STEARNS COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE

Can you help solve these cold cases?

Lauren Breunig — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 19:00:00 GMT

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Unsolved missing persons and death cases leave many questions for families, friends and law enforcement alike.

As 2024 draws to a close, it marks another year where the questions go unanswered for some St. Cloud area investigations.

St. Cloud LIVE reached out to area law enforcement and Tri-County Crime Stoppers to ask about unsolved area crimes. They suggested missing persons and homicide cases that are still active. These are just some of the cases that law enforcement agencies are working on.

La’Darian Broadnax: Shooting death, 2019

DETAILS: La’Darian D’Vonte Broadnax, 24, of St. Cloud, was shot and killed on July 20, 2019, according to a St. Cloud Police report. Officers said Broadnax was shot in the 300 block of the alley between Fourth and Fifth Avenues South.

Police said they received a report of a person with a gun around 3:30 a.m. Officers found Broadnax with a gunshot wound in the driver’s seat of a vehicle in the alley, according to the report. Police said there had been a party in a nearby apartment and an altercation started outside the apartment. No suspects have been arrested in connection to Broadnax’s death.

REWARD: $5,000

TIPS: Call St. Cloud Police Department at 320-251-1200.

Ronnie Bromenschenkel and Cynthia Schmidt: Missing, 1986

DETAILS: Ronnie Leo Bromenschenkel, 26, and Cynthia Mae Schmidt, 18, were last seen at Riverview Trailer Court in St. Cloud on Aug. 6, 1986, according to Tri-County Crime Stoppers.

The pair was allegedly involved in a money laundering scheme before their disappearance, which law enforcement believes may have contributed to their disappearance, according to Tri-County Crime Stoppers. Investigators suspect foul play, according to Tri-County Crime Stoppers.

TIPS: Call St. Cloud Police at 320-251-1200.

Roseanna 'Rose' Marie Forcum and April Nicole Geyer: Missing, 1998

Details: Roseanna “Rose” Marie Forcum, 15, and April Nicole Geyer, 21, were last seen sometime between Aug. 12-14, 1998, according to Tri-County Crime Stoppers. Law enforcement believe they disappeared after attending a party in St. Paul.

Forcum, who was from St. Cloud, last had contact with her family on Aug. 10, 1998, according to her missing person’s report. Geyer has been missing since Aug. 12, 1998, according to her missing person’s report. On Aug. 14, her family reported her missing to the Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office. In 2000, a confidential informant told St. Paul police that Forcum and Geyer were strangled in a St. Paul apartment, according to a 2016 Pioneer Press report. The informant said he and the killer buried the bodies outside of Wadena, the report said. Law enforcement searched the area where the two girls were allegedly buried but found nothing.

Thomas Lee: Missing, 1993

DETAILS: Thomas Timothy Lee, 41, was last seen at 6:30 p.m. on June 16, 1993, in St. Cloud, according to the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office. His family reported him missing two days later, on June 18.

Lee’s landlord entered his St. Augusta residence on June 17 and told law enforcement that Lee, who lived alone, was not home nor did it look like he had been there recently. According to law enforcement, Lee in 1993 was 6 feet tall, weighed about 150 pounds, had brown hair, and green eyes when he disappeared. Lee also has a scar between his eyes.

TIPS: Contact Stearns County Sheriff's Office Investigator Scott Romstad at 320-259-3734 or Lieutenant Zach Sorenson at 320-259-3732.

How to help

If you know information about these or any other ongoing cases, submit a tip to law enforcement.

Tri-County Crime Stoppers: Online at www.tricountycrimestoppers.org or use the 24-hour tip line at 800-255-1301. Stearns County Sheriff’s Office: Call 320-251-4240 or go to stearnscountymn.gov/620/Submit-A-Tip. St. Cloud Police Department: Call 320-251-1200.]]>

The Reker sisters' 1974 deaths remain a mystery 50 years later

Lauren Breunig — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 12:10:00 GMT

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Rita Reker lives alone, but she is surrounded by family.

Her home in St. Cloud, Minnesota — where she has lived for nearly 60 years — is overflowing with reminders of her husband, Fred, six children, 11 grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren.

Framed photos, Christmas cards, and wedding invitations cover the white walls, a testament to her love. On the wall near her front door are two framed cross-stitch prayers with the names of all of her family members. Each time someone gets married or gives birth, Rita sews a new name on the list.

“I have held a lot of offices in a lot of organizations, I'm a church musician, I still sing in the choir, but I'm proudest of being a mother of a family,” said Rita, 88, during a visit with St. Cloud LIVE this summer. “My family is my life.”

She brightened as she pointed out each of her children and grandchildren, gesturing to the cluster of family photos hanging on the wall in the corner of her dining room. At the top are photos of Mary, her oldest child, and Susanne, her third daughter.

Their pictures are frozen in time, taken some 50 years ago.

The last time Rita saw Mary and Susanne was on Labor Day, Sept. 2, 1974, when the girls left to buy school supplies. They never returned.

Their bodies were found 26 days later in a quarry near St. Cloud. Two local boys spotted Susanne's body in a boggy area above the quarry, and Mary's body was found later in the water below. Mary was found in a state of undress, and her bra was cut up. Both girls had multiple stab wounds.

“That was the most frightening and frustrating time that we ever experienced,” Rita recalled. “We never imagined anything like that would ever happen to our family.”

For 50 years, Rita Reker and her family have wanted justice for Mary and Susanne. But no one has ever been arrested for their killings.

A parent’s worst nightmare

Through the decades, and the twists and turns in the case, the Reker family has sought answers to what the case investigator calls "one of the crimes of the century in Minnesota.”

The nightmare began on Labor Day in 1974.

At about 10 a.m. on Sept. 2, Mary, then 15, and her 12-year-old sister, Susanne (sometimes referred to as "Susan"), left their home at 224 18th Ave. N in St. Cloud to go to Zayre Discount Store (last home to a Save-A-Lot Grocery and Liquor store on West Division Street) to buy school supplies. It's a nearly 40-minute walk from the house to the store.

Their mother did not want them to go, but the girls promised to be back early because Mary needed to catch a ride with friends later that day.

Rita became busy cleaning the house after a family gathering the day before, and watching her other four children. She lost track of time.

Their daughters did not come home by 5 p.m., the family's usual dinner time. Rita and Fred became worried.

“That’s when the panic set in,” Rita said.

In those days, everyone in their neighborhood knew everyone else, and Mary was one of the go-to babysitters in the area. Mary wanted to be a teacher and loved watching after children, both her siblings and other neighborhood kids, Rita said.

The Rekers started calling around to check if anyone had seen the girls.

When Mary and Susanne were not found, the Rekers reported them missing to St. Cloud police around 7 p.m. However, officers told the family that the girls had likely run away, Rita said.

“It felt like we had to prove we had these children,” Rita said, remembering how she and Fred had to convince law enforcement that Mary and Susanne even existed before they would take the case seriously.

The next morning, Fred and Rita went down to the police station to ask for help again. Before this, Rita's only knowledge about law enforcement came from crime shows such as “Columbo” and “Hawaii Five-O.”

“There were a lot of television programs about mysteries and police departments and things like that, and all of them had homicide squads,” Rita said. “And I said to one of the policemen, ‘Don't you have a homicide squad?’ He said, ‘Lady, you watch too much TV.’”

The Rekers decided to take matters into their own hands. The family and some friends formed small search parties to scour the St. Cloud area. This included driving out to Little Falls, a small town nearly 40 minutes north of St. Cloud: The family received tips that the girls may have taken a bus there because Mary’s high school St. Francis was there, according to newspaper reports at the time.

While the girls were missing, Reker said her other children — Marty, Betsy, Matthew and Leah — would hear rumors at school that their sisters’ bodies were in the quarry.

The search ended on Saturday, Sept. 28, 1974.

I said to one of the policemen, ‘Don't you have a homicide squad?’ He said, ‘Lady, you watch too much TV.'

The girls’ bodies were found in the quarry 3 miles outside of St. Cloud, 26 days after they went missing on their shopping trip. Susanne was found on top of the quarry stabbed 13 times. Mary, who was stabbed six times, was found unclothed 40 feet below the surface of the water, according to newspaper accounts in Stearns History Museum archives.

The family learned the tragic news in church the next morning, when their pastor announced at Mass that the girls had been found, Rita said.

“When they made the announcement that the girls had been found, everybody burst into tears,” said Rita, who is a devout Catholic. Fred was an ordained deacon. “People from church really supported us during that time. We wouldn’t have made it without our faith.”

County investigation

Since the girls were found outside of St. Cloud city limits, the case fell under the jurisdiction of the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office.

Since 1974, the case has been overseen by six sheriffs — Peter Lahr, Jim Ellering, Charlie Grafft, Jim Kostreba, John Sanner and current Sheriff Steve Soyka. Lahr was in the hospital being treated for cancer in 1974 and was not involved in the case, according to Reker.

Ellering was elected in November 1974, weeks after the girls were found. He took office in January 1975.

Brian Bohlig has been the lead investigator on the case for the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office since 2017. In his opinion, the first major break in the case came after the 1976 kidnapping and stabbing of 14-year-old Susan Dukowitz in St. Cloud.

On Sept. 25, 1976, Dukowitz was kidnapped by two men at the Dairy Barn, near where Dairy Queen at 4101 W. Division St. is located today.

Kidnappers Herb Notch and James A. Wagner, both 17, drove Dukowitz to a gravel pit near Luxemburg, where Notch stabbed her, Bohlig said. Notch sexually assaulted Dukowitz and cut up her clothes before stabbing her twice, according to a Feb. 27, 1988, St. Cloud Daily Times article.

Dukowitz was covered in brush and left for dead. However, after Notch and Wagner left, Dukowitz made her way to a nearby house, and the owner called law enforcement.

The girl survived. She told law enforcement that, as he was leaving, Notch said, "They won't find that bitch until the spring."

Hours later, law enforcement found Notch and Wagner, and Notch admitted to stabbing Dukowitz. Notch pleaded guilty to robbery and kidnapping, but the charges of attempted murder and sexual assault were dropped in a plea, according to a Fox 9 KSMP report. Notch served seven of the 40 years of his original sentence.

Dukowitz's case bore similarities to the Reker killings, but law enforcement could find no connection between the two cases, Bohlig said.

Susan Dukowitz died of cancer at age 33 in 1995.

Investigation challenges

At first, the Reker sisters' disappearance was treated as a runaway case, which means investigators lost time and potential witnesses by the time the girls' bodies were found on Sept. 28, according to Bohlig.

“It might seem counterintuitive now to treat it as a runaway case — but that was in 1974 when it was standard police procedure,” Bohlig told St. Cloud LIVE during a phone interview on June 24. “That is not the way we handle things now."

Investigators used interview techniques to take witnesses back in time to try to help them remember details from Sept. 2. Since DNA testing was not around in 1974, evidence was not properly collected, Bohlig added. Newspaper reports in 1974 noted the mishandling or loss of evidence in the case.

Newspaper accounts at the time say that Ellering did not consider the case to be a sex crime, though evidence pointed that direction. Sex crime experts were not heavily consulted during the investigation at this time.

“The sex offender registry was not a thing yet, so investigators had less to work off,” Bohlig said.

Almost a month went by between when the girls were last seen alive, by a neighbor at about 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 2, 1974. This meant potential witnesses may have forgotten helpful bits of information or that they saw anything at all, Bohlig said.

Authorities released details about the sisters: Mary was wearing green wire-rimmed glasses, a green Army fatigue shirt with "Reker" on the front pockets and blue jeans. Susanne was wearing gold wire-rimmed glasses, a white cotton short jacket and blue corduroy jeans.

In September 1977, the St. Cloud Daily Times reported that "The list of suspects has reached double figures, according to published reports." At one point, even notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was a potential suspect because the Reker killings were similar to some of the murders he confessed to committing. However, he was later ruled out because he was in the Pacific Northwest at the time of the Rekers' deaths.

In 1977, three years after the girls were killed, Ellering took over the case from lead investigator Lawrence “Brownie” Kritzeck after no major discoveries in the investigation, according to an article in the Aug. 18, 1977, St. Cloud Daily Times.

In 1978, Waite Park Police Chief Charlie Grafft ousted Ellering in a rematch for sheriff, partially due to the sheriff’s office's inability to solve the Reker case, according to contemporaneous reporting.

Ellering moved to Arizona in 1978, shortly after losing the sheriff's office.

Cold case, active investigation

Despite Mary's and Susanne’s murders being labeled a cold case, the investigation is still active and ongoing, Bohlig said.

“There are still victims, and they still deserve justice,” Bohlig said. “No one should be able to kill two young girls and get away with it. This is one of the crimes of the century in Minnesota.”

Bohlig frequently checks in with Rita to update her on the investigation because he believes it is important for the family to know that the case is still a priority for the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office.

He even keeps Rita on his Christmas card list; the 2023 card with a picture of Bohlig’s family on the front is displayed on her fridge among cards from family members, pictures from her grandchildren's weddings and a newspaper about her youngest granddaughter Theresa's academic success.

Investigators are looking into a few people of interest, but Bohlig would not comment further on the status of the case.

Fred Reker died on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2012. Rita, meanwhile, kept searching for answers.

In 2018, she received a tip that a man who was being treated at a St. Cloud hospital for liver failure could be a potential suspect. Law enforcement investigated, but no arrests were made.

A 2005 investigation from the Vidocq Society, a members-only crime-solving club, determined that there was no usable DNA evidence in the Reker case. However, the organization — whose members include retired FBI criminal profilers and other law enforcement officers — created a profile of the perpetrator, and the potential suspect matched the profile perfectly, Rita said.

“I visited him when he was on his deathbed and looked him in the eye,” Rita said. “I asked him if he had anything to tell me, and he said no, but in my heart, the case was solved.”

Before he died, the man denied killing Mary and Susanne.

A mother’s mission

Rita found comfort in talking about her experience with others. It started as a tactic to keep the case in the media and keep people’s attention on her daughters, but it grew into a form of catharsis.

“I did a lot of public speaking [over the years], and for me, it was very healing just to share it with other people,” Rita said. “So it changed me a lot from the kind of person I was when I was young because I used to be incredibly shy.”

She especially found it helpful to speak with others at the Central Minnesota chapter of Parents of Murdered Children, a support group for survivors of homicide victims. She was even one of the chapter leaders and helped guide discussion.

As a parent, Rita had experienced the unthinkable — the killing of two children — and she decided to use her experience to help others. Her pain and catharsis became a call to action. She was a founding member of Tri-County Crime Stoppers.

Founded in 1981, the group aims to reduce crime in Stearns, Benton, and Sherburne counties, according to the organization’s website. The original funding for the group came from the reward money for those responsible for the deaths of Mary and Susanne Reker.

Rita Reker retired from the board in 2020 after 39 years.

Upon her retirement, the Tri-County Crime Stoppers gave her a plaque commemorating her service, which she displays proudly on a counter in her living room. Another plaque thanking Rita for her contributions hangs on a door frame in the kitchen.

“I am proud of my time there because we were trying to help others,” Rita said.

She also finds comfort in her family.

"My Susie always wanted to be a doctor, and now I have a few in a family," Rita said, laughing, as she talked with St. Cloud LIVE about her grandchildren. "I like to think she lives on through them in that."

How to help

To report tips in the Mary and Susanne Reker case, contact:

Tri-County Crime Stoppers: www.p3tips.com/TipForm.aspx?ID=513 Stearns County Sheriff’s Office: 320-251-4240 or mn-stearnscounty-gettingstarted.app.transform.civicplus.com/forms/28531 Timeline

1974

Sept. 2: Mary, 15, and Susanne “Susan/Susie,” 12, Reker went to Zayre Discount Store (now home to Save-a-Lot Grocery and Liquor) to buy school supplies but never returned home. Parents Fred and Rita Reker report them missing that evening. Sept. 3-27: Rekers, family and friends formed small search parties and looked for the girls. This included driving out to Little Falls, a small town nearly 40 minutes north of St. Cloud. The family received tips that the girls may have taken a bus to the town because Mary’s high school St. Francis was there, according to Stearns History Museum archives. Sept. 28: Susanne’s body was found by two teenage boys in the granite quarry in Waite Park. Mary’s body was found later that day by law enforcement. Nov. 6: Sheriff James “Jim” Ellering elected to his first term. He served as sheriff from 1975 to 1979.

1976-78

Sept. 25, 1976: Herb Notch and James A. Wagner kidnapped and stabbed Susan Dukowitz, 14, before leaving her for dead. The case had multiple similarities to the Reker killings and led law enforcement to look at Notch and Wagner. Aug. 18, 1977: Ellering takes over the case from Lawrence “Brownie” Kritack after no major discoveries in the investigation. Nov. 7, 1978: Charlie Grafft, Waite Park police chief, is elected sheriff, ousting Ellering.

2000s

2005: The case is presented to the Vidocq Society. Experts created a psychological profile of the perpetrator. 2006: Evidence was DNA tested, but this produced no new leads. Dec. 31, 2012: Fred Reker died at age 84. 2018: Reker received a tip that a man who was being treated at a St. Cloud hospital could be a suspect. Law enforcement investigated the tip, but no arrests were made.]]>

Stearns County investigators ID parents of Baby Jane Doe, newborn found in Minnesota ditch in 1980

St. Cloud LIVE staff reports — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 19:34:32 GMT

ST. CLOUD — The decades-long mystery of a dead infant found in St. Augusta in 1980 has come to an end, the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Thursday.

Using DNA testing and other evidence, investigators say that the parents of the child — called Baby Jane Doe — have been identified, according to the Thursday, July 11, release. But because the mother died and was unable to be interviewed by investigators, the sheriff’s office considers the case closed.

“After establishing the parents of Baby Jane Doe, completing relevant interviews, and other investigative efforts, the sheriff’s office has not been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a particular person committed a crime related to the death of Baby Jane Doe,” the release said. “The sheriff’s office has closed this case.

“Not being able to interview the mother because of her death factored into our decision to close this case.”

According to the news release:

On April 3, 1980, the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office responded to what is now 250th Street, west of County Road 136, in the city of St. Augusta on a report of a deceased infant. Then-Sheriff Charlie Grafft and other members of the sheriff’s office responded to the area. A deceased infant, identified as Baby Jane Doe, was found about 5 feet off the roadway.

After an autopsy, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded that Baby Jane Doe was a full-term live-born female infant with no anatomic cause of death. Baby Jane Doe was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Cloud on April 7, 1980.

Thirty-eight years later, in 2018, Baby Jane Doe’s body was exhumed by the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), and Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office. No DNA was able to be obtained, and the body was returned to the cemetery, according to the release.

In 2019, the sheriff’s office and BCA re-examined items collected from the original scene, which included a Pepsi can, a Merit cigarette pack, a Pfeiffer beer can and an Old Milwaukee beer can. No further evidence was obtained from those items, according to the release.

In 2020, the sheriff’s office and BCA examined histology blocks collected by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office during the original 1980 autopsy. The histology blocks contained portions of Baby Jane Doe’s lung, heart, spleen, thymus, larynx, adrenal gland, aorta, pancreas, trachea, liver, ovary, uterus, kidney and/or brain, according to the release. A DNA profile was obtained from the profiling of Baby Jane Doe’s spleen. Using that information, in 2021, Parabon NanoLabs was able to help investigators identify the mother of Baby Jane Doe.

Using histology blocks collected during a previous autopsy of an adult female, the sheriff’s office and BCA identified the female as Baby Jane Doe’s potential mother. A DNA profile was obtained from the female’s heart. A comparison with Baby Jane Doe’s DNA profile indicated the genetic results obtained from Baby Jane Doe are 1,700 times more likely to occur in a biological child of the adult female compared to someone unrelated to the adult female.

The BCA determined there was strong evidence to support the biological relationship between the adult female and Baby Jane Doe as being a biological mother-daughter relationship, according to the release.

In 2024, Parabon NanoLabs assisted the sheriff’s office in identifying the father of Baby Jane Doe. Using DNA evidence collected from a potential father cooperating with the investigation, a comparison indicated the genetic results obtained from Baby Jane Doe are 670,000,000 times more likely to occur in a biological child for the adult female and adult male than in someone unrelated to these individuals.

The adult male was interviewed, and denied knowledge of Baby Jane Doe, according to the release.

With the mother unable to be interviewed, the case is closed without an arrest, according to the news release.

“The conclusion of this decades-long case was a true team effort by the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigative Division,” the office said in the release. “This, along with the help and input from the BCA Forensic Lab, and the use of current DNA science, assisted in this case coming to a resolution. …

“It is important for the public to know a case like this, often referred to as a ‘cold case,’ is not forgotten and our office tirelessly works on these cases and continues to follow-up on tips and the incorporation of technological and science advancements to draw these cases to a final resolution.”

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The boy who went missing after his first day of school in 1944

Jennifer Kotila — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 13:31:00 GMT

PAYNESVILLE, Minn. — Victor John “Jackie” Theel would have turned 86 years old on Feb. 15, 2024. On Sept. 5, 2024, Jackie will have been missing from Paynesville, Minnesota, for 80 years, having disappeared on the way home from his first day of school.

News accounts of the disappearance described a nice fall day in Paynesville on Sept. 5, 1944, as an excited 6-year-old Jackie walked with his two older brothers to his first day of school. He was wearing a blue sailor suit shirt, long pants and brand new shoes and was toting his new school supplies.

Being so excited, Jackie couldn’t eat his breakfast that morning and carried a bag of chips with him to school. Throughout the morning’s first-day-of-school activities of singing and games, Jackie snacked on some of the chips.

It was only a half-day of school for the first-grader, who was to walk home with his brothers at lunchtime, according to the note his mother Bernice sent with him to school.

After class was dismissed at 11:30 a.m., Jackie's teacher, Miss Dorothy Gladke, neglected to have him wait for his older brother to walk with him. Jackie left school with his teacher and a group of classmates.

They walked together for a short distance before going their separate ways, the teacher asking Jackie if he knew his way home and him pointing in the direction in which he thought he lived.

However, Jackie would end up going in the wrong direction and that was the last time anybody definitively saw the boy. He disappeared, apparently without a trace, carrying the bag of chips and a school registration card. He had left his new school supplies at his desk.

Sources for this article come from the Paynesville Historical Society, which has a file of old newspaper clippings from the days after Theel disappeared. Newspaper sources include the Paynesville Press, St. Cloud Times and the Minneapolis Star.

When Jackie did not arrive home for lunch on Sept. 5, 1944, his mother first called friends for help. When Jackie had not been found by 3 p.m., she notified Paynesville Mayor Russel Portinga.

Portinga and several businessmen started searching for Jackie under the direction of Stearns County Deputy Sheriff Ike Lunde and Constable Martin Kobberdahl. After not being able to find him, soon the whole town was involved in the search.

Jackie’s father, Harold, was an over-the-road truck driver. He was called home from St. Paul when Jackie went missing.

There were two reports of the boy being seen along Minnesota Highway 23 on the west side of town. Mrs. Pete Thompson, who was returning from a fishing trip at Long Lake with her husband, reported seeing a boy at about 1:30 p.m. fitting Jackie’s description along the highway. He was carrying a piece of paper and walking along the ditch about a block out of town.

Later that day, two boys, Robert Burr, 16, and William Johnson, 14, reported seeing a boy at about 4:45 p.m. getting into a light brown or gray car at about the same spot.

The car was traced to Willmar, Minnesota, where law enforcement discovered it was being driven by a 24-year-old combat veteran who stopped at three different garages in Willmar attempting to have the starter repaired.

News reports state the soldier was accompanied by his younger brother who was wearing a sailor suit. It is unclear how it was verified that the young boy was indeed related to the soldier or whether it could have been Jackie. A news report on Thursday, Sept. 7, 1944, stated, “The car has not been seen or heard of since.”

Stearns County Sheriff Art McIntee was called into the case and he called Kandiyohi County Sheriff Paul Anderson to assist. Later in the evening, the Willmar Police Department was also called to assist with the search efforts.

Searches continued until 1 a.m. Wednesday and then resumed at 6 a.m. News accounts at the time described the investigators called in to join the case as being Jack Burns of the Willmar State Crime Bureau and William Conley, an investigator with the St. Paul Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

One of Jackie’s sisters, Annabelle (Theel) Krupke, who was 16 years old when he disappeared, told the Paynesville Press in 2004 that the day of Jackie’s disappearance was nice, but the following days were rainy and cold.

But that didn’t stop local townspeople and others from thoroughly searching the town and countryside. Farmers searched buildings, fields, pastures, grain shocks, pits, wells and swamps.

The North Fork Crow River bed and its banks were searched several times. If Jackie had drowned, his body would likely have been found due to how shallow the river is in the fall.

The Civil Air Patrol stationed out of St. Cloud searched for Jackie by air on Wednesday and Thursday. The plane was piloted by Ray Ubracken, and Paynesville barber Les Spaeth was the observer.

Boys from Paynesville High �� were dismissed Wednesday and Thursday afternoons to help with the search efforts and Paynesville businessmen closed up their shops Thursday afternoon to help.

Newspapers and radio stations statewide covered Jackie’s disappearance, writing about the case and airing descriptions of Jackie, the blue-eyed, strawberry blond 6-year-old who was just getting two new bottom front teeth. He was 37 inches tall and weighed 45 pounds and had a fresh scratch under his right eye and a one-inch scar on the back of his head.

On Saturday, Boy Scouts from Cold Spring joined local Boy Scouts in the search. Also sometime in the first week, an old cistern that was no longer in use had been searched.

The following Wednesday, bloodhounds were brought in by Raymond Huelskamp (spelled Hulscamp and Hulskamp in media reports) of New Ulm. Despite the rainy weather that had occurred since Jackie went missing, the dogs were able to pick up his trail near the school and followed it to Schwartz Drug Store and then to the North American Creamery (now AMPI).

The trail led to the edge of the river where faint, small footprints were located, and then to the Evangelical Church and west to the William Johnson filling station in west Paynesville. Here the scent was really strong, but Johnson didn’t recall seeing a boy matching Jackie’s description.

The scent grew weaker as it traveled west to Highway 23 and then vanished near the location in which the boy was spotted by the couple returning from a fishing trip. The hounds were brought to Hawick to search the ditches on both sides of the highway going north, but Jackie’s scent was never picked up again.

By Thursday, Sept. 21, 1944, the Paynesville Press was reporting that hope of finding Jackie alive was waning, but that the search would continue until Jackie was found dead or alive. It also reported that the Civil Air Patrol had again searched by air the previous Friday.

The report also shared speculations of what may have happened to Jackie, including wandering off into thicker woods or swamps and perishing, having been kidnapped from the side of the highway or becoming the victim of a “sex maniac.”

Spiritual faith healers and fortune tellers had been contacted by Jackie's father Harold and were certain Jackie was still in the area and alive, according to the report. However, within the first week of his disappearance, a faith healer had given the opinion he was in a nearby mud hole, which was searched to no avail.

McIntee and Conley told the Paynesville Press that in all their experiences, they had never seen anyone cooperate as well as the people of Paynesville in searching for Jackie. “Everyone from the school age boy to the farmer has done a magnificent job. (McIntee and Conley) said that everyone seemed to think it was their boy that they were searching for. A more thorough and efficient search has never been carried on,” stated the article.

Jackie never has been found. The Paynesville Press interviewed Jackie’s siblings Fay and Annabelle for an article that was published Sept. 22, 2004. KARE 11 News interviewed Jackie’s sister Judy Espelund for a news piece that aired Feb. 4, 2016.

Annabelle and Fay, who was 5 years old when Jackie disappeared, told the Paynesville Press that there have been numerous rumors that circulated throughout the years that Jackie has been missing.

"I tend to believe that someone saw him wandering and picked him up," Annabelle said in 2004. "I don't see how it could have been anything else."

Fay said that he also believed that the most likely scenario was that Jackie was kidnapped. This was at the height of World War II and soldiers could get out of the army if they had dependents, which could have been a motive.

Both Annabelle and Fay told the Paynesville Press they thought the story about the car that was spotted picking up a boy dressed in a sailor’s suit and later located in Willmar was quite a coincidence. They wondered how the Willmar police identified that the “brother” was not Jackie.

The Willmar Police Department does not have records dating back to the 1940s, according to the 2004 article in the Paynesville Press. Stearns County records go back only to 1960 and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension does not have records of the case, according to the KARE 11 report.

A former Paynesville school teacher in the 1960s wrote Annabelle a letter stating she had seen a man getting off a Navy ship in California that resembled a Theel and signed his name “Jackie Theel.” He told the teacher he had been adopted.

Then in the 1980s, Fay was told a man came into Tuck’s Cafe in Paynesville looking for family, but could not find the name Theel in the phonebook. Fay reported the incident to the FBI, but doubted the story since there were Theels that lived in town and had their names listed in the phonebook.

"It's impossible to know," Fay told the Paynesville Press in 2004. "You don't know if he's dead or alive."

Jackie's mother Bernice was traumatized by his disappearance, Annabelle and Fay told the Paynesville Press. "Ma turned gray overnight," said Fay. "She had salt-and-pepper hair, but she turned white practically overnight."

The Minneapolis Star in September of 1945 reported, “A sobbing mother sent a five-year-old son for the first time here today, recalling the tragedy in a similar experience a year ago.” This was in reference to Fay’s first day of school. “I hope it doesn’t turn out the same way with him,” Bernice said, according to the report.

It stated that Bernice had several theories about Jackie’s disappearance, but would not disclose what they were. “I can’t prove any of them.”

It also stated that McIntee theorized that Jackie had been taken by someone, which was investigated by the FBI. “There is something in the community we haven’t figured out,” the Star reported McIntee saying.

In a Websleuths forum thread about Jackie’s disappearance, Gary L. Theel joined the conversation. He stated he was the son of Jackie’s brother, Tom, who was supposed to walk with Jackie home from school.

He shared that each time his family would come to visit his grandparents in Paynesville, his father would talk about the day his brother disappeared and the cloud that hung over the family.

“When he would speak his voice would sometimes break, and you could hear the sadness in his tone,” Gary wrote. “... I guess, looking back in retrospect, this could be why we were so guarded as children.”

Gary also shared that his father died in 2004, and would have wanted answers to what happened to his brother. However, Gary and the people on the Websleuth forum have not gotten any closer to solving the mystery of Jackie’s disappearance.

He attempted to track Federal Bureau of Investigation records regarding the case, contacting the Minnesota office of the FBI, the Washington, D.C., offices and the FBI national archives in Maryland and was told there were no records.

He also checked with the federal Department of Justice and was told there are no records of the case there.

It is not unreasonable to think that Jackie could possibly still be alive if he were kidnapped, as several family members have been long-lived. Fay is 85 years old. Annabelle died in December of 2023 at the age of 96.

Jackie’s father and mother lived to 86 and 83, respectively. Cross-referencing a photo of the Theel children from 1944 and Annabelle’s obituary, brothers Carl and Denton are still alive and in their 90s and a brother Norman is alive in his early 80s. A sister, Judy Espelund, born five years after Jackie disappeared, is in her 70s.

Eight other siblings, Donald, Lloyd, Floyd, Milton, Tom, Andrea Calendar, Dorothy and Myron, are all deceased. Dorothy died as an infant and Myron died just six months after Jackie went missing at a little over a year old.

Many online mystery sleuths have written about or created videos about Jackie’s disappearance and there is also a chapter about it in the book “Cold Cases of Stearns County, Minnesota” by Robert M. Dudley.

Those who have information regarding the case should contact the Stearns County Sheriff's Office at 320-259-3700.

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Update: Missing Eden Valley woman found safe

Staff reports — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 18:07:09 GMT

DEC. 21 UPDATE:

The Eden Valley woman reported missing last week has been found, and is safe.

The Stearns County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, Dec. 21, issued a news release stating that Kaitlyn Hohman was found by Stearns County Investigators in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

DEC. 15 STORY:

EDEN VALLEY, Minn. — The Stearns County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help to locate a missing Eden Valley woman.

Kaitlyn Hohman was last in contact with her family on July 27, and efforts to locate her have been unsuccessful, according to a news release from the Sheriff's Office.

Hohman is described as a white female, 5'2" tall, and weighing approximately 125 pounds. She has blue eyes and is known to wear a wig.

She may be in the Twin Cities metro area, specifically around Bloomington, the news release said.

Law enforcement has been investigating Hohman's disappearance and is concerned for her safety. The public is asked to contact the Stearns County Sheriff's Office at 320-251-4240 or through the Sheriff's Office website if they have any information about Hohman's whereabouts. Giving information can be done anonymously.

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