It was another false lead in the nearly twenty year-old case of a missing Minnesota youth, but Patty Wetterling says they are encouraged by the reaction from the public. Milwaukee Police have ruled out the involvement of 62-year-old Vernon Seitz in the case of Wetterling's son Jacob. Wetterling says the fact that people haven't forgotten about Jacob helps keep the family strong.
"That's very heartening, at the end of the day a lot of people invested time and energy and it didn't turn out to be him but it means a lot to us that people are still looking," Wetterling told the Minnesota News Network.
Wetterling says she met Seitz when he came to St. Joseph, Minnesota, to help look for Jacob , but she didn't know how deeply troubled he was. Seitz apparently confessed to killing two children in 1958 and investigators found child pornography, books on cannibalism, a video and poster of Jacob's 1989 disappearance in his home. In a press release , Milwaukee police stressed that there was no evidence found at Seitz's home to link him to Jacob's abduction — or any other crimes involving children..
Patty Wetterling says the family is strengthened by the fact that so many people are still interested in Jacob's case — nearly twenty years after his abduction. "It's not like TV where you have to have resolution and you walk away can pat yourself on the back and you can say that was good, we solved that one," she told MNN. "This would be a horrible ending if he (Seitz) indeed did some of the things that he drew." Wetterling says she met Seitz twice when he came to her central Minnesota community to help look for Jacob.
