New London Blogger Suggests Link Between Wetterling Abduction, Paynesville Incidents

ST. JOSEPH - A New London woman has raised questions about attacks on children in Paynesville in the mid-1980s and a possible connection to the abduction of Jacob Wetterling.

Joy Baker writes a blog called Joy The Curious in which she explores on-line mysteries and other topics.

Baker says she recently discovered a spate of attacks on children that occurred in Paynesville in the years and months leading up to the abduction of Jacob Wetterling in October 1989 in St. Joseph.

Baker says, "there's actually one case of a child abduction in Cold Spring, and that happened nine months prior. But, before that even, 1986 and 1987 there were these incidents of attacks on young teenage boys between the ages of 12 and 16. There were five cases that were reported in the newspaper and we've since found at least two more and possibly four more."

Baker says the description of the man suspected to be involved in the Cold Spring, Paynesville, and the Wetterling cases are very similar.

"What's sort of startling is its very similar to Jacob's case in that the guy either wore a mask or had his face blacked out in every instance and he had the same general build - which was kind of shorter and stocky - and he had a deep, low voice which was also similar to Jacob's situation.", she says

In another twist, police interviewed Delbert Huber and his son Tim at the time but they were not arrested.   They are both now serving time for the murder of Tim Larson during a dispute near Belgrade in 2011.

Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner tells WJON News that they address any new information that comes into his office.  But he believes this information may be relatively old. He says the Paynesville boys were interviewed by the task force at the time of the Wetterling abduction.  Sanner says "he doesn't want to comment too  much because he doesn't want to put the community and the family on a rollercoaster."

This story is courtesy of the Minnesota News Network and KWLM in Willmar.