, this is our only public comment to make on the matter.”
After a court hearing on March 3, 2025, Senior Judge James Drew ordered the affidavit to remain sealed but he agreed to unseal the search warrant portion in neither side filed an appeal withon a month. The county attorney decided not to appeal the unsealing of that section of the search warrant, and, as mentioned previously, the police chief said the search did not produce any useful information.
In his order to keep the affidavit written by MCPD Sgt. Terrance Prochaska from being made public, the judge found it contained sensitive investigative details, including specific times, scene observations, and items discovered, that are known only to law enforcement and the perpetrator. The court further concluded that releasing this information could compromise the integrity of the investigation and diminish the corroborative value of any future confession.
Finally, the ruling stated, “The court recognizes this is an extremely high-profile case. The high level of public curiosity is understandable. However, what the public would like to know is often very different from what the public needs to know or should know. Mere curiosity is never a sufficient reason for potentially interfering in an ongoing criminal investigation, especially of a major crime.”
Judge Drew also noted there is no statute of limitations on murder in Iowa, and law enforcement continues to consider the case active.
#22 – Jodi reported to the MCPD she’d been made uncomfortable by a person in a small, newer white truck on a Saturday evening in October 1994. (Note: The truck has been erroneously described occasionally by some police investigators and the media as a black truck.) The truck and the driver have never been identified. Beside the 1994 incident, Jodi also told some friends and a self defense instructor in the months before her abduction about concerns that she might have been followed. Despite those incidents, police have been publicly skeptical about the possibility a stalker may have abducted Jodi.
#23 – Jodi would have been easy to stalk. Her home address, apartment unit and phone number were listed in the public Mason City phone directory. Jodi had lived in her apartment, which faced the parking lot, since November 1993. She also had the same work schedule every day and frequently talked about her social and community event plans when she was delivering the news.
#24 – A convicted serial rapist in Minnesota, Tony Jackson, was living just 2 blocks from KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa at the time Jodi disappeared. Another convicted sex offender, Tom Corscadden, was also in the general area. Both men were interviewed by Mason City investigators. Both men denied any involvement in Jodi’s disappearance, and were ruled out by police. Corscadden passed away in January 2022.
#25 – A FindJodi billboard in Mason City meant to help generate leads in the case was vandalized on New Years Eve 2019. The name of a retired investigator and the words “machine shed” were spray-painted on the board. After a 4-day investigation, the vandalism case was closed with no answers to who defaced the billboard, or why. FindJodi has sponsored billboards in the city since the first were unveiled on Jodi’s 50th birthday, June 5, 2018. The billboards feature a photo of Jodi and appeal for information.
#26 – Almost thirty years since Jodi was abducted, Iowa’s highest-profile unsolved case remains a mystery. Jodi is still missing, no one has been charged with abducting her. Jodi’s family, friends and KIMT-TV colleague will soon mark another June 27 with no Jodi, no answers and no justice.
#27 – Jodi was declared legally dead in 2001.
#28 – The Mason City police investigator assigned to Jodi’s case made trips to two states outside of Iowa in 2024, following up on two old, previously dismissed leads. They included a search in Winsted, Minnesota, and a visit to Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, in connection with a deceased convicted murderer, Chris Revak. Police released few details about why they were revisiting the leads which FindJodi investigated several years ago. In 2009, the MCPD investigator assigned to the Revak lead in the case said he had been ruled out.
#29 – Key people and witnesses involved in the 30-year old investigation have passed away. They include FindJodi’s co-founder Gary Peterson who died in 2023.
Team member Jay Alberio passed away in November, 2024. Jay’s death was less than five months after he appeared with Patty Wetterling at our annual event in Mason City on June 27 to honor Jodi and appeal for information.
FindJodi’s Jay Alberio speaking at the 2024 anniversary. Patty Wetterling, whom Jodi twice interviewed about her son Jacob’s abduction, was the keynote speaker.
#30 – In 2024, Jodi’s family created a Facebook page, Jodi’s Hope, to honor her, share memories and photos and to take more control of the narrative about Jodi’s life and the investigation.
If you have information about Jodi’s case, you can reach the Mason City Police Department at (641) 421-3636. Or you can share information with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) via email to Special Agent Ryan Herman at rherman@dps.state.ia.us.
You can also reach us anonymously at FindJodi: (641) 999-1109 or via email: Team@FindJodi.com
