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Missing Coed Is Found Dead
Dru Sjodin was last seen Nov. 22, 2003.
The body of college student Dru Sjodin has been found, five months after she disappeared from the parking lot of a North Dakota shopping mall, authorities said Saturday. Sheriff Mark LeTexier sobbed as he told volunteers, "Dru is home." He later confirmed that authorities had found Sjodin's body.
Scores of volunteers had joined the search on Saturday for the 22-year-old University of North Dakota student, who was last seen Nov. 22 at the mall where she worked at a Victoria's Secret.
While a handful of Sjodin's relatives continued searching through the winter, official searches had been halted in December because of severe weather and resumed this month.
Bob Heales, a private investigator who has coordinated search efforts for the Sjodin family, said the body was found in a ditch near a county road northwest of Crookston.
Volunteers had been near the spot "probably a dozen times," but the area had been covered with snow, he said.
Chris Lang, Sjodin's boyfriend, said he remembers searching the area, but "the drifts were 5 feet high."
"It just kind of feels numb," Lang said after learning Sjodin's body had been found. "I woke up this morning, and I just knew for sure it was going to happen today.
"Now I know she's been at peace for a long time," Lang said.
Lang was the last person known to have heard from Sjodin, when she spoke to him by cell phone after leaving work the afternoon of Nov. 22.
Convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 51, of Crookston, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn. He was arrested in December and is jailed in Grand Forks, about 25 miles northwest of Crookston, on $5 million bail.
Prosecutor Peter Welte declined to comment Saturday. A judge has ordered lawyers involved in the Rodriguez case not to speak with the media.
At a court hearing last month, investigators testified that blood matching Sjodin's DNA was found in Rodriguez's car. Police said they also found a knife in the car that matches a sheath discovered near Sjodin's car.
Before Saturday's search, Sjodin's parents spoke to a search party of more than 100 people.
Hours later, before the sheriff's announcement, Lang arrived in tears at the school where volunteers had gathered for the search. He and Sjodin's father, Allan, joined authorities in a trailer serving as a makeshift command post.
Heales said Sjodin's friends and family felt relieved Saturday that Sjodin had been found.
"Dru's coming home and that's what we've wanted from the beginning," he said. "We never wanted to go through life without knowing where she was."
Source: AP