By Steve Irsay
Court TV

All Jacob Wetterling wanted to do was rent a video. At age 11 he was savvy enough to know that if mom said no, dad just might say yes.

Jacob’s parents, Jerry and Patty, had left their house in St. Joseph, Minn. to attend a dinner party nearby. Jacob stayed behind to watch over his two younger siblings, Trevor, 10, and Carmen, 8. Jacob’s friend, Aaron Larsen, age 11, joined the group.

It was a warm and overcast Sunday night in St. Joseph, population 2,200. Trevor Wetterling was the first to telephone about getting permission to go rent a video from the Tom Thumb convenience store. Trevor figured he had a chance of getting mom’s okay. The store was only a ten-minute bike ride away, and besides, it wasn’t even a school night because of a teachers’ conference the next day.

Trevor’s pitch failed. Patty Wetterling was worried about drivers not being able to see the boys on the dark stretch of country road.

Jacob, left, with his older sister Amy, now 26.

Now it was Jacob’s turn. He called his dad. The boys had revised their plan. Trevor would carry a flashlight and Aaron Larson would wear a white sweatshirt. Jake, as his family and friends sometimes called him, would wear his father’s orange reflective jogging vest. And a 14-year-old neighbor would baby-sit for Carmen.

The plan seemed sound to Jerry. More important perhaps was that Jerry knew October 22, 1989 had been a tough one for Jake. His son had skated poorly at hockey tryouts for his youth league in nearby St. Cloud. Renting the comedy “Naked Gun” might be just the thing to lift Jacob’s spirits. Jerry decided to allow Jacob and Trevor to ride to the Tom Thumb. It was the first time the two boys had permission to ride after sundown.

At about 9:15 p.m. Jacob, Trevor and Aaron were making their way back from the store, videotape in hand. The older boys were on bikes; Trevor was on a push scooter.

As they approached a particularly dark stretch of road, where a long gravel driveway led to a farm, the boys heard a low raspy voice call out. They were ordered to stop. Trevor was told to turn off his flashlight.

A man wearing a stocking mask stepped out from the darkness. He had a gun. Next the boys were commanded off their bikes and scooter and ordered into a roadside ditch. The man looked into Trevor’s face and asked his age. Hearing the reply, the man told the younger Wetterling to run away and not look back. If he disobeyed, he would be shot, the man said. He did the same with Aaron.

But as Aaron fled he saw the gunman grab Jacob by the arm of his red St. Cloud hockey jacket. Moments later, both boys looked back as they ran to Wetterling home. There was no sign of Jacob, the masked man, or any sound from a getaway vehicle.

Charlie Grafft’s pager went off just as he was sitting down to watch the 10 o’clock news. A boy had been abducted. The crime scene was a mere four miles from the Stearns County Sheriff's house. When Grafft arrived, the sheriff was struck by the discarded bikes and the scooter laying in the ditch.

“I looked everything over and said, ‘Oh boy, this is going to be a job,’” said Grafft.

Grafft and his deputies searched with flashlights for three hours and only found a faint tire print.

As news of the disappearance spread, St. Joseph, a town dotted with porch swings, stone churches and candy-stripped barber poles, swarmed with FBI agents and National Guard troops. Helicopters sliced the sky. Bloodhounds barked. In all, 36 square miles of farmland, woods and quarries were searched. All the activity yielded absolutely nothing.