VOTE http://flfiesta.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=334

Do you think that the Florida National Guard should be called out to search for Jennifer?

Dru Sjodin was a 22-year-old woman from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. Dru disappeared November 22, 2003, after leaving work at a Victoria's Secret store in the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she also attended North Dakota University. She was talking on her cell phone to her boyfriend as she walked to her car, and he said he heard the phone go dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dru_Sjodin

Convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, was charged on December 1, 2003, with her kidnapping after authorities found a knife and blood matching Dru’s DNA in his car. Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping.

Later, a knife sheath was found near Dru’s car in the mall parking lot. The sheath was sold at a local store, and only with the type of knife found in Rodriguez's car.

After Dru’s disappearance, one of her shoes was found beneath a bridge along the bank of the Red Lake River. The bridge was on a highway heading into Crookston, Alfonso Rodriguez's hometown, about 25 miles east of Grand Forks.

According to the affidavit filed for Rodriguez's arrest, Dru’s call to her boyfriend ended at 5:04 p.m. with her saying, "OK, OK." At 7:42 p.m., an outgoing call from her cell phone was made to her boyfriend, but only static could be heard. The call lasted 55 seconds and was made at a rest stop near Crookston, the affidavit says.

Rodriguez had been released from prison in May of 2003 after serving 23 years for raping two women and attempting to rape another.

Official searches for Dru were suspended late last year because of snow and poor weather, though the family members continued the search on their own throughout the long winter. Authorities waited for the spring thaw. Saturday, April 17, 2004, was the first day that official searches had resumed.

A police reservist and a retired deputy found Dru’s body on the first day that official searches were resumed. Dru had been missing for nearly five months.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/04/17/missing.student/

In this case, not only did state police troopers from North Dakota and Minnesota actively participate in the search, but they also brought in the National Guard from North Dakota and Minnesota to search. It must be mentioned that this case differs from the Jennifer Kesse case in that the police had a major suspect. The suspect, however, maintained his innocence and did not tell anyone where he had dumped the body. But, they were able to conduct their searches along routes that this suspect would normally travel.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/28/national/main585933.shtml

One can see the similarities between the Jennifer Kesse case and the Dru Sjodin case. Look at this article; this could just as easily have been the Jennifer Kesse case. The following link has photos of Dru, the perpetrator, and the mall where Dru worked.

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_336124638.html

Although the police and the National Guard had given up the searches after snow had fallen and the weather had gotten cold, the Scandinavian Sjodin family did not rest and continued searching throughout the long winter.

A Google Web search for “Dru Sjodin missing” turns up more than 2,000 articles. Rodriguez's trial is scheduled to begin July 6, 2006. The prosecution has the go-ahead from a federal judge to seek the death penalty.

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2005/08/02/news/update/upd06.txt

A time-line of the case is located at the following link:
http://crime.allinfoabout.com/sjodin/updates.html

The main point that I want to make in presenting this case is that things get to the point in a missing person's investigation of this nature that expansive searches have to be made. When doing such searches one need not search every inch of a woods, field, or swamp, as was indicated in one of the above articles. The searchers looked in “likely spots” where someone might dump a body, such as ditches, culverts, around the fringes of parking areas that are accessible with a vehicle, in and around old, abandoned buildings, along banks of rivers, along off-road trails that lead into wooded areas, and at the edges of bodies of water. As I pointed out in an earlier post, if my scenario is correct and the assailant overpowered Jennifer quickly and then murdered her shortly thereafter, then no one other than the perpetrator knows who committed this crime, and nobody would have seen Jennifer anywhere in public. This means that the time for passing out fliers and displaying Jennifer’s likeness has passed. This case will either be solved by methodical police work or through searching. One cannot count on someone calling the police to tell them who did it - although this is possible.

As I stated in an earlier post, people are always finding bodies by chance. For example, a body was found by chance just yesterday on March 22, 2006, floating in a river in Pasco County. See article:
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/23/Pasco/Body_found_in_river_c.shtml

The police stated that the man had been in the river for a while, which means that had people been out pointedly searching for bodies, they might have found this body sooner. The point that I want to make is that if people can find bodies by chance, then people who go out pointedly searching for bodies should have increased chances of finding one.

Please take the time to vote in the poll attached to this post. I personally believe that the Florida National Guard should be called out to search for Jennifer. And I also believe that Orange County Mayor, Richard T. Crotty, should declard a "Missing Persons' Day" for Orange County.

Christopher Marlowe

Posted by: flfiesta at March 23, 2006 09:56 PM