Heinrich was initially named as a person of interest in the Wetterling case in October 2015, after his DNA was found to match the sample that had been taken from Jared Scheierl in 1989.
Though the statute of limitations had long expired on Jared’s assault, the circumstances were enough for a search warrant to be granted.
Investigators found a large stash of child pornography in his residence, and he was arrested on October 28, 2015.
After several interviews with police, he agreed to accept a plea bargain that carried several conditions: he had to plead guilty to one of the 25 federal child pornography charges that he was facing at the time, and he had to reveal the location of Jacob’s body and testify to the details of the crime.
On September 1, 2016, he gave authorities the location of Jacob’s body. It was a pasture near Paynesville, about 30 miles from Jacob’s home and the site of the abduction, and a very short distance from where Heinrich had been living back in 1989.
Human remains and some of Jacob’s clothing, including his distinctive red jacket, were uncovered, and the identity of the remains was confirmed through dental records on September 3. Jacob Wetterling had finally been found.
At a hearing at the US District Court in Minneapolis, Danny Heinrich recounted the horrible events of that night. He said that after he grabbed Jacob, he handcuffed him and put him in his car, which had indeed been parked down that long gravel driveway near the abduction site.
He drove the boy around for a long time, avoiding police because he had a scanner in his car that he listened to. Finally, he took Jacob to a gravel pit near Paynesville and molested him.
After he was finished, he killed the boy and buried him in that same gravel pit, where he remained for just over a year before Heinrich returned to the spot and moved him to the pasture because the jacket, that distinctive red one that had been in all of the flyers and news reports, had become exposed.
He also admitted to assaulting Jared Scheierl at that time.
In exchange for the plea deal that made him reveal the location of Jacob’s body, prosecutors did not charge Heinrich for the murder of Jacob Wetterling.
Instead, he was sentenced to the maximum term for his child pornography charge – 20 years.
Additionally, the plea agreement allows authorities to seek his civil commitment as a sexual predator at the end of this prison sentence, which means that he will likely never be released back into the community.
“We won’t pretend that this crime and sentence is about child pornography. It is also about changing the lives of so many children and parents, who prayed for Jacob’s return, and also feared you coming out of the dark … every child knows the story of Jacob Wetterling. You stole the innocence of children in small towns, in the cities of Minnesota and beyond.” – Judge John Tunheim, upon sentencing Danny Heinrich.
In January 2017, Heinrich was transferred to Federal Medical Center Devens, a federal prison in Massachusetts, to serve his sentence.
