A portion of an 8-year-old GPS search warrant related to the Jodi Huisentruit investigation was released today, while the police affidavit section of the document, which contains sensitive investigative details, remains sealed indefinitely.
The publicly released information reveals police put a GPS tracking device on vehicles connected to John Vansice, a now-deceased person of interest, The search warrant shows a GPS device was in place from Baxter, Iowa, to Phoenix, Arizona, from March 2-6. Before Vnsice arrived back home, the GPS data shows he stopped in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
A search warrant was approved the previous month for Mason City police to place GPS tracking devices on two vehicles tied to Vansice: a 1999 Honda Civic and a 2013 GMC 1500. Neither vehicle existed when Huisentruit disappeared in 1995.
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Vansice drove to Iowa from his home in Arizona to comply with a federal grand jury subpoena requiring him to provide DNA, fingerprints and palm prints to a FBI office in Iowa.
The 2017 federal grand jury was reportedly the second one in twenty years convened in the Huisentruit investigation. Neither grand jury resulted in an indictment against anyone. The former seed salesman always insisted he had nothing to do with the June 27, 1995, abduction of the popular 27-year-old anchor who was on her way to anchor the morning news at KIMT-TV.
In a 2018 interview with CBS News, Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley stated that the GPS data did not produce any useful information in the investigation. Police have said very little publicly about what prompted them to put the tracking device on the vehicle, declining to address speculation a tracker was used to see if Vansice visited any potential crime scenes during his brief, court-ordered visit to his former home state.
The contents of the search warrant had remained confidential since a Cerro Gordo County judge first approved it in 2017. Most of the key information in it will continue to remain sealed.
The portion of the court document released today includes latitude and longitude data, but not much else. It also does not specify which vehicle Vansice drove from Arizona to Iowa and back.
Iowa attorneys Nellie O’Mara and Jesse Marzen were retained by private investigator Steve Ridge to file a motion to ask a judge to unseal the search warrant, after Vansice passed away in December. He was 78. The attorneys argued they wanted to lift a cloud of suspicion over Vansice and his family and provide closure to them.
However, Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen and the Huisentruit family opposed making the contents of the search warrant public, expressing concern that it could harm the 30-year-old ongoing investigation. The State also argued that releasing information in the affidavit would “lose its corroborative value” if a confession is obtained and that potential suspects would “know what information to hide and what information not to hide.”
After a public court hearing on March 3 of this year, Senior Judge James Drew issued a split decision. He ordered the affidavit portion of the document, prepared by Mason City police investigator Terrance Prochaska, to remain sealed. Judge Drew noted it “contains information regarding times, items found at the scene, the specific location of those items, and other observations of the scene made by officers. Those details would be known only to the perpetrator and law enforcement. Nothing in the affidavit raises any ongoing concerns to public safety. Thus, the need for public disclosure is, at most, minimal.”
He added, “The court recognizes this is an extremely high-profile case. The high level of public interest is understandable. However, what the public would like to know is often very different than 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. The State has legitimate interest in protecting certain information that would be known to the perpetrator and law enforcement. There is no significant reason the public needs to know the details contained in the Prochaska affidavit. It is the court’s opinion that the State’s interest in protecting that information outweighs the public’s interest in disclosure.”
But Judge Drew agreed that the rest of the search warrant should be released in thirty-one days. He stated that the non-affidavit portions “do not contain information that would compromise the investigation if made public. Therefore, they will be unsealed.”
After the document was released, County Attorney Dalen told FindJodi the GPS tracking “did not lead to anything relevant that helps us with the investigation.”
Anyone with information on Jodi Huisentruit’s case should contact the Mason City Police Department at (641) 421-3636 or email Iowa DCI Special Agent Ryan Herman at rherman@dps.state.ia.us. You can always reach us at FindJodi.
